Changing the game, again

Self-defined "poor, parasitical critic" Micah Mattix has a small wishbone to pick with poet Thomas Sayers Ellis's  “Ten Rules for Changing the Game of Poetry.” Rather than innovative and game changing, Mattix suggests Ellis's rules are more "like asking for overtime." In response, Mattix posted seven sardonic alternative rules on his blog.

Here are a few of his spot-on pearls of poetry wisdom:

1. Don’t quote Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin or Chinese poets. If you don’t have anything interesting to say, don’t name people who do.

4. If your poems sound like pasted snippets of Jacques Derrida or Flavor Flav, you are legion.

7. Send your mother flowers on her birthday. You’re not Pan, and she’s not Medusa, no matter how much she drank when you were growing up.