Poem nicely

Recently, the temperature has been turned up on this blog--to the point at which some very nice poets are leaving or threatening to leave the blog because they don't feel comfortable posting their work for fear they'll be attacked (in words). That is not the kind of blog I run, so for the first time ever, I'm going to have to start laying down the law.

I've received enough complaints about one particular person (over the course of more than a year) that I would feel justified in removing him from the blog completely. However, I believe in giving everyone a fair chance to poem nicely.

Starting today, everyone has a clean slate. Starting today, I expect poets on this blog to be respectful of other poets on this blog (and to other poets in general). Starting today, I do not want people copying and pasting the comments of others into the comments of this blog. Starting today, I do not want people attacking the content of other poets' poems based off any belief system. Starting today, I am going to be policing the comments and removing comments that are disrespectful and even outright banning poets who are disrespectful.

I do not have a track record of trying to censor or exclude, but I am not going to tolerate others trying to intimidate and bully poets on this blog. This is a poetry blog, so write poems and let people know if you like what you read. If you don't have anything nice to say, then zip it.

As far as the content of the poems, I continue to be very welcoming and open-minded about what poets write. However, I will not tolerate personal attacks. That is precisely where I draw the line.