I thought seeing 30/30 every day in April was time consuming. I was wrong.

For the record. I wrote seven poems in April. Put one of them here. Another in Facebook notes. None of them were haiku.

It's great when poets get a book deal. It really is. Right now there's a publisher that is running a contest. About twenty poets are finalists in a process that will end with about four to eight of them getting published. This month, they have to post a video on Youtube. The number of "likes" they get will count towards their overall grade. Twenty percent from what I understand. This is also not a fly by night publisher. You have to be a good page poet to get your work here. They're legitimate and high quality.

Sure, if you're the publisher you want to know if the poet can read their work in public. Part of the book deal is that they tour with their work. Part of this smacks of American Idol to me. A gimmick that bores the crap out of me. Not only that but having to scroll past the same twenty links on my Facebook feed multiple times a day makes me a bit cranky.

So if we click on all the links, which makes the voting process equal, what happens then? They can't all be winners, right? Hard to imagine being the poet who, literary merits being equal, did not get a book deal because their video did not get enough hits on Youtube. I guess that's branding in the modern world.

It makes me want to see the same pictures that George Takei posts, over and over, because it takes up less of my time.

Seriously. Good luck to all the poets, especially the ones who work hard and do not get the deal. Especially the ones who do get the deal and survive this ordeal.