I sift and skim
reflecting:
Are you strong enough?
Are you fresh enough?
Words combined and aligned
into sensation and celebration
Are you vibrant enough?
Are you true enough?
I sift and skim,
selecting.
.
.
.
Today I am working through a collection of poetry that’s been sorted once by theme, then by non-poets for accessability. Now I’m trying to find the very best to submit for publication. I have to weed out half. It’s a challenge! I feel sad for the ones I pitch. 😉
Shawn L. Bird 
I understand how you feel. It is a challenge to sort through my poetry as well.
Poetry is so subjective, too. Some are obviously just fun throw-aways, but it can be surprising what garners 200 likes over something that gets 60, and whether it was one I loved, or not. Just have to do my best.
Laughing at your comment..”200 likes over 60″ Lucky to get one and two on a good day. Have fun sifting.
It’s all context. 😉
I do have 13,000 followers. If I only had one or two likes on a poetry post, I would not exactly be meeting my audience’s interest. That’d be bad. Generally between 1-3% of them visit the blog or like a post and about.01% of them comment on any given day. The really ‘popular’ ones might get ten shares to Facebook or Twitter.
I have a couple of posts on education in BC that saw 10,000 visits a day during our teacher strike in September. There aren’t many comments or likes on those posts, but they have thousands of shares. I’m presuming that’s because you have to have a blog or WordPress i.d. to post/like but not to share, and these were being read by the general public.
It’s all quite interesting.
That is interesting. I’ve only been doing this for 10 months, so I’m learning the lay of the land. Fun stuff. Thanks for taking time to inform. Good luck in sifting through your poems.
Thanks!
I know what you mean. I enjoy your poetry thanks for sharing. 🙂
Strength and freshness guarantee survival.
Yes, that’s true.