Guidelines

What gets a poem taken down.

Short, and by example, because a rule nobody can picture is a rule nobody can follow. Everything here is enforced in the open: Reports lists every decision made so far, with the reason and the moderator's name attached.

Posting someone else's work as your own

Removed. Quoting, answering, or writing after another poem is not this — say so in the note and it is welcome. The check at publish catches word-for-word copies; a person catches the rest.

Attacking the poet instead of the poem

Removed. “This line does nothing, and here is why” is the entire point of the site. “You are talentless” is not a critique, it is just a sentence about a person.

Posting to sell something

Removed. Nothing here can be bought, including attention.

Writing about hard things

Stays. Grief, illness, violence and despair are most of what poems are for. Naming a real person in order to harm them is a different matter, and gets removed.

Writing something bad

Stays, obviously. Nobody is moderated for being unready — the needs feedback list exists precisely so that early work gets read.

If you are moderated

Your poem keeps its page and says what happened to it and why, with the moderator named. Nothing is deleted, so a decision can be reversed and the reversal is recorded too. A ban stops you publishing; it does not erase what you have already written, because those are two different decisions and each needs its own reason.