Yes Dunning Kruger is true. It is only during the past two years that I have finally accepted that I have talent. When you get told something every single day for a lifetime, you eventually believe it. Go read my Ko-fi page - the number of people who tell me I'm talented.

http://bestebookstories.blogspot.com/2012/09/flattering-words.html

Same with looks. When you're told 30 or 40 times a day that you're a stunningly beautiful woman, you eventually accept it.

Why the fuck would people mention things every day of my life if it wasn't true?

Yes, the appreciation of poetry is subjective. You are quite right. And that is why, when the majority of people say that what passes for poetry today is bullshit, then you have to believe it is.

Even Shakespeare, when he wrote poetry, rhymed it. Free verse was for plays - for telling stories. It was never meant to be poetry.

You're wrong about the poem. I don't believe human beings have any intrinsic worthy. They're just another species. And the earth would be in much better shape if they became extinct - which they now have every likelihood of doing. What I wrote more than half a century ago is just as true for my point of view today as it was when I wrote it. I don't think you or me or anyone else has any worth.

Also, it's damned difficult to say something with rhyme and rhythm and still let it have deep meaning. In prose it is much eaiser. Yes, of course, one can write any sort of nonsense and have it rhyme. It used to be called 'nonsense poetry.' The owl and the pussycat" is an example. Edward Lear wrote a lot of it.

By the same token, the driven that passes for peotry today is also easy to write. It doesn't even have rhyme and rhythm. Plus there is no fundamental wisdom to what is being written anyway.

"It is neither becoming nor clever to be snarky about it."

Let me be quite clear. I don't give a holy shit about being becoming or clever. I will say exactly what I want to say. I am 70 years old. I don't have anything to lose. And as I've thought these things for a very long time, I see no reason not to say them.

Why would I die and leave them unsaid?

If you want to throw ad hominems at me, please feel free to go ahead. Generally when people do that, it's because they don't have an ounce of evidence.