Hooked

[rayheinrich]

1 Are you hooked yet?
2 It is just the beginning
3 in looking for an audience.
4 Or annoyance that it continues?

5 Are you hooked yet?
6 I bet you are.
7 Not far to go.
8 How do you like poems?

9 Short? You’re in luck.
10 Are you struck yet? By the lines
11 you are leaving, with a smile
12 while reading. Or pleading for a refund?

Move 4, put it between 1 and 2.
8: Take out "how" and put it between 5 and 6.
10: Move "?" to the end of the line.
11: Take out "," and make this an interrogative as well. (Why not go whole hog, this is pig pen!)
12: Move "Or pleading for a refund?" to line 13.
( Free verse stanzas constrained to equal numbers of lines are like capitalizing the first letter in every line.)

Get rid of all the caps and punctuation marks.
This is NOT a fun poem, it's about our art; what could be fun about that?
Crit too specific? Then change the poem so it ain't.