A rant, then a poem...

I'm very frustrated with hubpages at the moment. Not only does my hubber score keep dropping (and I have no idea how it's determined, but, I do know if I fall below 75, I get the dreaded "no-follow" attached to my profile. I recently published a piece called Loudbraries and it keeps getting denied publication as"substandard". The frustrating part is, I do not write substandard anything. moreover, they haven't shown me what specifically they take objection with, so, even though I've edited it, I keep resubmitting it and it keeps getting denied. I'm probably flirting with a ban, but that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

This has never happened and it's very frustrating for me. If this keeps up, i will simply publish the article here.

But, enough of that. My poem I Spilled My Corn Flakes was published on the hub several months ago. I was never happy with the format over there, so, I've decided to republish it here in the format I intended for it. Please click the link above to view i on hubpages and then check out the version the way I intended it.

Thanks for reading!




I SPILLED MY CORN FLAKES

                It’s October and I’m
getting ready for school with my brother.
I’m in footie pajamas and I’m
eating corn flakes with extra sugar.
 They’re soggy.
                My dad is outside and he opens
the door in a panic and he leans
inside.
                I’m in the kitchen and I can only see
his face, which looks
dour and stricken, and his hand
on the doorknob.
“You’d better come and say
goodbye to Emmy,” he says.
“She just got
hit by a car,”
he says.
                Emmy is a mutt, some kind of ugly Aussie mix
 and she is still a puppy. She has
mustard yellow spots and dark black fur. We
got her outside the supermarket one day for my dad
for Father’s Day. She
travelled with us that summer,
riding on my lap from Portland to California
and back.
                Every morning Emmy bounds
to the bus stop and greets
the waiting kids. We
don’t take the bus. Our parents drive us to school.
                She’s visiting the bus stop when a woman—
Cold
                Heartless
                                Cruel—
Crashes her car into Emmy sending
her flying.  “Who’s dog is that?”
She says. “Find the owners,” She says
to horrified watching children as she
speeds off.
                “No!” I scream and I push my
bowl of cornflakes sending them off the  table and onto the floor.
“No, you’re joking!”
                I say.
I watch as the thick white liquid—
the ceramic shards
the orange flakes—
snake
across the floor and I know
he’s not.


copyright Justin W. Price

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 28, 2012 at 9:31 AM

    Hi Justin,
    I've checked both versions. I think anything sad will click the flagging mode. I wrote on a suicidal hub, and was denied sponsorship from advertisers. Your style is trully awesome. Just remember...we write there to sell the ads; sadly is true. We are not writing for ourselves. Google needs us, and we should play the game...until we get our call. One suggestion: Your score might be going down for a reason. My guess is...just try to make longer comments, and drop an academic (new kind of..) word, so to speak, that will tell the algorythm that you are becoming the elite, they want us to be.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Justin W. PriceApril 16, 2012 at 10:30 AM

      Thanks LORD. Good advice. My score fluctuates a lot and I notice that it has a lot to do with how active I am on the hub. I'll try your advice as well. Thanks for reading and commenting!

      Delete
  2. Maria HardyMarch 28, 2012 at 10:23 AM

    Hello Justin,
    I had the same thing and don't worry. although it hurts terribly, many good writers, left months ago because of all the harassment. If it is the case, as mentioned above, then they should say so. My hubs started getting rejected one after the other and when ask why I never received an email. Even my Christmas Greeting got rejected and there I told it was too personal. I done it four times because I had such wonderful friends there and was determined to wish them all. Eventually I got it through. Somebody suggested to write on the forum and that will warn you not to do it. I did and received an email it is my grammar. That I do agree with because English is my second language. Most of my friends rallied around and started to correct my grammar. The ones corrected where rejected. I wrote an email and asked why? The hub was corrected by an English person teaching English. Surely you can't go wrong with that. Now comes the best bit. The next day all my hubs 411 of them were unpublished and I was banned. All my friends from 850 followers went berserk on the forum and demanded to be re-instated but to no avail. I was writing there of over two years and it really broke my heart because of the wonderful friends I found there. Oh yes, at the end I received a email stating I violated their rules. I wrote about history, geography, travels, animals and so on. Now, I am uploading my hubs on Blogger and hope for the best. To crown it all and it is not sour grapes I seen a hub which was passed about farthing. So much for high standard.

    I enjoyed reading your little story.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Justin W. PriceApril 16, 2012 at 10:32 AM

      maria... thanks for your comment and for sharing your story. I'm sorry you got banned, but I'll be sure to follow you on blogger and keep in touch!

      Delete

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