But, if you like plagiarism, extra marital relationships and male predators who quickly become apparent, trolls and bullies with so much self hatred that most people there claim to have been a victim of it, members with multiple paid and unpaid accounts so that, even if you block someone, they have a handful of other accounts to "watch' you, and a deluge of non poetic poetry that is more a river of drivel with atrocious grammar then this is the site for you. I could go on; the site is being updated in the most frustrating way by an owner who has his firm favourites and allows them to get away with anything. At times it's felt a little like being in a juvenile prison with a lot of nasty thugs and lustful older men, although the site owner would deny any and all of this, blame anyone making a complaint about his money making AP machine and, like I said, stick with his favourites. Naming names is a difficult one as there are so many, but some of the worst male predators are Iff Ur Abs and Marc Allen and a couple of particularly deranged trolls are Tom George and the aptly named Chameleon123 but there are soooo many and, after being there yourself for a short while, I'm sure you'd quickly add to the list of crazies. If you even think to dare to stand up for yourself, speak out against anything wrong, report plagiarism, say it like it is, I can assure you that you'll no longer be welcome.
If you want social media disguised as a poetry site with affairs "on tap" and a lot of fakeness, aided by the ever present company of AI (which should have no place on a poetry site) then go ahead - but remember you've been warned.

6/27/2024 Update:
I find the response by the owner of All Poetry to be both bemusing and another example of how badly run the site is. I have never reported stalking by any member on the site and have no idea what Kevin is talking about, which just goes to prove how very many members making complaints about all manner of problems he must have - hence his own total mix up with regards to who is who. Safe to say All Poetry is a dire place and best avoided at all costs, and a reminder to anyone there to feel free to make your voice and thoughts heard about how toxic an environment it is. Whether or not the owner has a clue who you actually are.

THE GOOD (compared to other sites):
~Freedom of formatting (though it went from total freedom to being restricted, but still less than other sites);
~The Text Editor (not perfect, but better than other sites);
~Socializing (though it was made more difficult when the site went through an 'update' period, which left the site worse than it was in many respects);
~Beginners and Dilettantes welcome (its primary constituency);
~Groups, Workshops, Contests with trophies (you will go through a 'trophy hog' phase) (using trophies as motivators)
~Customizable Personal Page (though the site obscures it behind a link - it will be overlooked)
~I have a lifetime membership that paid for itself sixteen years ago (when it was still offered -- I've been a member for 20 years)
~A reliable place to post your work (though during one of the infamous upgrades my images stored on the site were lost, which impacted my works during that period which I still have to fix);
~I was only banned once! (for a week) (for exposing a child predator on the site in a poem) (bad me) (it was deleted).
~You will remain anonymous to the world while you work on your craft.
~ Hollywood writers scan the site. They've read me for ideas and quips, which I've seen pop up in movies and on TV (I don't watch streamed series, so I can only guess there)...

THE BAD (compared to other sites):
~Google ignores it.
~Serious poets poo-pooh it (and hence you, for being on it) (though they live in glass houses themselves);
~The owner/site creator/manager is a major geek (haha) and can be an inconsiderate d-head (groan); During the infamous upgrade period (a dozen yeas ago), I suggested to the moderators that he be put in a straight jacket, he was wrecking the site so badly.
~Custom HTML'ing is limited (it wasn't at first, but understandable, since juvenile abusers abused it, ruining it for me);
~You will remain anonymous to the world in spite of your writing really saying something now.

SUMMARY
It is a good site for beginners, temporary literary triflers, and as your secret writing and socializing site that no one in your real life knows about.
I've tried other writing sites, but I did not like them -- they were either too restrictive with formatting, or they were populated by snobbish cliques who wrote and thought like crap and refused to admit it.
There is also a sister site -- Storywrite.com for short story writing (with different restrictions), where I churn out short stories in blissful near-obscurity,

I've been a member, now, of AllPoetry.com for around 1 month long. I really 'enjoy' using the site.

It contains a number of Menu heading options for users to go click on:

>>> Poems, Write, Groups, Contests, Publish, Store <<<... with so many different Menu options being available... it does take a while to learn how to understand how to use this site to its fullest...; in fact, I believe, I'm still learning, in that I haven't used all of the features, yet; certainly, I'm not a 'paid' member...; rather I choose to use the site entirely for FREE, instead.

Signing up for a FREE account is as straight forwards and simple... as choosing a username/confirming your date of birth(as some poems are X-rated); and, then, giving them your email to confirm that it's really you... after the email arrives in your 'inbox'... you, quite simply, 'click' on it... and, that's it, you're a member, now.

Being a member allows you write/publish poems online for other people to both 'read/comment' on(that is, if they wish)...; however, there is a slight 'catch'... before your own poetic work gets released to the general public to go comment on...; then, you need to comment on, at least, 2 other poems... stating exactly what you thought of theirs.

Paid members, do gain many other 'special' privileges... such as being able to publish their poems, immediately, straight away... without needing to leave, at least, 2 comments on other people's poems. They can also choose to include illustrations: 'drawings/photos/videos'... to accompany their own poems/-etc.

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-(NOTE: As well as, poems...; the site also allows you to publish: stories/journals/columns/contests/lists/-etc.; even, if you are a FREE member/as opposed to paying.

Additionally, it offers a careful 'selection' of many 'famous' poets works that you can read, including, Shakespeare; some of whom were authors I only just discovered reading for the very first time.)-

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If people 'like' your poetry; and, therefore, decide they wish to read it a lot more regular...; then, they can hit a [Follow] button; and, of course, you yourself can also choose to do likewise [Follow] them. Thus, there are a lot of 'social interactions' going on... a little bit like Facebook, I guess; only, these social interactions tend to be more poetry related, instead.

You can, if you wish choose to discuss your poems with others...; regarding the poem's weaknesses/strengths...; or, indeed, just merely chat in general. You can talk on either on poetry 'review' noticeboards/join 'themed' poetry groups such as Haiku related(3 lines/containing syllables: 5-7-5)/or else, inside of special chatrooms. (Personally speaking, I haven't tried entering into any chatrooms, yet.)

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My general interactions have been, mostly, all good there so far to date...; though, I'm not saying I never encountered having any problems...

One person rather strongly objected to my profile stating: 'SEX: Male (heterosexual)'; and, my response to them was: "I don't get it... what's my profile got to do with your reviewing my poem...?"

Anyway, right now, we seem to have both ironed out our differences. He left me one nice review/and, I returned back same on one of his own poems.

Didn't bother interacting with them anymore, though...; didn't really like seeing or reading any of that guy's poetry, anyway...; so, I simply left things there!

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I do recall reading, at least, one poem where the guy -(at least, I think, it was a guy)- claimed to be, Lucifer... and, wanted to cause all sorts of havoc to others, including, you name it: murder/rape/torture/-etc. But, then, if you don't like reading someone else's poem...; then, frankly, you don't 'have' to... as nobody is 'forcing' your to go do that... just 'ignore'.

-(NOTE: People claiming to be, Luicifer... are like only 1 in 100+... so, they are a lot more extremely 'rare'... than, they are usual! My own guess is, these sort of people could just be, juvenile delinquent... doing their utmost best in attempting to 'scare' others...; and, thus, garner attention for themselves.)-

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Before choosing to leave this review here... I did, in fact, go and scroll through quite a few previous reviews that others had left...; and, was surprised to see so many having had problems; though, I did note that there were many good reviews, too.

Well, anyway, I just wanted to go toss in my own 2 cents, so to speak; as everyone has a different experience... and, therefore, different opinions. Take care, everyone; have a good day...; make sure you keep on writing... whether it's on AllPoetry.com/or, not...!;-)

You write a good review for the site, then a negative one. Always playing games. Build a home is the title you gave one of your posts. You called me disgruntled after I left my initial posts. Everything is a game to you. You do not care if a fake review affects the livelihood of another person. That is pretty twisted $#*! right there.

You are harassing my family. My family are off limits.

You know my number, call it. Do not $#*!ing leave threatening messages on my family voice mail. Stay to $#*! away from my family! You want something from me come directly to me. I am right here. You know my $#*!ing number you used it enough.

Stop the stalking. The hacking. The creating fake profiles, and using technology to do your dirty work. It has been twelve years. What the $#*! do you want? You are violating me, and you keep doing it. And not only are you violating me, but my family as well. You $#*!ing hate me. Tell me. Tell me to my $#*!ing face.

Let's meet up. Let us have a conversation. I have already said face to face to you twice, and you never answered me. Instead you like to get off on doing this bull$#*!. Harassing me when I was on facebook with fake profile after fake profile. And on youtube doing the same thing. Going on black people's pages and harassing users on there with your $#*!.

And stop using 800notes as your $#*!ing message board. You keep creating threads and answering under the guise of a different person. Until you I never knew that a person could write and then review their own $#*!. What is the purpose of doing that?

I have listened to your racist rhetoric, death threats, and your faux morality soap box rantings for long enough. You have been trying to break my spirit. I want to say try harder. When we see each other you can tell me about myself.

This has been going on since 2006. This is now 2018.

This is not a game to me. It never was.

As to the owner of this website you are $#*!. You chose to blame me. And said that someone I live with is doing this. I do not or have I ever posted $#*! about my living arrangements in all the years that I have written on your site. I never discussed these matters. So how would you know how I live? What would you know about it?

You provide a service for people to use to write about their lives. You should $#*!ing care what happens to your users. And not blame or shame them because this is a difficult situation and you wish to cover your $#*!! Do better with your users now. I think you need to take your own advice and check yourself. Start there first.

8/2/2018 10:43 pm

I am living with the knowledge that a stranger is following me around. They know exactly where I am at all times. They eavesdrop on my conversations and post it online. There is not one moment in my day that I am not aware that this malicious person is following me. Pretending to be this person and that person. Going to great lengths to create some sort of reality for me.

One minute they are this person. The next a different person. The outcome is all the same. And I still do not know this person's name or face. The violence in which this person has spoken speaks volumes of who they are. The fact that consequence means nothing because they have hidden themselves in such a way that it appears innocuous when it is quite the opposite is disheartening.

I cannot just go inside the comfort of my home and close my door. I cannot shut this evil out. The evil has crept inside, and lives with me every day for years.

The issue that is most repugnant about this situation is that they blame you for it. It is not only that you put yourself through paces. But when you seek help it is treated as though these kind of problems do not exist. And that the is problem is of your own making.

The reason that I started writing remains here with me. Added to it is this very pernicious sick thing. It is somebody trying to wear me down, and crush my spirit. And take from me all that makes me me.

There are many people living with this kind of thing and they are reluctant to voice what is happening to them. They have tried and tried and no one who could stop this $#*! listens. And if you do not have the money to pay. You are stuck dealing with it on your own.

They fake it. All of it is faked. They use untraceable numbers. Dead end numbers. They use international numbers. They steal your identity. They know your SSN, where you live, how you live. Even your breathing pattern. They know these things without ever knowing you. There is no human element to this. They extract that part.

What have you done with my information over the years? How have you used my identity? What have you done? I know you created facebook profile using my name. I have asked you numerous times to take it down. You apologized and changed the name. Then turned around and created a new page stealing my identity. I have observed you commenting on youtube using my name and using derivatives of my family's name. But the unseen things... What have you done?

This theater act is a sum of too many lifetime movies. A bad reproduction of one too many ill written books. There is much arrogance to this, and a healthy dose of entitlement as well. You have been riding high believing you will never get caught. I would go as far as to say that you believe that whatever you try to do to me, there will be no accountability for your actions. Let me assure you that you are wrong on all counts.

I will not have my rights as a human being be questioned. I wrote about my feelings and my experiences. I wrote as me, and lied about nothing. The good, the bad and the ugly. I said the things I wanted to say. I did not hurt anyone. If anything I cared too $#*!ing much. I have no regrets no matter the provocation. And if I had a chance I would do it over again only this time I would do it even better.

This is my life, and I shall live is as I wish. I do not owe anyone any $#*!ing explanations. No one absolutely no one controls me.

You have attached yourself to me like some $#*!ing parasite. Trying to suck the life force from me. Who the hell do you think you are to do this to me?

No matter what it is you are not entitled to me or my attention. My life is my own. You cannot intimidate me or control me. Stop the $#*!ing nonsense. Enough is enough.

I have complained to the racist mods about the constant anti-Semitic and Anti-Jewish and Anti-Israel poems on there and they just keep blocking me instead. I will have to hire a lawyer to subpoena the mods real names and addresses along with their DMV and Social Media Photos so we can post them all over the internet so everyone can see these pieces of $#*! white supremacists that Kevin Handpicked and protects that block you when you tell an anti-semite that he is a piece of $#*! human being or when you complain to them that they are posting them. And on top of this racist crap it's the site mods that are promoting the racist poems at the top of the lists. It obvious they are jealous because the Jewish poets are the Best, like Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, etc. so they decided to act like little Hitlers. Its tragic because since Kevin the site owner and Admin cant write poetry worth $#*! he picked mods that write worse than him so he can feel superior to his nasty ugly racist cohorts. Not that there aren't Some decent poets on here, and a few amazing ones. But Most is crap. Trite prose with trite reviews. The Mods are mostly idiots from the owners $#*!-kissing inner circle. If you don't pay the super expensive monthly fee then he freezes you out so you can never be number one no matter how many reviews you post. Usually once you have reached between 50 and 70 likes per week he makes it so that no one sees your reviews anymore until you drop in the rankings or sign up and fork over some hard cash. This shows the level manipulation and the lack of integrity he has. Contests are mostly rigged. If you pay your chances of winning goes up dramatically. Complete crooks. He claims to have 500,000 members but its really less than a thousand active members. And about a core 200-300 that always appear in the comments section. Again, everything is geared to get you to pay to play. Constant reminders to sign up and pay or buy merchandise or that he is having a sale. LMAO. He wants 20 bucks for a t-shirt made in china of a scavenger bird cheaply printed on it. Sometimes its on sale but the fact that he is modeling it makes you want to puke. He looks so damn creepy in them. DO NOT PAY the $15 bucks for the so called gold membership. Its a monthly charge and he charged me long after I quit. I only joined to see if I was right about him manipulating the site. And sure enough, Just as suspected. Oh, and contrary to US and European Law, they snoop on your private messages in your own personal inbox. Again, pervy and Kreepy. Someone should report them to the authorities and have them shut down. Also, I have searched my poetry on this site and more than once have found people plagiarizing my poems. And the owner runs another scam where he claims to own your copyright and the right to publish your poetry. I checked with my Agent and Entertainment lawyer and they Laughed. Especially in California where the Copyright protections are even stricter this douche tries to say that he can publish your works in his fake anthologies and sell them. As my Lawyer Mr. Stern said, "Cant wait for him to try that with my poems so my Publisher can sue the crap out of him and then I can own his site".

Ive been at allpoetry for 4 years and not once been treated badly by anyone. But then im not there to enter contests where im told what to write about or given rules so maybe thats whete these bad reviews come from? I write some pretty offensive free verse (if you wanna label it) poetry. And only faced one real angry response (honestly i was hoping for more. Which was hint #1) I read alot of good stuff and a highly abundant amount of ultra boring or just bad stuff as well. But it seems like such a sensitive setting where (from my perspective) no real criticism is welcome unless its super constructive. Much of my work is utter crap as far as being considered poetry(its something similar and its worth reading in my opinion) yet not once did anyone say, "dude shut up. This one is crap" (hint #2) i only gave comments to those pieces i felt were good and the writer deserved to hear it because the rules say "be nice" this fact left me to wonder.,"not too many comments on my writing. I either completely suck or im in a room full of talking heads and only a couple of them have ears!" after 4 years and very few comments per piece i began to realize that its likely that the only reason 98% of those comments exist is due to the rule that those writers who are using the free version of allpoetry must comment on 2 new pieces in order to post. Its a great place to tune your skills and store a bit of work where you can look at your progression. Everybody was nice to me. Or indifferent. Kevin never pushed the paid version on me except when he gifted me a week of it here and there. But thats not pushing by my deffinition. The two communities i joined were pretty much just groups of friends with nothing to say to the new people unless the new people initiated the conversation. Eventually i was booted from those for non participation. But they were not what their titles implied by any means or i would have. But they werent rude about it. They did it without a word so i assume thats the reason. All in all i would say its a peacfull place. But for me its a place where nothing grows. I became frustrated. I felt my crappy words needed to be read and didnt feel like they were. But then. I hardly think of my work as poetry. Its more an art form. Painting abstract with a message intermixed in word form. Probably not what poets want to read. Either that or everybodys 70 years old or older... but then. Most old beatniks love my writing so its not an age thing. I dont see too many artists in galleries buying art. Thus allpoetry is sort of a studio for me. A place full of artists. Most artists are interested in their own work not the other artists in the studio. So i had to leave AP today to take my art to some unknown gallery somewhere. Take my words for what they are and derive your own opinion by checking out AP for yourself. Its free to join and theres not a huge difference in the paid version. Its worth a few months of consideration. Try it. Think for yourself!

Dear reviewers and general viewers,

This is a site that is supposed to be a poetry site, but also happens to be a facebook impersonator. Unlike facebook though, you would leave frustrated and simply unsatisfied with its social connectivity, because what is supposed to be a poetry group, is now being made into a whatsapp group by the Royal ruler of the site, aka Kevin Watt.

Should you be a free member, you would be treated far worse than the slaves in pre-Lincoln America. And should you be a paid member you would logout feeling as if you were just robbed of $15. Eat a pizza, you'll sleep much more content. Seriously.

Here you will have Hall Monitors guarding your every movement (for namesake) and somehow know even less than whats is going on in the castle then you would do. Because you will be well aware of dirty footsteps the king leaves, but they will never see it and simply explain your complain of a dirty hall by saying that this is the new way of the kingdom as decreed by His Highness. No $#*!ting, the site moderators don't even know when the owner makes a "tweak" (it's what he says, but it's more like I said, dirty footsteps that make a once not-so-pristine hall even muddier).

The only good thing about the site is that there is some really good talent on there that used to shine through through the earlier spotlight feature, where some of the best poems online would be showcased, but you would be hard pressed to find it now because the site now has a shiny white homepage (so bright that it hurts your eyes, but still the owner insists that it is pale yellow. Me thinks, and so do all the site members that he needs to get his eyes checked because all that brightness that would make you cringe does not hurt him prolly because he is blind, but that's another story), where poems are chosen by his computer system that has the eye of Sauron and can detect a worthy poem just by a simple algorithm where if you use a bunch of unusual words (grammar and quality of the poem does not matter), your poem gets selected. Bravo!

If you are under the impression that we live in a free country, then please don't go to the site, because it will make you simply feel enslaved to say the least. But if you want to write good poems, join and get in touch with some more active and good members in there who actually know $#*! about poetry and can help you improve. Otherwise don't bother.

I rest my case.

Full of really untalented wannabes.