Visit to the Starlite Cafe

The strongest impression that a website has ever made on me has to be the Starlite Cafe. This site is for poetry, for poets, or readers, or both. Really for whoever wants to be there, they can go. When it comes down to it, the majority of the site is love poems. That in turn isn't that surprising, because most poems are that; about love. Yet, depending on what you select, there are vast amounts of political, spiritual, and dark poems there as well. The main page of the site has a huge rose on it, and that’s the first place anyone will look. Under the rose, it says “Bringing poets together, worldwide” as well as, “For the love of it!” displayed under that. Way to the right of that, there is a column of the genres of poems the site holds. Just very basic website conventions are here, links to the poems of others, and once you click the link, it takes you to another site where the most recently updated authors’ poems are first. Overall, I do find this site quite hard to use because the organization method used. If you are a poet, and registered with their services though, it’s quite easy. Once a poem is posted, you head to the “backroom” area, and once you are there, all of the poems posted under your username are there, in chronological order. The harder thing is when you favorite a user, it’s complicated to get to their poetry and find what you want to read, or what they want you to read. There is, however, a nifty little search down way at the bottom of the page, and it’s really helpful if there’s something specific you want to find.

When it comes down to it, this website is a bit less practical than some sites where authors can put things up. It is quite confusing, but once you get used to it, it’s alright. Most people, (like myself) wouldn’t try to get their poems published, or ever have their work read, but this website changes that, because with this site, it opens poetry up to all the people who never thought their work might be liked. When I was a sophomore in high school, a girl that was in my history class got some of her poetry published, yet I never saw it available anywhere. I personally don’t use Starlite Café that much anymore, because I do not write poetry as much anymore. When I was using it though, I got a lot of nice feedback from people that I have never encountered before otherwise. Compared to a book, well yes, obviously if it gets published and it sells, people like it – But, when something is published, unless the writer gets letters of feedback, the writer never knows what was good, as well as what was bad, or what could have been different. Though, I am on the fence about that, because a lot of the times when people comment on poems, it just says “NICE WORK!” or something of the like, nothing that helpful, as to where if someone took the time to write a letter, it would probably be more thought out than just a ‘good job.’