Dear poets - sorry!

Last week, in my 'Art of the City' column in Beat magazine, I wrote a piece entitled 'Poetry ain't trivial' which attempted to mock some people's poor opinions of poetry and spoken word by using negative cliches about the artforms in a deliberately over-the-top way, and that I thought would clearly be read as firmly tongue-in-cheek.

Instead it appears that my words have been taken seriously by some people, and consequently I've ended up offending several Melbourne poets who I have nothing but respect for.

Oh dear. That so wasn't meant to be the case. Sorry, guys, it was a joke. Or at least it was meant to be. Maybe I'll just stick to reporting the facts from now on...