Open letter to poetry.com

Dear Mr Howard Ely,

Recently, I submitted a poem to your site, poetry.com. I'm humble enough to admit that the idea of having it published on your site was seductive. After all, the site's name makes it the most logical URL to type if you're into poetry. I submitted my actual name and address as well, and sure enough, after I'd forgotten all about it, your letter arrived on my doorstep.
The first piece of information you give me is that I am a semi-finalist in something called "International Open Poetry Contest". I assume you write the name with capital letters to endow it with some sense of prestige, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the contestants will largely consist of unpublished hopefuls such as me. What's more, I turn out to be eligible to win cash or gift prizes, up to $10,000! Please, Mr Ely, if I was doing this for the money, like you seem to be, I would be a garbage man--it's a much more financially rewarding occupation.
But wait, you say, poetry.com also wishes "to publish your poem in what promises to be one of the most highly sought after collections of poetry we have ever published..." Just a thought, Mr Ely, but isn't this a very convoluted way of saying that you just expect to sell more copies of this book because (a) it'll be a bit thicker than the previous one, and (b) you expect every sucker who's published in it to fork over $49.95 for it? Well, I'm afraid you'll have to explain to your sales manager that he should lower his prognoses a notch, 'cause this sucker ain't falling for it.
For one, the enclosed picture of one of your earlier tomes shows two pages with a total of some 20 poems on them. If you had any sense of poetry rather than commerce, you'd know that the use of whitespace is essential in poetry, and that each poem should be on a page of its own. You should even change the size of your paper where necessary in order to accommodate a lengthy poem, or one with long lines. But hey, all of that would cost precious money, wouldn't it? And the book is dead cheap as it is, so no cigar.
Secondly, the volume's title will be "Under a Quicksilver Moon". (Titles of other volumes include "Tranquil Rains of Summer" and "Star Dust in the Morning."). I can honestly say that I am thoroughly ashamed to be published in a book with a title that could have been the title of a bad heavy metal record. If you can think you can tempt me into actually purchasing it for fifty bucks, you are sorely mistaken. I'd rather be published on toilet paper rolls.
At this point in the letter, I had hardly any confidence in the competence of your "Selection Committee" left. Their identity, incidentally, is shrouded in mystery. That they are poets or even literary critics is doubtful; that it is you and the coffee lady flipping coins is at the very least a possibility. But what really made my judgment of poetry.com final was the location of the "International Society of Poet's [sic] Convention and Symposium". This apparently mind-boggling event, which is again surrounded by a lot of smoke and mirrors, is to be held at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. That's right: Disney World. If there's any location where everything that true poetry stands for is raped and destroyed on a 24/7 basis, it's Disney World.
To summarize: an anonymous jury using unnamed criteria has selected my poem for the sole purpose of ripping me off, and invites me to a poetry session with Goofy. I sincerely hope that your selection of my poem was not based on your opinion of its poetic quality, because I wouldn't trust your poetic judgment any more than I would trust my own expertise on nuclear physics in a meltdown emergency. Your crass commercialism is repugnant; you take advantage of people's vanity through unsubstantiated praise; your inability to hide your greed even a little is just plain amusing. Publish my poem or don't publish it, I really couldn't give a hoot.

Your sincerely,
cronopio.