Metrophobia is fear of poetry

What stops me from publishing poetry on this site is that we all suffer from poetry anxiety. As soon as people offer to read you some poetry we nervously await over-earnest sentimentality. I found a word on several Internet sites to describe this: metrophobia, meaning fear of poetry.

One psychology site,  (viewed Jun 2008) describes the effect of metrophobia:

…each year this surprisingly common phobia causes countless people needless distress.

They offered an inexpensive clinic to cure your metrophobia (starting at $2497).

These operators also hold clinics for hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, a fear of long words. They say:

…each year this surprisingly common phobia causes countless people needless distress.

They offered an inexpensive cure (starting at $2497).

The page content stays identical, only the phobia name changes. This website is still operating the same way but the content has changed (6 November 2022).

Another website I visited, Psych Times (November 2022) also offers help for those suffering from metrophobia but shows little sympathy for those that are not anxious about poetry:

the person suffering from this condition will likely not have to struggle much with trying to avoid poetry as this artform is not nearly as popular as it used to be.

Creating phobia names is a word game and the Internet is full of these invented words. Disappointingly metrophobia is one of these neologisms; as is hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, the fear of long words. (My absolute favourite is spectocloacaphobia, the fear of one’s eyeglasses falling in the sewer).

This recent search on Psych Times has found another to add to my list of favourites—Hellenologophobia, the fear of Greek terms or complex scientific terminology. This is bound to bring in the revenue for the phobia solving websites.