More on the poetry community many people are happy with/publicly uncomplaining about.

From an e-mail I sent to someone in the LA/OC poetry community:
.....I do feel that much of the criticism I engage in has validity and it shouldn't be regarded as "he's not good enough to be one of us, so he's just acting out."


Thought that Victor's Ugly Mug anthology [introduction] laid bare a lot of what's wrong with poetry communities--the cliques, "stars", "heavyweights" etc.

Yet, if I write about how that hurts rather than helps poets and poetry, I'm regarded as seditious.

Sometimes, people/institutions have to be discussed in less than glowing ways. Otherwise, the notion of "poetry community" becomes rather hollow and blinkered.