Los Angeles poet E.C. "Carlye" Archibeque explains "definable" poetry for you.

Though currently inactive on the scene, veteran L.A. poet Carlye Archibeque speaks for a fair portion of today's Los Angeles poetry "community."
Here's a portion of an essay she wrote for POETIC DIVERSITY a few years back:
It is my opinion that poetry is definable and that good poetry is not created in a void. I think there are good poets and bad poets. I know this can be an unpopular opinion, but anyone who knows me knows I really don’t care about being popular. If it’s any consolation to those who find my opinion harsh, I am guilty of writing bad poetry and things I consider “not poetry” too, I just have the good sense not to send it away to publishers or read it to my audience because poetry you read for an audience and seek to have published should not be about your therapy issues, unless of course you have crafted your issues into poetry. Poetry is two-fold for me: on one hand it is a way to put your feelings and thoughts into words that sound good to you or may help you work thorough a difficult time in your life; on the other it is a carefully thought out and constructed set of words that relate your thoughts and feelings on a universal level and while one is for public consumption, the other is certainly not. Just my opinion. So the $64 poetry question is why do you write poetry? Do you write because you have things you want to say and are looking for an audience and poetry is generally free to read and write? Or, do you write because you consider it a craft in which you strive discuss feelings, thoughts and opinions in a way that transcends self-indulgence and becomes something universal? Are you a poet or a poet wanna be? I’m not saying that journaling thoughts and feelings is bad or that a little self-indulgence isn’t called for sometimes. I do believe that the state of poetry is threatened on a daily basis by mediocrity. By that I don’t mean threatened by styles of poetry like slam, page, performance and the like, I mean by works within these styles that are not striving to be the best they can be made by poets who don’t have enough respect for the craft of poetry. I wish more people would start believing that poetry matters, that it is an art form and that it needs skill to create.

If you want to read the essay in its entirety, here's the link:
http://www.poeticdiversity.org/main/columns.php?recordID=401&date=2005-02-01

My take on the above is that certain poets in Los Angeles desire at the very least to be arbiters/gatekeepers of notions of "quality" that tend to be received from others (workshopping, MFA programs) rather than thought-out for themselves. It's a valuable balm that salves the egowounds resulting from local, state or national rejection and/or underrecognition.

Sometimes, these self-appointed arbiters get some local attention and a few followers. Then, for one reason or another, they fade from the scene.

And there will always be someone to replace them. And there will always be people who will follow them like sheep, with little thought as to testing or questioning the soundness of the arbiters' holy opinions.