The sentence every poet dreads hearing.

Here it is: HOW COME I HAVEN'T HEARD OF YOU?

I heard it once the year before last in Orange County; it came from a talented-enough poet
who acquires a high rung on the L.A. community ladder.

I didn't enjoy hearing it, because it connotes a kind of "if I haven't heard of you as a poet, you're probably
not talented enough" attitude.

Flashback:  In 2000, there was fallout from Brendan Bernhard's LA WEEKLY cover story about poetry "mattering" in Los Angeles--a lot of it from poets who felt they (or the scenes they represented) were ignored by Bernhard.

There was a then-titan of the LA scene who was taken to task (on his e-mail newsletter) by a poet upset about the titan's complaints re the Bernhard piece.

The poet finished his complaint in the manner of Brad Pitt's Achilles delivering the death blow in TROY.  In essence, the poet told the titan YOU'RE JUST COMPLAINING ABOUT BEING IGNORED.  IF YOU DIDN'T GET BRENDAN BERNHARD'S ATTENTION, IT'S BECAUSE YOUR POETRY WAS INADEQUATE.

In those days, I was a good boy who didn't dare question the L.A. scene and its leaders.  So I wrote an e-mail to the poet expressing solidarity with the titan.

A dozen years later, I realize that the need for some people to declaim HOW COME I HAVEN'T HEARD OF YOU?  will continue forever.

For too many of us, poetry is merely a way to say I AM BETTER THAN YOU.  I HAVE GREATER STATUS THAN YOU EVER WILL.