Most poets, untapped little tyrants that they are, must resign themselves to the fact that only a select few among their ranks --Pol Pot, Stalin-- ever reach the pinnacle of poetic ambition: arranging whole societies to their petulent stanzas. To those for whom even homeowner assocation president eludes, a smaller confab will have to do. And the more distance the better. Poets bruise easily.
What a spectacle this thread is, a de minimus expose on control and its many teacup storms. The stakes are so low. Millions are not at risk of being sent to their deaths. The worst outcome is that a trove of journeyman poetry is averted as tomorrow's Solzhenitsyn's storm off in a huff.
This thread proves the periodic necessity of the gulag, separating the prattle from the essential word (the sacred province of poetry and, one would imagine, its ostensible practitioners.) My guess is this thread would shut down like a knife if some meglomaniac only cared enough to say 'boo'.
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