[William A. Baurle]

I think it's perfectly fine to say you don't see any meaning or value in a work of art, if you really don't see any meaning or value there, but when a bunch of people talk about what meaning and value they find in it, and give lengthy expression to what it is they find, at that point it seems a bit silly to insist that the work has no meaning and no value and that the people who said it does are seeing something that isn't there. If one wants to insist that the emperor is naked, one must show the people who see clothes on him that the clothes they see aren't actually there, or give sound reason to suggest that those people are seeing clothes because they feel compelled to see them because they are worried that other people won't think they're very clever if they say they don't see them.

I see clothes on this emperor, and I've described the clothes in a bit of detail which really isn't much of a stretch at all, and others have pointed out the clothes that they see, and which, once pointed out, I can see also. The job for those who claim the emperor is naked is to explain to those who see clothes on him that those clothes are only illusions, and not really there at all.

This poem has already stood the test of time that 99.999999...% percent of poems, published or not, will not be able to match. How many poems published in the last year all across the world, or posted on the Internet, will still be talked about a century from now? Precious few, I would venture to guess, and with good reason.