[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Matt Q

My current concern is that I have poems still up in mon-Met

I just pruned non-met. You're welcome. Usually, a quick quiet word to a mod suffices if a poem needs to get poofed.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

why take a risk, however small, when it's so easy not to.

I hope you'll forgive me for being perfectly honest, but this whole teapot tempest reminds me of workshop days in the pre-electronic world. Back then, before photocopying their poems to be workshopped, some people very carefully wrote a small c with a little circle around it, followed by the date and their name. They actually believed that was an important step, that it only took a little time, and they thought everyone should do it. One of them even told *me* to do it!

They may as well have been throwing salt over their shoulders. Others took a further step: they literally mailed (by U.S. post) a copy of their poem, to themselves, and then filed the unopened envelope. They wanted the time stamp on the post mark, because if some nefarious Boris Badenov stole their poem, they could whip out the sealed envelope in court, proving his dastardly guilt (and presumably waltzing out of the courtroom with Natasha on the vindicated poet's arm).

I delight to think of all those file cabinets, all across the country, crammed full of sealed envelopes, their half-brewed liquor never tasted by the tongues of unsatiated editors, their locked drawers providing weighty testimony to the mute inglorious miltons of America's heartland.

Best,

Bill