This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education combines the usual “too many poets, too many journals, too many MFA programs are ruining poetry” argument with Foetry–esque accusations of too much corruption and cronyism in the poetry world.

Sometimes these kinds of articles depress me. Besides the fact that I’m a fan of people outside a tiny circle on the East Coast writing and publishing poetry, I’m an optimist who wants to believe that the poetry world is a meritocracy, even when on the inside, I know it’s probably pretty corrupt – as easily corrupted, for instance, as environmental science (which recently experienced an embarrassing uproar about top scientists faking or mis-stating data about global warming in order to make their theories stand up) or politics. When I studied biology, and I actually researched papers – on genetic engineering, on carbon dating, and on tissue culturing, to name three topics where I went back to original sources – I was surprised to see that many papers that were used as references were later withdrawn or discredited because the data was corrupt and the scientists who wrote it exposed as cheats. Which depressed me then, maybe enough to keep me from going into research after graduation. Because, really, if you can’t trust your scientists and your poets, who can you trust?

It reminds me the orca who killed a Sea World worker today (and had previously killed two other people. This is one mad whale!) I used to think whales were sweet, because there are documents of whales saving people, and I personally love seeing them in the ocean, but then I found out sometimes they beat up other whales and dolphins too. I actually watched a bunch of orcas beating up a smaller whale of a different species. And dolphins themselves act like gang members, beating up smaller, lonlier dolphins. And I love seals, but a little while back a seal attacked and drowned a girl, a marine biologist who was my age at the time. Animal nature, human nature, both a little darker than we’d like to admit? I guess, once again, it’s up to the individual. Not all poets, scientists, or seals can be trusted.

Even if the poetry world is fairly corrupt, you’ve got to keep writing, keep sending out, keep believing that someone, somewhere will stand up for you even if they don’t owe you a favor. Am I too naive? I just read for a chapbook contest and didn’t think about anything beyond: “Which one is the most interesting and the best written?” Is it possible there are lots of judges out there doing the same thing?