. . . finally (& I know I'm repeating myself from many a previous blog entry), I think the pseudo-battles represented so well by Ron Silliman tend to obscure the harder questions about what constitutes literary value in poetry. In other words, while it may be true that much or most mainstream poetry is absurdly & glaringly poor-quality, undeserving of a real mainstream audience, I assert that much or most non-mainstream poetry is equally fake, elitist & coterie because it's easier to write that way. It's non-mainstream because it lacks the values - intensity, inspiration, originality, scope, relevance - which would deserve & eventually win a wide audience (& I'm not referring here to "accessibility" or "marketability" or other such merely cynical measures of taste).