The Foetry folks seem to want some kind of Nobel Prize in journalism for determining that the world isn't perfect and that the arts sometimes operate in a byzantine fashion.

Having your book published is not the same thing as your Right to Attorney, folks. The poetry world is not conspiring to ruin your life. There are others institutions (e.g. your government) who are probably doing this very thing, so you may want to turn your attention that way.

Sure, I agree that it would be nice if every single person who judged a contest or published a magazine were 100 percent objective, or I guess even at least 100 percent true to their aesthetic agenda. But I've never met anyone who's 100 percent anything.

They seem to be so willing to cast that first stone. And what is it that they are advocating anyway? Some kind of poetic Night of the Long Knives?