The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

Yet in lining up the external poetic chips into publishable “articulateness” rather than “indwelling,” you face the danger of writing what poet Derek Walcott terms “a fake poem.” Still, many yearn for the status that public recognition brings, even as they recognize the possible falsity involved.