[Suzerain of Sheol]

To me, it seems like those are just another kind of poetic community. It's honestly one of the reasons I never submit poetry to magazines -- it feels kind of disingenuous to me when I've never even looked at their material before. You have bigger publications, true, but... I don't know, poetry compilations/anthologies have the effect on me of blending all the material together. The idea behind publication would seem to be standing out or making your mark as a poet, but it just seems impossible to me in the postmodern age. It keeps coming back, for me, to the vanity aspect. It's almost as though we have nothing to say anymore and poetry has only become about hearing ourselves -- even when we're reading others' work.

And that certainly sounds nostalgic. I'm certain, but I do think this wasn't as much of a problem the farther you go back in history. For many of the reasons you mentioned above.