Cliques set values. Now, sometimes a guy (it's usually guys, but not always!) will be a complete putz, and it'll be clear why the clique sets no value on that guy's output -- but just as often the clique will have several putzes it embraces and elevates, even as these putzes are pissing on your pantsleg. Is there some value to pantsleg piss? Depends. (Ba dum bum.)

And sometimes, a gal (it's usually gals, but not always!) will be a complete droning drag, and it'll be clear why the clique sets no value on that gal's output -- but just as often the clique will have several droning drags it embraces and elevates, even as these drags are blaming, say, you for their dull rage. Are you responsible?

I'm not advocating the relocation of putzes and drags to a distant mountaintop to be renamed Parnassus. I'm saying the unspoken reason poetry is so marginal is that it's inverted, impertinent, and ashamed. You form a clique when you're afraid of making new friends, of being influenced in a different direction. (Or you could be a loner, but the loners I've met generally aren't as fearful as the cliquesters.)

Cliques often form around sadists, true -- a saturn ring of chuckling masochists, each forgetting they'll be the picked-on one eventually.