Why do they label a poem “derivative”
When all it does is approximate
The infinitisimally limited
Direction of human experience,
Charted (by them, mind you)
As a continuum of crucifixions
Of its expression (by artists and diarists
And traveling, chronicling historians)
On the axes of achievement and emotion,
Just to make a few points?

Do they forget sometimes that
The essence of a human age
Can be calculated by integrating
Its poetry over that period?