Jordan writes: “You know that when contempt comes through in a poem, that’s the poet’s contempt for his or her selves, right?”

No Jordan, that’s way too pop-psych of a generalization. Even with the qualifier “usually” I think It’s too much. Sometimes contempt is just contempt, and not bounced off of auto-contempt.

Signed,
the coiner of the word “contempt-o rama”!