I've got egg all over my face, don't I?

Going back to Woody Allen, specifically Annie Hall, I'd just say that the two key jokes in Alvie Singer's life really are apt metaphors. I think both were attributed to Graucho Marx (forgive me if I butcher them):

a) I'd never want to be part of a club that would have me as a member.

b) A guy goes to a doctor and tells the doctor, "Doc, I've got a big problem. My brother thinks he's a chicken."
The doctor says, "Why don't you have him committed?" and the guy says, "Well, we need the eggs."

Further, or more importantly in my case, is Woody Allen's follow up to the second joke which is, and I'm profoundly paraphrasing, that romantic relationships are painful, confusing, distracting and generally insane but we do it because we need the eggs.

Yep. Extend that metaphor however you like and definitely apply it like machine gun fire or confetti to most of life and it works pretty well. I find that both jokes apply especially well to poetry and poetic communities. The romantic thing, yes, clearly.

In the meantime, I'm going to go watch a group of psychoanalysts psychoanalyze a poet of the poet's own free will at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic institute in a couple of hours. Then I'll go over to Oakland and sit in the audience while we collectively, but silently psychoanalyze the poets reading there.