a thing of shreds and patches

Rob MacKenzie has a post today about Poets in Velvet. A chick lit novelist describes the launch of a poetry anthology, quite unlike one I've ever been to.

Several of the contributors [are] mingling nervously with the guests. You can tell that they’re poets as they’re wearing mainly velvet clothing with lots of scarves and some of them have on jaunty hats. [p 183]

So what do poets really wear? In Martin Figura's splendid poem 'Poets' Retreat', the malevolent landlord boasts that his dog Cerberus 'can smell poet. It's the wet corduroy.' Martin himself can be found wearing a leather jacket from time to time, but never a scarf, never a hat. Never velvet.