I'm with you, Tammy. The writing is only worthwhile if you write from the heart, as well as the head.
I'm a little uncomfortable with your equating deep emotion with sentimentality, though. (Perhaps you're just quoting a charge that others sometimes make at anything with emotional content.) They're really not the same thing. Sentimentality, I think, is the pushing of automatic emotional "buttons"--dying children make us weep, cuddly puppies make us feel warm inside, soft breezes in the June moonlight are romantic. Sentimentality is to emotion what cliche is to language.
But deep emotion need not be sentimental in that sense. It often is best expressed in an understated way, described with the detail and grit of a specific, unique situation, rather than relying on stock images from books.
I agree with you that at least some strains of modern poetry have seemingly tried to squeeze the feeling out of poetry altogether. Many writers are so afraid of being thought sentimental, or unoriginal, or lacking a unique "voice" (which often just means an identifiable monotone schtick, rather than a genuine varied voice) that they intellectualize everything into dust.
In this regard, I always think of one of Jorie Graham's highly regarded poems, "Manifest Destiny." (It appears, among other places, in "The Best of the Best American Poetry, 1988-1997.") The author's explanatory notes at the back of the volume relate that the poem is about the death of her first lover, apparently by suicide. Well, that certainly seems like promising material with strong emotional content, and the notes are quite moving. But, at least for me, the poem isn't. She doesn't use a single cliche and certainly can't be accused of being sentimental. But the whole experience has been hyper-intellectualized into academic code, which is neither moving nor very understandable.
In any event, keep writing from the heart, and struggling, as we all do, with making it new!
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