[Andrew Szilvasy]

I'm glad this has generated discussion.

I'm of Mark's mind here that her poetry isn't good. I take that for granted: Julie's point about how she enjoyed it more than other poetry best-sellers doesn't contradict it, only to show how bad many of the best-selling poetry books often are. Actually, much like Walter's point, she doesn't bother me: she's earnest, intelligent, and getting to live a life I'd be lying if I wasn't a bit jealous of. (Writing and reading poetry all day? Sign me up.) She's earned it.

For me, these bits are besides the point (though I almost spit my coffee out when Andrew M. said he liked her more than Eliot). I'm wondering if there's some lesson we can glean from her work. Is what makes her work popular necessarily that it's mediocre and cliché? Or is it that there's an element of therapy to it for her readers--it's self help, of sorts. I've been thinking a lot recently about art as something "useful," and my distaste for poetry that isn't an end in itself, like people should be. I'm thinking popular poetry inevitably has to be a means to some other end.*

Also, I think the comparison to Voung and others is instructive, and that's another part of the question, I think. How do those of us outside the traditional academic power structure (no MFA or university job) find an audience?

(*Certainly I'm aware that great poetry has been made with the express goal of making money--this is probably a different conversation.)