[Susan McLean]

Good analysis, Julie. I, too, watch very little television these days, but it seems to be flourishing without me--and I do not lack things to do with my time. If one looks on the bright side of the current poetry situation, the Internet is making it easier than ever to find and order obscure poetry books or to search for other poems by poets one enjoys. Let a thousand flowers bloom!

Susan

[Dmitri Semenov]

Some thoughts from an outsider to the "poetry tent:"

1. Susan, "literature to give them what it has always given: a temporary escape to somewhere better, where things make sense; a glimpse of beauty, wisdom, humor, balance, or transcendence;"
These are expectations of a "chick flick", not of a literature.

2. Julie, there is another option for a poet: create a new language.
Rhyme the world around into songs, poems, sonnets, etc.
That's a way to become a household name.

3. Janice, when I looks through some poetry magazine or book in my local bookstore, what keeps me from paying for them is utter predictability of what's inside. Some petty political whining, loyalty expressing meows or punk's swagger. So, you might have a point that uniform education is a source of this.

But things are not all that grim and morbid.
Every age grows its own forests, as one modern Russian poet said.

[Susan McLean]

Dmitri, I didn't mean the list to be exhaustive, but just a few areas that pop culture often doesn't provide. However, given that the audience for literature these days is mainly women, perhaps literature is the new "chick flick."

Susan