Never seen an article like this before, I’m glad someone is finally asking the question. But seriously, I think the average person is like a toddler when it comes to issues about the importance of the arts: they need to hear the message more than a dozen times before it sticks. So I don’t really resent these sorts of articles. I feel they’re all part of a slow, steady effort to raise the average person out of toddlerhood and up to a level nearing a border collie.
Today, again, we ask the perennial question: Does poetry matter at all?
It’s hard to figure out poetry’s worth when there is a hierarchy of “va
It’s hard to figure out poetry’s worth when there is a hierarchy of “values” hanging over our heads determined not by nature or skill but by powerful men in the publishing, media, and political industries — entities that are about making money. I’m not talking about family values or cool traits. I’m talking net worth, the bottom line: “If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense.”
If that’s the case, poetry should perish.
