[New-Poetry] Against National Poetry Month

[Suzanne Burns]

Well, this is meaty:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/044106.html

Money quote:

"National Poetry Month is about making poetry safe for readers by promoting
examples of the art form at its most bland and its most morally "positive."
The message is: *Poetry is good for you*. But, unfortunately, promoting
poetry as if it were an "easy listening" station just reinforces the idea
that poetry is culturally irrelevant and has done a disservice not only to
poetry deemed too controversial or difficult to promote but also to the
poetry it puts forward in this way. "Accessibility" has become a kind of
Moral Imperative based on the condescending notion that readers are
intellectually challenged, and mustn't be presented with anything but Safe
Poetry. As if poetry will turn people off to poetry."


Thoughts?

Gleefully,

Suzanne Burns
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