The course of poetry …

… What the Forward Prize Doesn’t Recognize About Poets — The Daily Beast. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Poetry is an organism, and a dynamic one. It has existed, over its long history, in both expanded and contracted states in terms of its readership. There are moments in its history when it is cherished even by those who can’t read; other times it is perceived as such an elite form that no one without what he imagines to be the correct training so much as approaches it. This historical moment is a contracted one—few people read poetry who aren’t writing it themselves—but poetry is a tough and plucky organism: Expanded times will come again, perhaps very soon. I don’t worry about poetry a bit. It always survives. It expands when it is needed, and the right reader will always be able to find it. There will always be someone who needs what it contains. It will always be the suited salve for someone.