Poetry, where art thou?

Sandy Collins and I are using some poetry in our class on Ecclesiastes--what else would you expect from two retired English teachers? I did a couple of Matthew Arnold, THE speech from Macbeth, and others on Sunday. I will include Frost;s Out, Out on the Sunday coming up. It is tough to hear. But applicable.

Where has poetry gone in our culture? When did it quit being something every one read? Sandy said that its decline probably began with Ezra Pound and some of T. S.
Eliot in which a dictionary and concordance are needed to understand. Some say its demise began with free verse and Walt Whitman. I think it began with the decline of the age of print and literacy. Yes, this is another thing I blame on television, cell phones, I Pods, and other electronics. People don't read newspapers, much less poetry.

Kennedy used Frost at his inauguration and Clinton use Angelou--but that is the last national recognition of a poet I remember. Can you name the poet laurate of the U. S. or of your state? I can't.

For those of you who do read poetry, who is your favorite poet? Whitman, Frost, Millay, Dickinson, L'Engle, Jane Kenyon, and May Sarton are mine.