Thinking about poetry

I haven't been reading much poetry lately, and I haven't written any in over two years, but lately it's been popping up here and there in my life, as though the universe is telling me to revisit it. For instance, last night I was at a party when someone asked me what I thought of Yusef Komunyakaa. I replied that I think his poetry is only so-so, and immediately a third person responded with a gasp of horror and a verbal rejoinder to my opinion. I haven't been involved in a stimulating poetry-related occurence like this in ages, and it felt really good.

I stopped interacting with poetry (and by poetry I mean written, not oral poetry) because I am frustrated with academic poetry (i.e., poetry stemming from MFA programs, and the university millieu in general, which with rare exceptions is the only kind of poetry being written in the U.S. today). Its level of discourse is so exclusive, the reader must be a part of the academic world (subculture may be a better word here, but I don't even want to give this world the validation that calling it a "subculture" would give it) from which it comes in order to access the poems, which is not how poetry (or literature in general) should be. It should be from the gut, a visceral experience for both writer and reader that only requires an open, critical mind for the possibility of a revelation or sublime episode to be there. Instead, academic poetry too often requires a knowledge of the various philosophies behind it to become profitable to the reader, e.g., L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, which is really literary theory written without paragraphs.

This inherent elitism saddens me because it automatically takes poetry outside of the realm of cultural relevance. That is why I prefer poets like Frank O'Hara, Tim Dlugos, Sherman Alexie, Julia Alvarez, and Amiri Baraka whose poems are rooted in everyday life, but also transcend it, whereas poets like those who publish in "important" magazines such as Poetry seem to be writing about life in some nonexistent head-world.