charles moyer wrote:
>
> >     Since we are on the subject of Modernism here is what I read in
> yesterday's Cleveland Plain Dealer concerning our poet laureate's appearance
> at John Carroll University tonight.
>     "There's a waiting audience out there that was frightened away by
> Modernist poetry in school.

Randall Jarrell wrote a beautful little essay trashing this nonsense.
Two core points in it if I remember correctly from about 40+ years ago.
(1) All those complainers about modern poetry's complexity don't read
any other poetry _either_. (2) In some Latin American cities you will
find that the waiter in the hotel restaurant is a poet. What kind of
poetry does he write? Surrealist poetry! Jarrell has some lovely sneer
to the effect that because someone can't read The Wasteland he has given
up on Shakespeare and Wordsworth, or something to that effect.

:-)

Delicately put, those who say they have been frightened away from poetry
by the complexity of modern poetry are mostly fucking liars.

Carrol