I'm curious. Do you think part of the reason poetry has fallen by the wayside is the insistence by many that it need have no rules, anyone can do it, poetry is in the eye of the person doing the "poet"ing and not the audience?
i don't see it being rooted in the relaxation of formalism. i mean, the beats turned language inside-out, and they maintained a strong and serious readership.
one could argue that the decline of poetry corresponds to the rise of mass media, and that's a part of it, in my opinion. most song lyrics, greeting card copy, commericial jingles are tripe. but the message they convey is easy to grasp.
fed on this steady diet of crap, the mental muscles designed to read and process real poetry are reduced to a state of atrophy. a cultural laziness sets in and people are too fat to reach for any but the lowest hanging fruit.
and (quick apology in advance to any slammers) the merging of poetry and performance dilutes and cheapens the writing, because it compensates often bad writing with moody pretention or "you go girl" attitude.
their intentions are good, i think, but the result is mostly disappointing.
i started the thread impulsively, and to be honest, i don't believe poetry is dead, i just think it's really sick. it'll come back around but i doubt i'll live to see it.
oh yeah, the other thing you mentioned, the lowering of the bar. yes.
and the internet had blown that wide open. with forums and websites, all manner of so-called poetry can proliferate to fill scam anthologies and get lots of critiques with dancing smilies.
it's that mentality of automatic validation that "anything can be poetry" and if you say it doesn't work, then you just don't get it or you're trying to tell them how to write.
it's like how they won't let kids keep score in soccer games.
i don't know. i need a cigarette.