I think you're railing less against poetry and more against the prevailing culture of how we teach art.

Absolutely. But I also think that poetry, more than any other art form, is inextricably intertwined with that prevailing culture.

Poetry, for practical purposes, has escaped to song lyrics and children's books. Poetry, for academic purposes, has disappeared up its own asshole. So if you want to enjoy poetry, listen to song lyrics and read children's books. But if you want to learn about poetry, enjoy being up some academic's asshole because even if you type "modern sonnet" into Google you get Edna St. Vincent Millay and if you want to read the "pushcart nominated" poetry of the guy who started this whole dumpster fire with his Instagram slagging you get

you can't find

love

but you'll

know

when

you feel

it

because it will

be forever

Poetry used to be this shit. Now? We're giving awards to Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey and slagging on kids who can't tell the difference between faux intellectualism and parody faux intellectualism.

You know what? The spiritual successors of Coleridge aren't Instagram fuckhead, they're goddamn Public Enemy:

And now, Ludacris freestyles a Llama Llama book.