In a message dated 03/28/2003 9:05:47 AM Central Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<<  For instance I should be hard pushed to think of a pop lyric that would
 compete with Donne's  'gold to airy thinness beat'. >>  The closest I can
come would be a distance.  Simon and Garfunkel (remember them?) had some good
lyrics, and one of my favorite lines is
"The silence of a falling star lights up a purple sky" by Hank Williams.  But
most popular music is more  like poopular.  The same goes with 95 percent of
the poetry I read today.  It is really hard to cull out the bad and find a
poet whose work you can almost always appreciate.  But  it is worth the
effort.  The fact is that most of the few people who read today (and there
not as many as there used to be)  just don't like modern poetry, and that is
a fact.  If it were popular, we would once in a while make the best seller
lists, but that is rare.  Even then it is probably because the poet has a
name like "Jewel" or has been on certain American radio programs.  Few care
about it at all.  Ah, well, maybe in a hundred years our day will come.  Sue