I'm surprised, reading various poetry lists, about how many poems are about
poetry and writing poems. It leads me to wonder what the expected audience
of these poems is.
I suspect the majority of people do not write poems - so why should they be
expected to connect to the writing process? Is is not rather solipsistic to
expect a general reader to be as fascinated by this subject as an author is?
I'll confess my personal feeling about this. I think Art should mainly be
about life, not about art. Poems about poems can get very incestuous and
inbred-- frankly I think it's rather an unhealthy trend.
I've found most people don't respond that readily to poems about poetry, but
about things they can relate to more strongly -about living life, rather
than the process of writing about it.
Could this be why often people feel alienated from poetry these days--they
feel much of it is aimed at fellow writers rather than the general public?
I'd be interested to know what others think.
Kind regards,
  grasshopper