The only time mainstream culture acknowledges poets is when the Laureate dies and must be replaced, or when they're doing something other than writing poetry. That the interest has little to do with the transformative, revelatory powers of poetry is brushed aside in the hype. Fittingly the theme for this year's National Poetry Day is not even poetry, but song lyrics.
Poetry needs an alternative to itself.
What is striking is how poetry is compelled to seem content-free in order to get access to 'the general public'. Poetry is seen as most able to reflect back a community in accessible, everyday language, arranged to please the ear in its modern slant on traditional form. It's truly depressing that the most popular poets in the UK are John Hegley and Wendy Cope, or that people like Ian MacMillan, a savage social-surrealist in his books, feels forced to adopt a 'jolly rhyming Yorkshireman' persona in his media appearances. The channels along which poetry must travel to meet its potential public seem designed to filter out anything too challenging in terms of content, form or language. Which is, of course, exactly the paradigm which has seen Tony Blair's New Labor Party become firmly entrenched in power.