An unconventional view of America's conventions from a past poet laureate.
People say they have trouble understanding poetry.
Some say it is modern poetry that they can't understand or enjoy - implying, as the critic and poet Randall Jarell once pointed out, that they frequently spend an evening reading the works of Milton. After a few days at the Republican convention in Philadelphia, listening to experts, politicians, fans, and dilettantes talk about the subject, I have discovered that all of the supposedly troublesome elements in poetry infest political discourse. In that dim terrain, understanding wanders off. Then there is the sense of dark or hidden meaning called obscurity, sometimes in the form of arcane references and proper names. I'm getting used to the idea that Al Franken and Arianna Huffington have become major national figures.