Reasons We Elected This Guy Include...

Poetry readings at the White House. But what's more interesting is one of the comments (by a poet) suggesting that poetry would be better off remaining "obscure." He has a point in that most of those who read at the WH would likely not be along the lines of Allen Ginsberg shouting about blowing Hell's Angels or anything similarly radical, but this attitude has the potential to fetishize poetry's very real obscurity in the context of American culture, a condition that does nothing to advance the form's political relevance -- something the commenter also seems to suggest is important.