News at Eleven: [Ted] Kooser faults a snobbish poetry establishment

for exiling writers whose work doesn't require an expert intermediary to understand.

"Literary critics and literary opinion makers are paid interpreters. If they don't have something to interpret, they have no work," he says. "A group of critics will descend on an impenetrable work because it offers so many opportunities for them. There was a period in the 20th century when Frost was not taught on campuses because there was not enough surface difficulty to his work."

from Boulder Daily Camera: Basic bard: Kooser's accessible poetry maddens some, delights others

~~~~~~~~~~~