Do readers actually prefer poets like W.S. Merwin to really good poets like David Shapiro? Or is it that they haven't actually read Shapiro? My University library doesn't have Lateness, one of David's best books. I doubt a single member of the English department in Kansas (aside from Ken Irby) has ever read a poem by David Shapiro. Accessibility of the texts remains a problem. I mean getting one's hand on them, not accesssibilty as "easiness" of reading.

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I mean readers who have actually read both poets. It is only by suppressing good poetry that mediocre poetry can survive.