In “Why Don’t Modern Poems Rhyme?” former Poet Laureate and Pulitzer-Prize winner Robert Pinsky (how’s that for alliteration?) asks some rhetorical questions about poetry, the kinds of questions I’ve heard a thousand times before, and he attempts to give his own poetic answers.  For the People Of The Book – a Book full of poetry – these questions aren’t so trivial, even if they are funny.  They include:

Sometimes I see a poem in Slate or another magazine, and it doesn’t do a thing for me. Half of the time I can’t figure out what it means-what is that all about?

Isn’t so-called “free verse” just prose chopped into lines?

How come modern poets don’t write in rhyme?

How come real poetry-in our great-grandparents’ time or, anyway, some other long-ago time-was easy to understand and great?

Aren’t a lot of contemporary song lyrics the real poetry of our time?

Well, I like poetry that is amusing, that maybe makes me chuckle a little. I’d rather read something reassuring and light than something complicated or gloomy. Is that bad? Does that mean I am a jerk?

I have a feeling you won’t like his answers, but they may be the only answers able to convince the unconvinced.