Mary Jo Bang: Perhaps poetry is too difficult for them. It's possible. Some people don't like using the skills involved in reading poetry. But if they're compelled to read poetry and want to understand more of what they are reading, they can be taught strategies for reading. People often make the mistake of trying to read poetry like they read prose and get frustrated when it doesn't work. But people can be taught how to appreciate the poem's ambiguity. They can be taught to deconstruct the poem by looking at it's artifice and its inner workings. By doing that they can deduce the nature of the poet's project and judge whether he or she has been successful or not. And decide whether one likes the experience of reading the poem with that kind of attention to detail. And whether curiosity about the choices the poet makes is at all satisfying.
Marc Woodworth: I'm not sure why so many people think of poetry as a hard code that they'd rather not have to crack. If you can get away from reading a poem to find the "meaning" it's supposed to yield up to you if you're smart or persistent enough, and read it instead for the pleasure its sounds make or the way its images open up in you, then you can think of poems as something other than difficult. That said, the experience of responding to an intellectually charged poem that is "difficult" is a great pleasure, too.
Billy Collins: Randall Jarrell said that it's not that people don't read poetry because it's too difficult. Rather, poetry seems difficult to people who don't read it. Ditto.
Richard Matthews: One way to recognize the inanity of the statement, by the way, is to substitute other genres or forms of art. "Prose: I just don't understand it." Would someone really say "Music: too difficult for me?" Perhaps, but it would be a rather rare bird, and probably someone you don't want to spend a lot of time with at parties. What music? There is an overwhelming amplitude of kinds of music; so too are there of poetries; some difficult for some, some not. Read widely; read intelligently; read actively not passively, and I find it inconceivable that one will not find an accessible poetry. I would also urge a reconsideration of difficulty: it's a good thing, and most of what is good, pleasurable, important, is in the going through and at the far side of difficulty.
Honor Moore: When people say that I think they speak out of a sense that they learned as children --- that poetry was elite or difficult. I would read poems aloud to them. I would take them to great poetry readings. I would get them to follow along listening to great tapes of readings. I would get them to watch Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem project videos. I would look them in their face and say "you are wrong! read me a poem!!!"
Cornelius Eady: There is a feeling that poetry, like opera, jazz, and a lot of modern art, is something that can only be understood only if you spend years and years studying it. A good response to that is reading a poet like say Pablo Neruda, or Lucille Clifton who are both powerful poets who write from their humanity to humanity. There are many styles and forms of poetry; the main thing to get across is that poetry is indeed something that includes and invites them. the reader, to partake with the poet in the experience of what its like to be who we are.
Jeffrey Greene: In many cases, poetry is too difficult for many people. If it's too facile, it loses interest in other quarters. One of the wonderful things about poetry right now is the wealth of diversity. Fifty years ago, poetry seemed dominated by a certain segment of society. Now this isn't so and poetry in America might seem more relative to a diversity of experiences. I don't think it is too difficult to demonstrate that some poems are accessible to almost anyone. The problem is engendering an interest in, and a passion for, poetry. That is something that can't be forced.
Marge Piercy: I do in fact convinced people all the time through my poetry readings. People take my poems, put them up on the wall or the refrigerator, give them to their friends, use them in their weddings and memorial services. Every time someone relates to a poem and finds that that poem speaks for them, then they are finding poetry relevant.
