"I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles, theses, and textbooks that ..." — A. R. Ammons

There's something to be said in favor of working in isolation in the real world.

If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'

Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed.

Probably all the attention to poetry results in some value, though the attention is more often directed to lesser than to greater values.