I just saw a commercial for an insurance company with Maya Angelou reading a poem she'd written. I don't think I need to say anything else.

Yes I do. I realize poetry don't pay the bills--or even buy a cup of coffee in most parts of this country--but I gotta think Maya Fucking Angelou is making rent. Reading at a president's inauguration is bad enough (Robert Frost did it, too, at JFK's, and he's one of my favorites). But that can be interpreted as an expression of optimism and hope, as opposed to one of political partisanship or pandering as it is to cynics like me.

Poetry as corporate shilling has to be a new low. What's next? Bob Dylan singing for Victoria's Secret? Oh, wait...