Making Poetry Popular

I strongly agree and disagree with you, Mr. A.  But, more so disagree.  I don't think that anything must be anything.  Must stinks of elitism.  What poetry needs is nothing we can do.  What is and what isn't poetry can't be measured, not by form, meaning, or logic  (Especially by creatures with limited inisight).  If poetry must be anything, it needs to be whatever it is to the individual reading it, and or writing it.  I guess there are those who'll say a brilliant poem will convey exactly what the author intends...and I'll say hogwash.  We as individuals are shaped, nay, influenced differently from each other as well as from time.  Shakespeare is what shakespeare is, because society has allowed him to be that.  Is he greater than the learning disabled child scrawling backwards bs and ls on the sidewalk?  I dare say no.  Shakespeare was probably one of the few literate people of his time, he was probably in the court of some well to do society (as most poets were/are)  and at that point in time the conditions were ripe that he'd be what he is today.  I think his janitor probably had more imagination then him, but we'll never know, he wasn't even considered to be looked at.  Pop art is pop art however you want to look at it.  Shakespeare was pop.  To the fullest.  As all artist who hit the mainstream.  I can't say there's anything wrong with that.  But, I can say that in a time where nothing make sense, we, if we were very bright at all, should return to being us.  Writing is one thing we can agree on.  But to say one man has it right because you agree with his perspective, is to say,  that the other man is wrong because he doesn't share the same collective-ego as you.  Poetry will be exactly what it is, if not, then it's not poetry. 

One man's garbage is another man's treasure. 

What I do agree with, is that poetry needs to be taught, but more so encouraged.  Instead of telling people what poetry is, we should be asking what can poetry do.  What can become poetry.  Poetry is much more than aesthetics.  Much more than some critic's mirror.  I'll tell you where poetry went wrong, as soon as man started to limit his vision of it, as soon as he started to box it in.  We live in a crazy time, but no more crazier than the time of Shakespeare.  We need to stop turning people into icons.  I say let poetry die, don't save it, and as poets or whatever label you want to tag your self as, be your self and write.  After all what does poetry mean when you can't bring it heaven?  Or when you're rotting in the ground?  Or the flames are licking our backs?  What is poetry in how many billions of years when the sun begins its collapse?  Emphasis means very little to the poet.