Making Poetry Popular

It is interesting how people in general hesitate to acknowledge bad poetry.  Other artistic expressions don't get that hesitation.  American Idol is popular because the bad singers make us laugh.  We can easily label bad music, trite fiction, ugly art, stupid sculpture.  But poetry seems to maintain some degree of aura about it. 

Sometimes I wonder if it has something to do with the emotional aspects of poetry, and a pop-psychology culture that believes any emotion is an OK emotion (and aren't they all inherently beautiful)?  And I think it is because people just don't notice the real skill behind the poetry . . . the turns of phrase, the rhythms, meters, and metaphors - afterall, the greeting card industry really doesn't employ these things. 

And poetry isn't entirely spoon-fed to the culture either.  Movies & TV are dumbed-down enough that you can't miss the plot or the joke.   You can miss the point of really good poetry, though.  I think that is intimidating to some people because it requires a little bit of thinking to read it.   And I don't mean to imply that in an elitist, inaccessible way.  I think most people are capable of thinking it through, but probably just not used to doing that.