David Orr chimes in on Oprah Magazine's adventures in poetry

In his "On Poetry" column for the New York Times, Orr acknowledges he shouldn't be reflexively depressed by O Magazine's first ever poetry issue (edited by Maria Shriver, to be read here), and yet there is something about the whole thing that gets on his nerves:

“Spring Fashion Modeled by Rising Young Poets.” The words are heart-sinking. For some readers, this will be because poetry represents a higher form of culture that can only be debased by the commentary of Oprah Winfrey and the pencil skirts of L’Wren Scott. But this isn’t quite right. Any critic knows there are dozens of poetry collections published every year that are considerably less culturally valuable than Winfrey’s many enterprises and that could only be improved by pencil skirts, preferably by being wrapped in several of them and chucked in the East River. The problem is that poetry can’t approach the world inhabited by O and fashion design — that is, the world of American mass culture — with the same swagger as other fields do.