Poets have failed. Don't blame Bush. Don't blame a vast right-wing conspiracy on this one. A poet's job is to move people. Forcing people to like poetry is like forcing people to dance. If poets did a better job, more people would give a damn about their work. Until then, leave the limp poetry to limp pseudo-intellectuals.

-- Michael Collado

What a wonderful thing it would be, though! A poet satirizing our corrupt and cruel republic. It brings back memories of ancient Rome. Would great Caesar kill the poet? Or let him live? What is it about modern America that causes it to feel that skill with words is effeminate? Why is wit suspect among the solid citizens? I think what the people want is a colorful host of popular corporate cartoon symbols (Mr. Peanut, Ronald McDonald, Mrs. Butterworth, etc.) waving gaily from the inaugural platform. No counting of sins or pondering of achievements would be required.

-- Ken Davis

As a professional writer and a lover of poetry who also happens to vote mostly Republican, it's disappointing, but hardly surprising, to see David Lehman's parade of poets trashing my political brethren as near-illiterate, uncultured clods. Such self-righteous stereotyping on the part of literary academics has gone a long way toward making our collegiate English departments the blandly politicized jokes they are today. With Tom Disch openly promising the ostracism of any poet who dares to affiliate with the Bush administration, what young poet, writer or untenured professor will dare to express a contrary opinion? I'm not in the ideological popularity contest known as the tenure track, so I will. Too bad Disch and Lehman's professional peers don't have the same freedom.

-- Joshua Trevino

Perhaps it's just as well that no poets will greet the nation with their careful wordsmithing on Inauguration Day. The "vampires of the intellect" are already descending upon the capital to suck the creativity and knowledge from a city already void of depth of thought. We certainly don't need another populist poet to address the assembled masses with the equivalent of "The Heart Must Go On." It would have been nice if they could have gotten Garrison Keillor to read a short "Lake Wobegon" story that would inject some laughter and tenderness into a very somber situation.

Something needs to be said about the strength of our republic, the persistence of democracy and the determination of the American people to prosper and work together as we enter the third millennium. We do need a poet of depth to speak some challenging words, but outside of the resurrection of Frost or Sandburg from the grave, we will have to deal with the musings of George W. Bush's speechwriters.

-- Greg Rollins

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"