NEWSWEEK: Is poetry still important? It's hard to imagine "Howl" coming along and capturing the public imagination today.
Donald Hall, New U.S. Poet Laureate: I don't think it' s hard to imagine. [The poetry of] Billy Collins has sold more than "Howl." Poetry is a lot more important now than it's ever been in this country. There are many more magazines, many more publishers. One of the negatives of it is that nobody can read all this stuff. I get sent about 300 books of poems a year! I have thought of satellite radio, with its many, many channels, possibly being willing to have a new poet on each day. I don't know if that would be perfectly silly, but they have a superfluity of channels, as I understand.
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