Joseph Duermer has a thoughtful Plumbline School post that draws on a quotation from Gaston Bachelard. It hit me with the force of revelation, though there’s nothing new in its core idea—that “the true poem awakens the unconquerable desire to reread.” What this means, of course, is that poetry in this country doesn’t suffer from a lack of readers but a lack of re-readers. And why? Maybe it has to do with our long cultural history of preferring disposability over durability. Maybe the same careless farming practices, for example, that produced the Dust Bowl (see the recent episode of American Experience on the Civilian Conservation Corps) betray a deep flaw in the American character that makes us largely unfriendly to the attitude of care that poetry requires….