On difficulty in poetry

Letter: ‘Does My Poetry Have to Be Difficult to Be Real?’

In responding to this week’s letter, I was of two minds on how to respond, and decided, as I’m discovering I do, to respond mostly to the emotional dilemma at hand for the letter-writer. However, I didn’t want to drop the other thoughts entirely, so I wanted to speak more broadly on the idea of difficulty in poetry in a few ancillary notes.

For purposes of example, I will limit my thoughts here to poetry that works in one primary language. ...