The United States has paradoxically paid more people to profess poetry, yet poetry has mattered less to the nation. Despite the assumption that people no longer like poetry because it's challenging, history shows that poetry was once popular across all classes. The shift of bringing poets into universities created a profession of poetry, leading to a decline as poets treated each other with professional courtesy and avoided giving bad reviews to maintain benefits. The more benefits given to poets, the less they mattered to society. However, the author believes in the vitality of poetry and its representation of the human condition, with an enduring appetite for poetry.