This doesn't mean Jewel is publishing another poetry collection, does it?

As mentioned here, your pal the Rake didn't get to see former poet laureate Billy Collins when Collins swung through town on Wednesday.  However, if this Denver Post event preview column is any indication, he must have floated in on a raft of sunbeams held aloft by the laughter of children, so happy is he about the state of poetry in our great land:

Contrary to popular opinion, poetry in America is not a dying art, at least as far as Billy Collins is concerned.

[...]

"It's growing, and it's been growing for quite a while, maybe since the Beats," Collins said. "I think that besides just the number, a salutary thing that is happening now is that the audience for poetry is including people who don't write poetry. "It's a very good time to be a poet. There are lots of prizes and opportunities to read, which wasn't the case until pretty recently."

[...]

While poetry is "marginalized" in today's pop culture, Collins said he thinks it is moving "slightly toward the center of things."

"The thirst for poetry is attributable to the volume of public noise that we are exposed to every day, and that would include the noise of politics, media, Hollywood, advertising and journalism," he said. "We swim through this verbal soup every day, and we are basically surrounded or inundated by the sounds of public discourse."

Poetic discourse is different, Collins said. "It's personal, tends to be much more private. Instead of being broadcast to a multitude, it often gives the sense that it's being whispered to you and you alone."

If you really want to be uncharitable and parse this, you'd find that great claims are being made about poetry's increasing popularity on one hand, and, on the other, it seems that the general populace--"popular opinion" and "pop culture"--would beg to differ (if they even deigned to give a shit).

However, YPTR, for one, believes Mr. Collins' claims.  Hell, we've got "Hollywood" Ted Kooser in charge, and POETRY magazine has more cheddar than Jay-Z.  What could possibly be wrong?