Poetry and audiece

How often have you heard poets wish for the sort of audiences that the visual arts command? How often have you heard poets complain that Guardianistas will flock to any exhibition, will engage in the quite abstruse language of art appreciation, but will run a mile when confronted with the prospect of listening to a line or two of concatenated words? Even if penned by the Poet Laureate himself?
(Um, well, perhaps that's not the precise superlative I was looking for.)

Well, be careful what you wish for. The incomparable Ms Baroque has a post (no, dammit, it's not that post - which post is it? Anyway -) which castigates quite even-handedly both the lumpen proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

But look again at her castigations. Which one of us can honestly claim that we have never been guilty of any of the following, mutatis mutandis:

• Considering the poet's clothing, his habit of scratching his nose each time he tells a joke
• Wondering if he's making out with that pretty young poet sharing the platform, with whom he's exchanging knowing glances as the middle-aged, heavily maquillaged female poet (with whom they are both sharing the platform) relays dithyrambic sexual confessions
• Wondering if you will get to the pub before it shuts
• Seeing X over the room, a publisher whose attention you've been hoping to attract
• Seeing Y over the room, a poet from the next parish who's always trying to get you to read his manuscript
• Seeing Z over the room, with whom you thought you were good friends until the day you had a blazing row about Bukowski, and who has never spoken to you since
• Wishing the poet's subject matter were more varied
• Wishing the poet told more jokes
• Wishing the poet's poems were shorter
• Wishing it were a different poet altogether?