My one issue with Foote's comments: "American poetry, as far as I can see, is as dead as a doornail."
-Not just yet.
I hope you're right.
Most poetry is horrible. People write it for the rhymes, for its sing-song quality, to amuse themselves.
Great poetry, real poetry, whether written or read, requires massive learning and vast skill sets, and, to some degree, the contemplative life. Lifetimes are spent in consideration of a single line written or read.
Initiates know these things. They know things, see things others cannot see in the language. Everyone has a story to tell of course (every man, woman, child and domestic pet has written a book that is for sale right now at Border's), and more literacy is better than less. Still, these lesser arts have no place but in the shadow of great art (see John Gardner's "On Moral Fiction" or Walter Raleigh's "Style.")
So, in reality, there aren't many initiates. Plath may have had her moments, but she's no Lowell. He had his superior piece or two, but in fact but he's no Eliot. The truth is that we only get one really great one every now and again (there may be only 25 or 30 guys in history that are of Eliot's stature), one with the learning, vision (of his predecessors and of the future), and skills to get it done.