"His poetics opened up the door to extreme laziness and a disrespect for the long traditions of poetry as great art, that required a facility with the magic of words and the ability to weave them into great art.", if I didn't know otherwise, you might just as well have been referring to Walt Whitman whose "...huge ego ((was)) interested only in destroying the poetics of the past...."
As for "...Frost's influence on our current dismal spate of American poetry ((being)) minimal at best,...": I disagree. Many of the formalist poets still living today might also disagree, poets such as Richard Wilbur, Robert Mezey, Timothy Murphy, Leo Yankevich, Joseph Salemi, Alicia Stallings, Janet Kenny, Janice D. Soderling, Rhina Espaillat, etc., etc., etc.
The question remains: "Does poetry still matter?" ((emphasis added)) Of course it does. It matters to people who read and enjoy good poetry almost as much as it matters to people who compose it. It matters most, however, to those of us who encourage living poets by purchasing their books, thankful that all skillful poetry isn't, yet, a thing of the past.
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