The poet Robert Hass, in particular, got some press for his involvement in an Occupy protest in Berkeley. He probably got more press than other poets who participated by virtue of his status as a former poet laureate.

But this piece asks the question: would we have paid as much attention to what he had say if he had said it, not as he did, in a newspaper op-ed, but in a poem?

Depressingly, I think we all know the answer to that.