The biggest problem is people are afraid of poetry, think they can’t understand it or that it will be boring.

Kennedy frames the main barrier to poetry not as difficulty in the poems themselves but as a pre-emptive anxiety in readers: the fear of not “getting it” and of being bored. The remark points to poetry’s reputation as elitist or coded, a reputation that can discourage engagement before a reader has even begun. Implicitly, she argues that appreciation is often blocked by expectations—by treating poetry as a test rather than an experience. The quote also functions as a defense of poetry’s accessibility: if fear is the obstacle, then invitation, exposure, and permission to respond personally can reopen the genre to wider audiences.