Some dated news -

Few are as aware of the need to rescue poetry from the art world's metaphorical gulag than Paul Kooperman, the national director of Australian Poetry, which runs the cafe poet-in-residence program.

''It's a huge challenge. Enormous,'' he says. ''We launched an iPhone app a couple of weeks ago, and the funny thing about that is when you search 'Australian Poetry' [on the internet], you get Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson and now our app. There's such a gap between what poetry has been and what poetry could be, or should be.''

Australian Poetry, which is being launched in NSW tonight, is the result of a merger of the now-defunct (and Victorian) Australian Poetry Centre and the NSW Poets Union, a move suggested by the Australia Council (which promised triennial funding for the new organisation).

Not only is Kooperman aiming to better promote existing poets nationally and inspire a new generation of practitioners, but he also wants to make poetry ''cool'' again - and presumably shed the stereotype of poets as pretentious beret-wearing shut-ins.

''Poetry exists everywhere; it's in Dr Seuss [books], it's in advertising, in music and song lyrics,'' he says. ''So people are already engaged with it. They just don't call it [poetry]. All we have to do is shine a beacon on it [and] engage more Australians.''

Indeed, even though in the past few years there has been a spike in moves to bring poetry into the mainstream - through poetry slam events at pubs and shows such as the ABC's Poets in the Pub - the practice is still marginalised, says Kooperman.

''I think the poets have sort of brought it on themselves,'' he says, noting that the default route for many is to enter academia, a realm that inherently ''disconnects'' them from the wider community.

His cafe in-residence program - which has 35 poets signed up across the country - is just one tactic aimed at changing this.

Musician Ben Lee and comedian (and regular Spicks and Specks guest) Alan Brough have joined Australian Poetry as ''cultural ambassadors'' - ''basically to promote us to their own networks''.

And a Poets on Pillows competition, for which more than 100 poets have submitted 10-line poems about ''Sweet Dreams'',will produce seven winners who will have their work printed on pillows in every room of the Sebel Pier One hotel during the Sydney Writers' Festival next month.

But what of the need for poets - a notoriously cash-poor bunch - to have more, as Kooperman puts it, ''income opportunities''?

For that, there is Wow Vows, a service that connects poets with brides and grooms wishing to commission poems for their wedding service, and a plan to team up with florists to offer bespoke poetry alongside flowers and cards.