The Nobel Academy can pick whoever they damn well please, of course. And there's nothing about that their choices the make them the last word. I was surprised they picked Dylan.

I like early Dylan. His early songs are the only lyrics I know. "Are song lyrics the equivalent of poetry?" the New York Times asked. Aren't song lyrics always poetry, even if the lyrics are very bad, or very obscure, or very vulgar, or very pedestrian, or very, very whatever?

This line, "And don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin", has the density of meaning one would expect from significant poetry. Don't read your fortune yet because 'The wheel' [of fortune] 'is still in spin' is a very sophisticated construction -- it sounds like "stilling spin", a rearrangement of "still spinning". That isn't the in the text, of course, just the way it sounds.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

Sure, that's poetry -- and perfectly fine poetry at that.

But the Nobel... I wouldn't have voted for him getting it, much as I like his early stuff. The problem is not in the quality of the lyrics. The problem is in the genre: Dylan wouldn't have become rich and famous standing up in coffee houses reciting his poetry. Nobody else has in America, why would he?

Dylan, like all great song writers/singers, writes material and sets it to music. It's real art -- it just doesn't happen to be in one of the 5 categories the Nobel traditionally makes awards in. There have been and are many great lyricists; maybe the Nobel Foundation should add that to its award categories.