jmc

Picturing the situation, we have a trapezoid with the two poles as bases. We can split this trapezoid into a rectangle at the bottom and a right triangle at the top, where the hypotenuse of the right triangle is the wire stretched from the top of one pole to the top of the other pole.



The horizontal leg of the right triangle is 12 feet, the horizontal distance from one pole to the other. The vertical leg of the triangle is $15-6=9$ feet, the height difference of the poles. By the Pythagorean Theorem $a^2+b^2=c^2$, we can solve for the length of the hypotenuse. We get $c=\sqrt{144+81}=\sqrt{225}=15$. So the wire is $\boxed{15}$ feet long.

Alternatively, instead of using the Pythagorean Theorem, we notice that 9-12-$c$ has the same ratios as the 3-4-5 right triangle. So $c=3\cdot 5=\boxed{15}$.