The State of Poetry

How is Poetry Doing in 2007?

© Linda Sue Grimes

Calliope - Poetry Muse, Wikimedia Commons

Despite noises to the contrary, poetry is doing just fine in the 21st century, and by all lights, it should continue to do well into the far distance future.

The noises to the contrary

Voices are raised periodically, announcing the death of poetry. However, poetry is not dead. Poetry is as vibrant and vital as it has ever been. In fact, poetry cannot die; it is an integral part of art and language.

Where poetry lives

Poetry lives first of all in the hearts, minds, and souls of all people. For the doomsayers and poetry-obituary writers like those above, poetry may, in fact, be dead. Wexler, for example, claims that with his busy life of career and mortgage payments, he lost interest in poetry, even after being quite an aficionado in college and even after writing poetry. So what? That he lost interest in poetry doesn’t mean everyone has. Such is truly a warped logic.

Movies are probably the most popular artistic medium that attracts the largest number of people, and movies often quote poems or stanzas from poems, which send people searching for poem and poet. Recent examples are Four Weddings and a Funeral, in which Auden’s “Funeral Blues” is recited.

Actually, between 1946 and 2004, no fewer than 93 poets from Joseph Addison to W. B. Yeats have poems represented in movies, and many of the poets have more than one poem represented. Auden, for example, has three poems in three different movies, William Blake has ten poems in nearly twenty movies, and W. B. Yeats has eight.

The nature of poetry

Poetry has always been a quiet and shy art. Novels are more boisterous, songs and plays more tumultuous still. Paintings are more spread throughout the landscape than poems are. Any art form from architecture to sculpture to Zen gardening will attract more people than poetry. The nature of poetry dictates its popularity. But popularity does dictate the vitality of poetry.

Poetry lives in small spaces. Even performance poetry, slam poetry, and especially sedate poetry readings attract far smaller audiences than rock concerts, dance recitals, and gallery openings for individual painters.

But many books of poetry are published every year. Many poetry readings are conducted. Many web sites are devoted to poetry. Place the word “poetry” in the Yahoo! search engine and you get 205,000,000 entries! In Google, 170,000,000 entries!

Ruth Lilly

If poetry is dead, someone should tell Ruth Lilly, heiress to the Lilly fortune, who gave Poetry Magazine $100,000,000 back in 2002. According to Joseph Parisi, the magazine’s editor from 1983-2003, that bequest guarantees the magazine’s existence “into perpetuity.”

So even if poetry should die some time in the future, the magazine named for its sake will not.


The copyright of the article The State of Poetry in Poetry is owned by Linda Sue Grimes. Permission to republish The State of Poetry must be granted by the author in writing.


Calliope - Poetry Muse, Wikimedia Commons
Full-length Calliope, Wikimedia Commons
     

Comments
May 5, 2008 7:04 PM
Guest :
Poetry has come and gone throughout my life, and again just recently has sprung back into life after several years nothing but poetic expression. There is not a day that goes by that I don't express something poetic.
My experience is one that I cannot control, rather I am moved by my inspiration, and when it is gone well it may not be due to the death of poetry in my life I just stopped writing it down on paper.
The real Funny thing is that I don't fit into the slacks of what some may call a poet, but then again who really does. I can't kill it off like some parasite. POETRY WILL NEVER DIE, IT IS A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF HEART AND SOUL, IT SPEAKS FROM LIFE TO LIFE AND DEATH TO DEATH, AND LIFE UNTO DEATH; AND AS SOME WOULD WILL FROM DEATH TO LIFE. THE DAY POETRY DIES IS THE END OF MANKIND...OR IS IT?!!!
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