Poetry is going Extinct

musing...

In my parents' days, they learned poetry in school - they had to memorize long poems and recite them to their class. Rote learning? Perhaps, but my uncle, who discovered that I didn't have to do that in my school, always claimed that memorizing poetry helped develop his memory skills (which were indeed amazing) and that it helped him in his medical school studies and in his practice.

This is anecdotal, of course. My daughter has been given a bit of "write a poem" assignment in her school, and is quite curious when she seems me working at poems (the "clean" kind). I hope she doesn't lose that taste and curiosity.

And poetry seems to be staying strong as part of MFA programs. I have two friends specializing in poetry in MFA programs right now, and I'm not even (officially) part of the humanities community.

(I did just buy a book poetry on my recent vacation... trying to do my part.)
 
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Nah! It's a lull. The human spirit will always love poetry.

You don't believe me? Go to a kindergarten and recite a nursery rhyme.
 

And if you love poetry AND jazz you're really shit outta luck. :D

I think the bigger problem is that people are reading less overall and they are reading differently. If you do most of your reading online, you probably read shorter pieces at a time (like tweets or Facebook posts) and skim more. Less thoughtful, analytical reading is probably not a route to more poetry.

On the other hand it's true that kids still love being read to and other art forms that emphasize sonics, like hip hop music, are still really popular. And if you do love to read and\or write poetry, you ain't gonna stop because some article says it's becoming less popular, right?
 
And if you love poetry AND jazz you're really shit outta luck. :D

I think the bigger problem is that people are reading less overall and they are reading differently. If you do most of your reading online, you probably read shorter pieces at a time (like tweets or Facebook posts) and skim more. Less thoughtful, analytical reading is probably not a route to more poetry.

On the other hand it's true that kids still love being read to and other art forms that emphasize sonics, like hip hop music, are still really popular. And if you do love to read and\or write poetry, you ain't gonna stop because some article says it's becoming less popular, right?

I agree with all of this. What is sad is that art, music, and some other forms of creative stimulants are being taken away from our schools. So, as to make sure all is taught for the test. Bookstores are being broken down each day and may become obsolete within a few years. Poetry is a thing of beauty. We live much more in a world of cynicism. So, those who have something interesting to say who want to be witty will always have poetry available. Just, may become less accessible. Which, is actually sort of sad. Thus, why we cannot be afraid to make our own path.
 
It's lies, damned lies and statistics! Though I too once believed, I don't any more. I actually think poetry is more popular now than it has been since the advent of TV. It's simply taken on new forms and is being consumed and distributed in new ways. I lament the fact that the poetry section in the few remaining book stores is woefully small and completely non-representative of contemporary poets, as I would buy more books of poetry if I could browse them, I don't think it's because there is a lack of poets or poetry readers. It's not about education (or lack thereof), though the little I did "learn" about poetry in school nearly turned me off of poetry, it's about a certain snobbery when it comes to poetry and the publishing world.

How many absolute crap novels have y'all read, or started to read that you couldn't finish because they were so f-ing bad (Hello 50 Shades) that get published, how many biographies, memoirs, cook books, self-help books. Those things get pumped out by the gross ton, but not poetry. Half, or more, of the poetry books in book stores are meant for college students or are things that you can get for free on your iPad or kindle because they're so old. The majority of the poetry published nowadays is by university press and never makes it to the mass market.

Nearly all children's picture books are poems, some of which are fantastic (I love having a small kid, great poetry and great illustrations to read and look at every night, sa-wheet!) and those things are damn expensive, $15/20 a pop, for one poem and 10-20 illustrations. There's a market for poetry, people want it, they just don't know how much they want it because there's no saturation. With all the sub-genres of poetry today, there is something for every type of reader and people ARE finding it online, on YouTube and blogs and even here on an erotic writing website. We'd all buy more of it if it was available.

I think the search engine "statistics" are based on false/bad data because I seriously doubt they included lyrics in their parameters. That's how I found Leonard Cohen, looking up they lyrics to Hallelujah, and once I did, I looked him up, saw he was a poet and then jumped over to Amazon and that's where I bought 4 of his books of poetry, all without ever typing in the word poetry. I don't have to type in "poetry" to find Susan Olds poetry, I can just type in her name.

And... I'm preaching to the choir, lol. Ok, rant over. :rolleyes:
 
If you want to make poetry popular, make it relevant. Too much poetry ends up its own semi-colon. If you ignore your audience, your audience ignores you.

Just my two penneth.
 
Something sure stincts badly in here.

'Poems' such as exists here are nonsensical turds.

* sniffs *

image.php


Found it.
 
It's lies, damned lies and statistics!

Some of it certainly it is.

For example, the decline of Google searches for poetry over the last decade. What the plummeting graph also illustrates is how surfers refined the parameters of their own searches, resulting in fewer redundant searches.

The article's writer also fails to take into consideration that people are abandoning Google, Bing and Yahoo in favor of retrieving information elsewhere directly from places like Wikipedia and acquiring it both directly and indirectly during daily excursions into Social Medias.

Google has evolved into a great place for you to discover what Google wants you to discover. In so doing this, it filters out links deemed irrelevant to your inquiries - even though many of those unexplored links are relevant. More often than not you are provided with extremely irrelevant garbage to sift through.

And of course, any properties like YouTube that Google owns are magically relevant. :rolleyes:
 
On the horizon perhaps ......?

The Extinction of Poetry Challenge.
 
there may be far fewer people reading poetry nowadays compared with 100 years ago, but that isn't the same thing as the numbers reading it who love, or even enjoy, poetry.

how many school kids had poetry rammed down their throats they couldn't stomach? how many, who may have enjoyed poetry had they discovered different poets, were turned right off the subject and never once opened a poetry book again as soon as they left school?

the number of those with an affinity with the art, writers or readers, has probably changed very little. that's just my guess, but i'd never trust statistics on the matter :) like the stats that say people don't read any more. nonsense. older people usually prefer books, younger people prefer their kindles, or read tons of stuff from a computer screen. so it's the nature of how we access things that has changed. readers gonna read. :cool:
 
if I go by the number of views of my non-illustrated vs. illustrated poems it seems illustrated poems are quite popular but people really don't view non-illustrated poetry so much : maybe illustrated poems will be wildly popular in 2025 or 2050 when we'll be all gone ...?
 
there may be far fewer people reading poetry nowadays compared with 100 years ago, but that isn't the same thing as the numbers reading it who love, or even enjoy, poetry.

how many school kids had poetry rammed down their throats they couldn't stomach? how many, who may have enjoyed poetry had they discovered different poets, were turned right off the subject and never once opened a poetry book again as soon as they left school?

the number of those with an affinity with the art, writers or readers, has probably changed very little. that's just my guess, but i'd never trust statistics on the matter :) like the stats that say people don't read any more. nonsense. older people usually prefer books, younger people prefer their kindles, or read tons of stuff from a computer screen. so it's the nature of how we access things that has changed. readers gonna read. :cool:

^^^^She thinks people wanna read and embrace nonsense...modern poetry. People want whats relevant to them, not some celebration of your menopause or sex change surgery.
 
^^^^She thinks people wanna read and embrace nonsense...modern poetry. People want whats relevant to them, not some celebration of your menopause or sex change surgery.

When you can prove you actually know what you're talking about with poetry then maybe someone, may, possiply listen to ya champ jus sayin
 
When you can prove you actually know what you're talking about with poetry then maybe someone, may, possiply listen to ya champ jus sayin

The clowns here will be the last to wake up, because shit is all they know how to write. If they could produce better they would. So my comments are never aimed at BUTTERs butt kissers.
 
The clowns here will be the last to wake up, because shit is all they know how to write. If they could produce better they would. So my comments are never aimed at BUTTERs butt kissers.

Perhaps when you volunteer some of your own poetry, your opinions will then pose some merit.

Until then, you are just an opinionated poser.

I would call you a wannabe, but I think eyer has that trademarked.
 
Perhaps when you volunteer some of your own poetry, your opinions will then pose some merit.

Until then, you are just an opinionated poser.

I would call you a wannabe, but I think eyer has that trademarked.

I aint a cat but cat shit still stinks.
 
If you'd stop flapping your arms and saying,

Look at me, Look at me!

you could write some poetry for us.

I serve you better pointing out how awful your wares are. Check the title of this thread again.
 
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