Do you READ poetry? Why (not)?

random thoughts:

• it requires engagement. that can be challenging and most people are incredibly intellectually lazy in our age.
• it's been co-opted and cheapened by greeting cards, advertising jingles and pop music lyrics.
• it's snuffed out on a generational level. most people's parents have read more poetry than their children, and their grandparents even more. we kid ourselves that educational standards have improved over the past century when, in fact, our kids are slaves to rote learning and, absent an inter-generational appreciation of art passed down, it's lost (probably forever).
• publishing is more avaricious than ever before and, given the circumstances already stated, they see no profit or prestige motive in publishing it on any significant scale.

I read the classics more than I do latter-day poetry. I don't know why that is. I'm a fan of Keats/Yeats/ all the eats really ( ) Longfellow, Byron, e.e.cummings, Parker, etc.al.

I think poetry, like all art, is subjective. Many people just don't "get it".
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Grrr. I wrote two whole paragraphs, and then they vanished, as the server went down.

I used to read a lot of poetry as a youngster, and a teenager. I used to prefer to pick up a poetry book, instead of reading novels. I loved reading both in Portuguese and English. I felt inspired to write poetry too, in connection with my own personal experiences. I don't seem to read any poetry books anymore, but get excited when I see someone's own passage of poems in a forum or a blog. I guess, I don't read whole books, as I'm not inspired to pick them up to read. With that in saying, I still love to lurk in the poetry section and read the many lovelies you all have shared.

poetinahat said:

we're also a generation of Googlers.

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I heard you could go blind doing that.

poetinahat said:

Which leads to a slight digression: we're also a generation of Googlers. We don't need to remember anything; it's all a click away.

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but it reverses the process. we would (in the google scenario) have to consciously decide to seek out a line or a poem, to impose it on our own experience.

whereas, with a poem that lives inside you, lines spring from within as a result of our experience. and we are exalted and made better when a hundred year old line of verse resonates enough with us to be drawn out by something in our daily lives.

poetinahat said:

Very good points so far.

I'm reminded that my dad, who went to public schools in Youngstown before dental school, can still recite poetry and Shakespeare passages he learned then. With all my private-school book-learnin', I can't do that.

Which leads to a slight digression: we're also a generation of Googlers. We don't need to remember anything; it's all a click away.

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My dad can do that also, and he didn't even finish school.

I don't seem to google any books, or poetry. I seem to prefer to look at my own collection, or find new books in places I've never been to.

Talking of poetry books, I've just got out my favourite Portuguese poetry book, dated 1700's-1800's. (Finding this out now, as browsing the book) It's by an Author called Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage. He depicts poetry mainly about love and he's passions.

ETA: Yes, it's falling apart. It's been passed down through generations.

This is from someone who doesn't write poetry often.

One big issue is that, to me, poetry doesn't come alive unless it is read, digested, discussed, and picked apart. I can't get that reading alone. I used to read poetry all the time (mostly classics) when I was in college because I was in a cultural setting which encouraged this kind of group discussion.

Secondly, I don't really "believe in" modern poetry. To me, poetry is something shared by a culture. A kind of super-text on the language, if you will. Poetry is not poetry if it's only read and composed by a bunch of intellectuals. I see poetry in children's rhymes, pop songs, and even in commercial jingles. I don't see poetry in a chapbook with a print run of 300.

ETA: I guess what I'm saying is that poetry can't exist in a vacuum. It has to be part of a cultural dialogue. A large part of our cultural dialogue has been lost, as some have pointed out, because we no longer practice memorization of poetry in school. It's too bad, since there's far more value in memorization than just "having the words."

Luís de Camões was also a great poet. My dad seems to know many of he's poems by heart, and Luis dates back to the 1500's.

Do you read poetry? Why?
Err... Apparently I am one of those non-existing or else snobbish or elitist people who read poetry. I've read/heard it all my life. My dad recited Pushkin to me in the cradle. In my culture people read and memorize poetry, and yes, I have memorized a fair amount of poems, mostly in Russian but also in English and some other languages. In late adolescence I have shifted from the classical to the experimental/modern. I now mostly enjoy modern English-language free-form verse, along with my old favorites of course (pre-modern European poetry, and 20th century Russian poetry of the Silver age.)
Poetry is an integral part of my emotional life.

Why do you think people don't read it more?
As I said elsewhere, almost everybody I know reads and enjoys poetry - of various styles and periods. But then again, I am in academia. Please throw stones.

Today I asked my history teacher if he liked poetry, and if he'd like to read this poem by Rita Dove about the plague (which we've studied in detail); he asked if it rhymed in a tone that suggested that he'd throw himself off a cliff if it did (and he graduated from Notre Dame, where the students are certainly exposed to poetry).

If I can suggest a viewpoint based on my old prejudices, people don't read poetry anymore because it's (supposedly!) obscure and elitist. My parents believe poetry is for the mentally unstable and emotionally troubled; I don't think they've ever read more than the commercial stuff. When I told them I was taking a creative writing class this year, I hesitated to tell them that I'd have to try my hand at poetry. At first I even hated the idea of writing it. I considered skipping to advanced creative writing, where the teacher focuses on short stories instead. My opinion has changed, obviously and I couldn't be more grateful that it did.

In my experience, poetry is put into the same basket with the opera, symphony, and fine art. I read it (now, in fact, devour it), but only because I had to first overcome my prejudices in order to read what I had to write.

Random thinking here -

I was read to every day/evening when I was a child, and poetry was included. We were also encouraged to see well-written songs as poetry, and to look at the lyrics. I grew up in the days when record album liner notes were still common and written by very, very literate people. Song lyrics were often included in those notes and the poetry of them pointed out.

As a kid I loved the old stuff, Dylan Thomas, Yeats, Keats, Emily Dickinson et al and was encouraged to appreciate them. Frost and Sandburg came later; Plath I read - but her dark brilliance left me so bummed out for days afterward I swore off her work. Anyway. Lots of poets and poetry.

Then in high school either I derailed or, I'm not sure, I guess it was me. While I have an excellent memory I don't memorize well (I can't memorize a grocery list) - there was a lot of that, which sucked the joy out of it. Then I found I couldn't write the stuff at all, despite all the poetry I'd read. The class became an agony for me. School really made poetry seem like some dense unattainable chore, and that was to someone who already loved it. I remember the other kids just falling asleep in the class all the time.

So, I think U.S. public schools sometimes kill poetry, as they often do history, to the point where graduates won't voluntarily go near either ever again. They hear the word and they shudder. I write history and people just about do shudder when I tell them that.

I still read poetry all the time, old and new. Why? I guess because it's so intimate? Arguably the most personal form of writing. I've never asked myself why. As I've said at other times here, if I feel I'm being condescended to by the poet I go away from that, but that applies for me in any and all forms of writing.

/random ramble

I've thought a little further about this question of Why.

I was raised in a hodgepodge of a home full of divergent personalities and acute minds; the one common thread was reading and love of English. On the coffee table in the livingroom on any given day might be copies of Tennyson, huge photo books of bees, Field and Stream magazine, Charles Addams cartoons, Car and Driver and Reader's Digest. The whole house was a kaleidoscope of reading material.

I think the fact that poetry was read to me as a child might be key for me. Oh, there was nothing like hearing The Rime of the Ancient Mariner read to me on a winter's evening, or Poe in dusky October shadows by the fire.

In the poetry read to me there were worlds and feelings, derring-do and despair, love lost and realized, and in the economy and rhythm of the words the writer was speaking to me and only me in that moment. It was personal - personal for the writer, and personal in my reception of it. I was able to understand that at an early age, albeit not able to articulate it. It's almost like . . . receiving a handwritten letter. That's how it felt then, how it feels to me still, and why I read poetry.

But who's reading? Is it enough to write if no one's reading?
>>>>>It is, for me. My own poetry is the one thing that I can read and enjoy entirely without thought as to "marketability," or "publishability," or whatever. I hate to have to admit it, but as desperately as I aspire to writing great novels, poetry is the only writing that I have ever done purely for the sake and enjoyment of the creative process. Funny (or not), but when you compare my fiction to my poetry I think it shows.

Do you read poetry? Why?
>>>>>I do. I have GOBS of college literature texts packed full of poetry, I have every poetry book ever sold in a thrift store in the greater Oklahoma City Area, I have several shelves of poetry books that I actually bought and paid full price for (my favorites, mostly), and my pride and joy, my 1941 edition of The Viking Book of Poetry of the English Speaking World.

But I read it all sporadically. Randomly. Occasionally. Same as I write it. Just when the mood strikes. Poetry for me is a pure escape. When I write it, I don't have to worry about "my writing career," because I'm not going to make a career from it. When I read it, I don't have the fiction writer in my brain tearing it apart and analyzing it for technique.

Why do you think people don't read it more?
>>>>>I don't know how many people read it before. I can't answer this question until I can find out who was Emily Dickinson's target audience.

poetinahat said:

We can write until the skin of our fingers grows around our pens, and envelops them, like a tree takes in a strand of barbed wire.

But who's reading? Is it enough to write if no one's reading?

Do you read poetry?

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Yes.

poetinahat said:

Why?

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Because breathing is essential. The same reason I listen to chamber music--for the intense personal expression that I can be a part of and enjoy.

poetinahat said:

Why do you think people don't read it more?

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Several reasons. People don't read much anymore and they're not used to decoding simple sentences, let alone the more abstract and complex assembly of words in a poem. They are taught from an early age to experience art like they experience fast food: get some, use it, dump it. Don't worry about whether it truly fills a need or gives you something more to sustain you--you gotta eat. Why worry if its good food, as long as it fills the immediate need. So they gravitate to Helen Steiner Rice or pop-song lyrics and feel they're feeding their intellectual and emotional selves, when in fact they've eaten a big mac and while their body still knows it's hungry, their mind has moved on to other needs thinking it has accomplished something.

That, and, as Kevin said, they are pre-programmed to dislike it by a system that does it no favors.

Bitter much? Just some.

I'm such a grumpy old guy these days.

Well said, many of you.

I do indeed read it, and it will remain my first love in literature. I like the prose I read to be poetic; lyrical, too.

It was read to me as a child, too. I believe that can make a difference.

Do You Read Poetry?

We can write until the skin of our fingers grows around our pens, and envelops them, like a tree takes in a strand of barbed wire.

But who's reading? Is it enough to write if no one's reading?

Do you read poetry? Why?

Do you not? Why not?

Why do you think people don't read it more?

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Why Bother to Answer - Haskins said it all.

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But seriously - I do like to read it. I like to read it here at AW. What pisses me off is to pick up a book of verse and think, 'Damn. I can do better than that and the folks at AW blows this shit away.'

Which is not a nice thingk to say about whomsoever wrote it but that's how I feel sometimes. I like to hear OLD poetry recited because reading it - well, I read too fast and a lot of the meaning escapes me.

As Mr. Haskins said, it requires engagement because I have to translate that 'old speak' in my head to 'new speak' and I must slow down to do that.

William Haskins said:

random thoughts:

• it requires engagement. that can be challenging and most people are incredibly intellectually lazy in our age.
• it's been co-opted and cheapened by greeting cards, advertising jingles and pop music lyrics.
• it's snuffed out on a generational level. most people's parents have read more poetry than their children, and their grandparents even more. we kid ourselves that educational standards have improved over the past century when, in fact, our kids are slaves to rote learning and, absent an inter-generational appreciation of art passed down, it's lost (probably forever).
• publishing is more avaricious than ever before and, given the circumstances already stated, they see no profit or prestige motive in publishing it on any significant scale.

Click to expand...

>''<
Greed Kills

I read mostly poetry at this point. As an English instructor, reading a novel purely for entertainment is something reserved for the summers due to the number of pages I'm forced to evaluate during the school year. On average, I have around 100 composition students per semester, and with each assignment, I'm reading page equivalents of WAR AND PEACE (only it's not as good). If I require stress reduction, I sit back and read poetry, allow the experience to settle into my psyche, and then go back to the multiple, three-page essays that are the main components of my class syllabus.

It's true, that people don't read anymore; at least, not in the same voracious way as in the past. After all, we have television and its mini-series, movies adapted from books, etc. With these innovations and our modern desire for instant gratification, why read when you can SEE an abridged version of the text on screen, be that screen small or large. I agree with the others here who've said that humans are intellectually lazy. Experiencing poetry requires an investment in time and concentration, something that the average, day-in-day-out individual is reluctant to offer.

Haskins is right in what he says, but what he describes are the symptoms, not the disease.

Poetry is still being written and the market for it still exists, and the proof lies in the publics appetite for "Good Songs", meaningful "Greeting Card Verse" and the ever increasing popularity of Sites like this one.

It's the delivery system that has broken down because The Academic and Publishing Communities which should be supporting and promoting it have abandoned it for the sake of self-serving masturbation in pursuit of the fantasy of making the writing of Poetry a "Profession" rather than the Communicative Art it is by it's nature.

When the Academics and the Publishers get that message, the current situation will right itself and "True" Poetry will flourish again.

Think About it.

Jim Hoye, (JRH)

P.S. And yes, i do read it and enjoy it whenever and whereever I can find it.

JRH said:

It's the delivery system that has broken down because The Academic and Publishing Communities which should be supporting and promoting it have abandoned it for the sake of self-serving masturbation in pursuit of the fantasy of making the writing of Poetry a "Profession" rather than the Communicative Art it is by it's nature.
Jim Hoye, (JRH)

P.S. And yes, i do read it and enjoy it whenever and whereever I can find it.

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Well ... yeah.

No, I don't read poetry, let me tell you why. Back when I was in college I was an English Lit major. I was just beginning to take an interest in poetry. I had an instructor who demanded we write a five page paper from an obscure poem.

This. Was. Torture.

After that I didn't attempt to read poetry. Only recently within the past six months have I taken an interest in poetry again. This time I'm looking at contemporary poetry. I think poetry should be assessible to the people and the way it was pounded over my head in college, it had an elitist stench to it.

Children write poems, but the way poetry is talked about it's as if only someone with a Ph.D is qualified to write Poetry (with a capital P). It's why people listen to music over reading poems, because no matter what you like, there's some form of music that you relate to --Jazz, blues, country, rock n roll (hard rock, soft rock, classic rock), R&B, hip hop, classical, bluegrass, the list goes on.

How many people think that about poetry?

Moonshade, I'm sorry you had a bad experience with poetry so early on. I've sat in classrooms where the prof seemed to laud his/her degree over my head, kind of a "Ha Ha! I'm smarter than you are. See, I have a PhD." I teach poetry in my American Lit class, and I hope I do it in a way that makes it fun. Your story is an example of why poetry is pushed out of the average reader's mind. What a shame. When you read fiction, the story's there. The reader doesn't have to imagine what the hero looks like because the author has usually given a clear description of the character. In poetry, only the vaugest outline of its meaning exists on the page. It's up to the reader to fill in the blanks, add color and texture. I think that's the great part about it. That's what personalizes a poem, makes it as much the reader's as it is the author's.

It's like wine (or Guinness); you have to suffer a little before it grows on you. And like wine, there is a certain amount of snobbery surrounding it for the uninitiated, something to be shied away from because a person might not want to admit that he doesn't "get it. " And, like wine, the fault lies in the marketing of the past. It's not necessary to know bouquet from mis en bouteille to enjoy wine; you just have to find one you like and start there. The same with poetry. I don't particularly like Shakespeare, but I appreciate Shakespeare. I like Neruda and Housman and W.C.Williams, but I might not be able to tell you why. It doesn't matter why you enjoy it, just that it feels good rolling around on your tongue. Who cares if you can't explain it. The problem is that the "marketers" of poetry try to convince the uninitiated that such understanding is necessary to fully enjoy the art. Bunk! Someone once wrote in a crit here that "sometimes, you just have to crawl inside a poem" much like you should just grab the $10 bottle of Beringer because it is the one that tastes best to you. If more people read poetry without somebody else telling them what is supposed to be good or bad, poetry would see the recognition it deserves as an art form.

*...and, um, the irony of this statement coming from me was not lost on this author...