Why is it...

My personal feeling is that poetry was never a proper medium. It's a type of prose with static rules (or, just a really weird type of prose when you get into poetry with no rules), not an artform unto itself like writing.

It fell out of fashion in the same way most fads fall out of fashion. Might as well ask why you don't see a lot of silent films these days.

Cyia said:

... that poetry is sort of a dead market, and most agents won't touch it (which would lead one to assume that most people won't read and/or buy it), yet so many self/vanity pubbed books are poetry?

Personally, I can't stand poetry,

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You've just answered your question.

caw

Cyia said:

No I didn't. Obviously there are thousands of people who enjoy writing the stuff. You'd think that would mean there's a market for it, but there's not.

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Because hardly anybody reads it, other than the people who wrote it. You are in the mainstream when you say "Personally, I can't stand poetry," and you perfectly define the commercial market situation for it.

A corollary is that a lot of people view "poetry" as being easier to write than almost any other literary form. Any ol' body can put seventeen syllables together and get a haiku, right?

Doesn't mean it's a good haiku, of course, but it's a damn sight easier than putting 80,000 words together to get a novel. Hell, I can rip off a couple dozen of them haiku devils before lunch.

caw

... that poetry is sort of a dead market, and most agents won't touch it (which would lead one to assume that most people won't read and/or buy it), yet so many self/vanity pubbed books are poetry?

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I think agents don't go for poetry because you have to be proven first. It's like selling short stories ... you don't just jump in and sell an anthology. You sell to magazines, to anthologies, etc., then when you have a following or lots of credentials, that's when you go the book route. I suspect the majority of self/vanity pubbed poetry books are writers who never really got that following or are too impatient to submit their work individually from the start.

That's my initial thought, but I could be very, very wrong.

Poetry is still popular. It's called music lyrics. It seems that way to me, anyway. As access to music has gotten easier and more portable the popularity of poetry seems to me to have gone down. And most people (especially young people) writing poetry tend not to be huge fans of poetry as a written medium but do tend to be big music fans. I mean look at how popular rap was/is. It's essentially spoken poetry. Written poetry is still a valid art form but it's a niche market. The poets for the mainstream market are lyricists, rappers, and singer-songwriters.

blacbird said:

Because hardly anybody reads it, other than the people who wrote it. You are in the mainstream when you say "Personally, I can't stand poetry," and you perfectly define the commercial market situation for it.

A corollary is that a lot of people view "poetry" as being easier to write than almost any other literary form. Any ol' body can put seventeen syllables together and get a haiku, right?

Doesn't mean it's a good haiku, of course, but it's a damn sight easier than putting 80,000 words together to get a novel. Hell, I can rip off a couple dozen of them haiku devils before lunch.

caw

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great post.

american poetry, for the most part, did it to itself. it pulled itself into an incestuous orgy in the ivory tower of academia.

... some say rap is poetry. So looked at in that way poetry is in its hay day.
In regards to my own reading habits, I haven't read altogether that much poetry, and the poems I've read are from years and centuries back. But what I have read has made a lasting impact and influenced me immensely. Great poetry is that powerful. It emblazons its stanzas on the soul.

there is some truth to the notion that poetry has migrated into music, greeting card, commercial jingles. but that's not all the story, and there's no sense in deceiving ourselves that it is.

there were hymns and drinking songs and political lampooning chants in days of yore. poetry still existed.

William Haskins said:

great post.

american poetry, for the most part, did it to itself. it pulled itself into an incestuous orgy in the ivory tower of academia.

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Yep. Pretty much. There are modern poets I read and like--but damn, they're hard to find.

There's a reason I spend so much time reading poetry before c. 1950.

... true enough. I personal don't totally buy into the metamorphosis, either. But the fact that mass audiences are responding to poetically sung songs does indicate that the public retains an appetite for poetry. So there is something to be optimistic about, perhaps, for those who write poetry.

Better change your cut off date to 1956, Medi.
"Howl." ;-)

William Haskins said:

great post.

american poetry, for the most part, did it to itself. it pulled itself into an incestuous orgy in the ivory tower of academia.

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This has some truth to it. The (modern) poems lauded as great poems by 'academia' tend to be so obscure and meaningless that I question the judgement of those that like it.

yes, poetry is subjective, but if I pull a few poems from the greats, you can see and feel the power of their poetry. And even if you don't like it, you can at least appreciate it.

But some of the poems lauded by academia, especially poems that win some of these contests are just horrid. It feels as if Academia purposefully picks these horrid poems just so they can justify their own superiority since us mere mortals can't understand why the poem is so good.

Ken said:

... some say rap is poetry. So looked at in that way poetry is in its hay day.

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Very true. People who don't listen to rap think rap is all about the bitches and hos and the loud bass beats.

But rap is poetry set to music and has dominated the music scene around the world in every language so that should say something.

Ken said:

In regards to my own reading habits, I haven't read altogether that much poetry, and the poems I've read are from years and centuries back. But what I have read has made a lasting impact and influenced me immensely. Great poetry is that powerful. It emblazons its stanzas on the soul.

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Completely agree.

Question? Has poetry ever had a time where it was the preferred art?

I love poetry for the imagery and thoughts it provokes. When I read a great poem, I literally 'think' and 'feel' emotions and thoughts i've never felt before. Its like seeing a 'new' color outside the human spectrum.

But for some reason, it's fallen out of vogue and the mainstream hardly reads it beyond school assignments.

Mel...

Ken said:

... some say rap is poetry. So looked at in that way poetry is in its hay day

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Homer was originally set to the lyre, just like Lil Jon is set to god knows what nowadays.

After listening to Only Built For the Cuban Linx Part 2 I am pretty confident as to the future of poetry, at least for the next few years. And Melvilles Battle Pieces is one of the most important pieces of poetry for this century. So is Virgil and Lucan, but that's just me.

EDIT: Nas: "I rap in front of more niggas than in the slave ships", tell me this isn't as good, or better than Byron.

... feel the same way myself about obscurity in poetry, Mel. Some is okay. And there are poems I understand only a fraction of which I still dig very much, like The Wasteland. Still, I wish poets in general would be less obscure and express what they're saying more directly. And then at times I wonder if the fault lies with me, and that I'm just not swift enough to grasp the meaning, which other readers seem to be able to in a first read. Oddly, poems from the past like The Ancient Mariner and The Prisoner of Chillion are much less obscure, which is one of the reasons why I turn to them more.

Kurtz said:

EDIT: Nas: "I rap in front of more niggas than in the slave ships", tell me this isn't as good, or better than Byron.

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... I've never reported anyone to a Mod before, but I am going to do so for the first time with this post of yours. I'm honestly sick of your racist language, lamely couched in observations as this. The truly sad thing is that you are really intelligent, but wasting it away by a fixation on being perverse.

To the OP:

If you don't like poetry and aren't interested in it, why would you bother to criticise it?

Do you find all poetry that easy to lump into one group, and given that you don't read it, how do you come to that conclusion?

If you don't read it, what makes you think you have the background to understand it, much less judge it?

The insinuation that self-publication is evidence of a work's lack of quality is specious. Would you also say that only Top 40 music is worth listening to?

There are several genres very actively discussed here in which I have utterly no interest. But I damn well don't stipulate that they're of no use to anyone. And, since I don't read them, I don't presume to generalise about them.

Ken said:

... I've never reported anyone to a Mod before, but I am going to do so for the first time with this post of yours. I'm honestly sick of your racist language, lamely couched in observations as this. The truly sad thing is that you are really intelligent, but wasting it away by a fixation on being perverse.

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Okay, cool. I was just quoting a man making reference to the hideous injustice of slavery. And I wasn't being sarcastic either by the way.

Let's trash on the poets. They seem fair game. Have at it.

Poetry is not a money making machine.

But it is a passion for a lot of people. And when it is done well it is well done. It can be quite beautiful...like a song. It could take your breath away.


People often self-publish poetry so that they have something to sell at poetry readings. And WHO DO YOU THINK GOES TO POETRY READINGS? People who hate poetry, maybe?

NO.

People who enjoy it.


I have never self-published a book of poetry...in the traditional sense of self-publishing (that sounds weird, but I know what I mean...and hey, that's what matters).

BUT I have put together some home-made poetry chapbooks to distribute at my poetry readings.

How much money have I made on these? Over the course of the last 3 or 4 years...probably about $2000.00 or so.

I'm NOT impressed with the 'it's okay to attack certain people' mentality of this thread.

But maybe it's just me. Maybe my poetic sensitivity has been stepped on.

Don't tell me what the poets are doin'...

Eh, poets are people who like the beauty of words. Not all writers are like that, apparently.

poetinahat said:

Eh, poets are people who like the beauty of words. Not all writers are like that, apparently.

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I know, eh! Exactly what I thought. Words are so incredibly beautiful...and like bursts of perfection when every single word is made to count. God...if I could roll in words, I would. Screw the downy comfort of duvets...words is where you'll find me.

I quite like good poetry. It's a mystery to me why I don't seek it out and read more of it. I sometimes read the poetry in the literary journals I buy but not always. I'm making an effort to share some of the poetry I've studied with my kids, like the Rime of Ancient Mariner, Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, Blake's The Tyger (I LOVE that one), and so on. Although it's all old, I don't believe old poetry is the only poetry.

Here's the secret to my everyday writing practice.


ALWAYS BEGIN WITH POETRY. When I wake up at 4:30 every single morning to write for an hour...before I do anything else, I commune with words through the writing of a poem. Only after that wafer of poetry am I ready to immerse myself in my writing for that hour.

KTC said:

Here's the secret to my everyday writing practice.


ALWAYS BEGIN WITH POETRY. When I wake up at 4:30 every single morning to write for an hour...before I do anything else, I commune with words through the writing of a poem. Only after that wafer of poetry am I ready to immerse myself in my writing for that hour.

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I've tried writing poetry. I'm not very good at it.

If you're up at 4:30 am, why aren't you in bed by now? Are you one of those super humans who needs only an hour of sleep a night or something?