... 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, and never felt compelled to write it beyond what I was assigned in school, but there's a TON of the stuff out there in self-published form. If that many people find it cathartic, and if that many people want to put it in a book, then why is it such a dwindling genre?
Is it because so much poetry is "moon in June" style cliche?
Is it because the people who write the stuff ONLY want to write it and therefore no one actually wants to buy/read it?
I'm well aware that vanity published books are garbage more times than not, but usually, the number of books in a given genre seems to follow the current trends. (Lots of vampires, etc.) So why is there no trend in commercial publishing for poetry?
Personally, I can't stand poetry, and never felt compelled to write it beyond what I was assigned in school, but there's a TON of the stuff out there in self-published form. If that many people find it cathartic, and if that many people want to put it in a book, then why is it such a dwindling genre?
Is it because so much poetry is "moon in June" style cliche?
Is it because the people who write the stuff ONLY want to write it and therefore no one actually wants to buy/read it?
I'm well aware that vanity published books are garbage more times than not, but usually, the number of books in a given genre seems to follow the current trends. (Lots of vampires, etc.) So why is there no trend in commercial publishing for poetry?