Of course, you might read poetry. I expect more Dopers read it than would be true of most “communities.” But most people don’t read poetry at all when they aren’t forced to.
If you don’t, why don’t you?
If you do, why do you?
I’m a poet. I can count on one hand the number of people in 3-d space I know who are interested in poetry. I have lots of friends and acquaintances online who are, but considering the vastness of the internets, that’s hardly surprising.
Poetry is marginalized. I don’t think anyone would argue with that. People read. They read novels and magazines and James Frey. They don’t read poetry.
Great question. I am an avid reader - 1-2 books a week, 2 magazines (the New Yorker and EWeekly), the NYTimes most mornings, etc. I have a friend who is an aspiring poet and has participated in a number of Master Classes offered thru Columbia University and the Poet’s Workshop (?) and other NY institutions and he and I discuss his work regularly.
But I don’t read poetry. I even skip most poems in the New Yorker.
Why? The first thing that comes to mind is the work involved. Poetry, to me, when done correctly, is the most dense writing there is. With the fewest works, it is meant to capture the most complex description, emotional, psycological events, relationships etc. It requires a clear space to be absorbed, pondered, connections made, different layers of meaning explored, etc.
I respect the art form but, to give it the time I feel it requires, have chosen not to fit it into my reading life. I regret that, but feel I am making an informed choice.
Reading poetry takes a certain amount of acclimation, since the language of poetry has evolved in such a different direction than prose has. Also, poetry carries with it a certain intellectual cachet, and that turns off a vast majority of the potential audience. It isn’t read in high school at all, or by most college students. So most people who are looking for something to read don’t even think of picking up poetry.
I would have to confess that the last time I read a poem I wasn’t already familiar with was in a doctor’s office, in The New Yorker. I’ve read Robinson Jeffers and Edgar Lee Masters in the past month, but I never even think to look in the poetry section when I go to the bookstore anymore.
People didn’t marginalize poetry, poetry marginalized people. The abandonment of traditional verse form was also the abandonment of traditional verse audience. Poets began writing only to elite audiences who would “get it.” The non-elites did not react to this snub by prostrating themselves to their superiors and promising to try real hard to be worthy. They decided that to hell with poetry. More than a century later, poets nail themselves to crosses crying, “Why hast thou uncouth, knuckle-dragging trailer trash abandoned us?”
As others have said, poetry annoys me. It smacks of arrogance. I can tolerate poetry that’s got strict rules, such as haikus, but modern poetry is particularly bad. And it seems like everyone thinks they can write poetry.
Not to mention no one can ever agree, it seems, on what a poem means. Everybody’s got their own two cents.
I don’t really know why I don’t like it though. I’ve tried to read it many times, just can’t do it.
I’m a fan of classical poetry- have several volumes on my bookshelf right now. I tend to stay away from modern poetry for the reasons I stay away from modern art- many times, it’s less a matter of skill in crafting than it is a matter of the creator’s feelings. I prefer my poetry to create a narrative, or hold a complex cadence, rather than be ‘evocative.’
I’ve certainly no problems with people that write poetry (I write on occasion, though I’ve no illusions as to its quality)…but I feel as though modern poetry is a much more personal experience than in days of old.
I think it’s a writing form that most people do not understand or feel comfortable with.
It is tainted by the “intellectual” moniker. I blame the beatniks for making shite seem significant and alienating a huge audience with that attitude.
I also blame teachers–alot of teachers. Instead of introducing poetry to young kids, alot of them get exposure in junior high. They are force fed Whitman or Tennyson, when Larkin might be a better choice (oh, can’t have that–there might be swear words!).
I also think that most teachers are not familiar with alot of contemporary poets–I know I’m not. The best book I bought for myself this year was that Garrison Keiller one Good Poems or some such title. Reading it really opened my eyes.
So, I think it’s the way poetry is taught and the notion that it’s just too high brow for us regular folks. But I think we need poets–it’s no way to make a living, but poetry can capture an essence of a time. Perhaps it’s best in retrospect–although I think that most truly great poetry is timeless.
I’m not a big poetry reader, I have to admit. It might be lingering bad memories of badly-taught english courses, or not wanting to take the effort. I’m always amazed at how I see depictions of gentlemen in Victorian times in movies and plays eagerly workig at writing and reading poetry. Tennyson, I understand, was wildly popular in his day. I have a hard time imagining Americans of any class getting that worked up overr poetry.
Only – apparently some do. I keep hearing about poetry “slams” in the news and in the “Arts” sections of papers. I’ve never been to one. I get the impression they’re a lot like rap performances, but I might be wrong. Outside of those performances, though, IO still can’t imagine modern Americans getting workede up over it.
Yet as recently as the 1960s Robert Frost was hot stuff.
I do like some poetry – mainly epics and translatios of epics:
the Iliad
The Odyssey – specially Fitzgerald’s translations
The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner – one iof the few poems I really appreciate the meter and linguistic fireworks in.
**The Wasteland
Howl**
The Rubaiyat, especially that other Fitzgerald’s translation.
Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight – but not Tolkien’s translation.
I’ve read others, but not avidly. I’d read these again.
Meant to say that the poems in the New Yorker drive me insane. Could they be more pompous and arrogant? None of them make much sense–and as said above, most are about obscure personal things that are only relevant to the poet.
IMO, poetry has lost the voice of the people–it is written for the individual now, not the culture. Keillor’s book showed me that that ain’t necessarily so, and I am glad.
Still hate the New Yorker poems, though. And that’s the only place where I see poetry published. There are poems in my mother’s Birds and Blooms magazine,but they are written at the 6th grade level. Surely there is a middle ground somewhere?
I love going to poetry readings, where you can hear the author read his/her own work. But reading it out of a book just doesn’t have the same appeal to me.
What do you think makes the difference for you? Is it the atmoshpere of a poetry-friendly place, being able to ask the poet to expand on their ideas in plain prose, or something else?
Poetry is like taking a short story or novel, pondering on it for a few days or years and condensing, rending, and editting to get rid of all the enjoyable filler so as to leave only the core ideas left, with the only possible source for enjoyment remaining being the intellectual pursuit of trying to put back together the short story or book from the mashed up bit of text that remains.
Personally, I see no point. In my world view, if you as the writer care more about showing off how skillfully you can make a thought-piece than putting those same ideas in a format that can be just as thought-provoking and more enjoyable–then I just don’t much care to be bothered to read it.