This article from Newsweek states that poetry readership is at a 16 year low. Remember the hay day poetry had back in 1993? (I write, I don't do math so if I counted wrong on that number, it just illustrates the point that I was reading poetry back then and avoiding math classes).
Here are my personal 10 reasons that you should be reading poetry:
1. It's short. One small poem will take you 2 minutes to read and give you a full day's serving of thought. A long poem can take you an hour to read, but it will probably take you a week to digest. A full week of thoughts!?! Yes, my friends, that is what poetry can do for you.
2. It can express in a few lines feelings that you never thought anyone would ever be able to find words for.
3. It's a quick pick-me-up during your day. You can't sit in the office and read a novel or a short story, but you can click your way to a couple of poems through the internet, read them, and have your day softened, deepened or enlivened.
4. There is a poem out there for everyone. Really. Poems can be plainspoken and straightforward. Poems can be layered and obscure. Poems can be funny or sad. If you want reading about religion, love, moms, death, life, spring, sheep, horses, the devil, war, peace, nothingness... there's a poem waiting for you to find it.
5. Haiku, sestina, sonnet. It can be an exercise in form. But if it's good, it will strike you with its substance.
6. Poems utilize words in every possible way. The sounds, the etymology, the homophones, the euphemisms, the misunderstanding, the spelling, the look on the page of a each word may be a part of the poem-- or not.
7. When a poem is read out loud and it says something great, the room is quiet just like when a great piece of music has been performed.
8. You can't write a novel for an occasion, but you can write a poem.
9. A poem makes you feel the experience just as much as it makes you see it.
10. I just like poetry. I think everybody should like it. I think it's silly that people will spend time reading about whatever MSN or Yahoo puts in its feed, but people don't take a minute to read something as wonderful as a poem.
Hey! Here comes a poem now:
Saint Francis and the Sow by Galway Kinnell
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7 comments:
Mmmm...that was a nice one.
Will you give us a poem a day this month?
i don't know if i have that kind of blog dedication. I'll see what I can do.
If it is at a sixteen year low, that means that poetry readership hasn't been this low since 1993.
"Well, I remember the poetry drought of '93..."
How long has the National Poetry Service been keeping data? Are we simply in "el nino" phase of the normal 16 year poetry readership cycle, or do poetry forecasters predict a more severe poetry drought, such as the "great prose bowl" of the thirties?
thanks for the clarification. i've been sick this week and coming to work anyway which isn't really helping my mind or my body. i can't find a 7 day forecast let alone an extended prediction for poetry readership.
I would like to amend my original comment. I would now like it to read:
"...such as the 'Great Prose Bowl' of the 'Wordy Thirties?'"
Thank you.
Bravo Matthew. Linda nice sow poem!! I have such fond memories of the 14 teats and 14 sucking piglets. Sows are beautiful!!
Are you being a grasshopper because of the wordy thirties?(or was it a cricket?)
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