Poetry’s Uphill Climb

I have had conversations with several people recently about the state of poetry, and I’ve seen other signs that there is a growing interest among Christians in reviving poetry. That’s great; the Bible’s written in poetry, and our un-poetic sensibilities have been one reason for our un-imaginative and inaccurate reading of the Bible.

But I tend to throw a wet blanket on efforts to revive poetry, because I think the sociological and cultural factors stacked against poetry are vast. To revive poetry, we’d have to have a major overhaul not only in reading habits and expectations, but also in the technology and education.

Maybe I’m too pessimistic, but here are some of my reasons:

1) Poetry is mainly an oral and aural art. It depends on hearing, and isn’t really written to be read on a page. (Some is; ee cummings wrote pattern poetry that depends on typesetting; earlier, Herbert did some too; but generally speaking poets write for the ear.) But most of our reading these days is silent reading. We listen to music and bands, but not to poetry.

2) Poetry is less accessible than prose. Reading a newspaper is low-level reading; the writer writes just to give the facts as clearly and accessible as possible, and the reader is only looking for facts. Poetry doesn’t work like that; you’ve got to read poetry slowly and meditatively, and it’s just harder. It’s not going to appeal to everyone, especially in a fast-paced technological world. Blogs and poetry don’t mix well.

3) When the literacy rate was lower, and reading a more “aristocratic” skill, the readers that existed had more time and taste to read poetry. Now most everyone can read, but they don’t have the tastes or the basic skills to grapple with the difficulties of poetry.

4) Money’s a factor. Stephen King and John Grisham become multi-millionaires from writing books; any poets in the seven-figure range? Doubt it. If you can write, even if you can write poetry, you’ll be tempted toward prose (that, or you’ll hold out as a purist, usually a poor one).

5) On the other hand: There is a lot of “poetry” in popular music, and some of it is quite interesting. Oxford’s Christopher Ricks wrote a book on Bob Dylan’s poetry a few years ago. So there’s a place for poetry of a sort, but reviving poetry that’s not sung or rapped against the background of electric guitars is a steep uphill battle.