Why isn't poetry popular like other arts?

[Sameer Telkar]

Poets are very hard to find in the modern world.Every great poet with the exceptions of few Blakes and Shakespeares ends up being forgotten.

[cafolini]

And Shakespeare is brought up only by old farts that cannot get rid of the Lawrence Olivier fatal complex. LOL

And obviously you know very little about Blake to be able to put it at the same level as the monkey signifying nothing.

[YesNo]

As song lyrics, poetry is very popular. Many people know the lyrics to their favorite songs by heart.

[MorpheusSandman]

It seems to me your thread title and OP are asking/saying two different things. I'll address your OP first: poets aren't hard to find at all if you're looking them. There are multiple periodicals dedicated to poetry, and even a simple search for "poetry" on Google or Amazon will reveal more than enough to keep you busy for 100 lifetimes. No "great" poets are forgotten, or, if they are, we don't know about them. All of the remembered poets (and there are plenty) are great in one respect or another. Dante, Homer, Keats, Donne, Yeats, Eliot, Milton, Virgil, Whitman, Poe, Byron, Shelley, Tennyson, Stevens, Hardy, Coleridge, Auden... these are not what I'd call "forgotten". The reason most poets are forgotten, though, is the same reason most painters, filmmakers, photographers, etc. are forgotten and that's because humans are finite and can only etch so many into the canon.

Now, your thread question of "why isn't poetry popular like other arts?" is a more difficult question to answer thoroughly. If you mean why isn't it popular like film and pop music, then the answer is simply one of fashion. However, in its lack of mass popularity, poetry shares the same place of painting, photography, and modern classical music, and I don't think that's a bad company to be in. Even novels, while more popular than poetry, aren't nearly as popular as film, pop music, and TV. If you look through history, the popular art mediums change, and the popular works they produce tend to be just as forgotten as anything else (how many of Shakespeare's contemporaries can you name? Their popular works?). However, poetry is still "popular" to a certain extent, and, as the editor of Poetry Magazine once said, they've never had as many subscribers as they do now.

[Ecurb]

I think poetry is still quite popular -- it's just that modern poetry isn't. Most educated English speakers can quote Yeats and Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Whitman, Dickinson and Eliot. I consider myself a poetry lover -- but I probably can't quote any poetry from the last 30 years (well, maybe a Merwin verse or two).

I'm not sure why -- perhaps lyric poetry has been replaced by other media (recorded music, for one). Or maybe current trends in poetry just aren't very accessible. Symphonic music is similar: most of us know Mozart and Beethoven and Stravinski. But can you hum any orchestral tunes composed within the last 30 years?

[Lokasenna]

Perhaps I'm in my ivory tower, but I've got loads of friends who are interested in poetry, both in terms of consumption and composition. There always seems to be something going on with modern poetry for them. Not my cup of tea, I must admit - I usually shuffle back a few decades/centuries - but from my persepctive I'd say poetry is booming. It's certainly true to say there are more published poets living now than there has ever been.

[Charles Darnay]

You'll rarely find poets in the gossip magazines and other such tabloids. They don't have paparazzi at their door at the time (most of them) - but this doesn't mean that poetry is a dead form of art. There is always new poetry to discover and successful poets have a great place now. If all you can name is Shakespeare and Blake, then you need to dig deeper into the world of poetry. Discover your local talent - wherever you are, there is some I'm sure.

[MorpheusSandman]

I probably can't quote any poetry from the last 30 years (well, maybe a Merwin verse or two).

One reason for this is the lack of meter and rhyme, which made classic poetry much more memorable (in the literal sense of the word; those endless couplets are why a poet like Pope is endlessly quotable). On the other hand, the last poem I memorized comes (almost) from the last 30 years (I'm going to type it out by hand since I can't find any online sources to copy/paste, so I might get the punctuation or a word or two wrong):

Hourglass (II) by James Merill

Dear, at death's door when you stand
I will run to let you in,
You will know me by my grin
And the joints of this right hand.

You will follow unafraid,
As one seldom does in life,
I will say to Pluto's wife,
"Please your majesty, this shade's

My friend's who always kept your spring,
Taught me how to wear your green,
Twenty winters intervene,
Yet I glow remembering."

She will then unlock a chest,
Shake our senses out like robes,
Fine and warm to naked ribs,
Make a sign when we are dressed

For one hour in which we fill
With ten thousand joys and pains,
Then, reversed, the burning grains
Back through her transparent will

Drain, and the robes are blown apart,
Two more bat shapes in a cave
Little dreaming how they have
Blessed each other heart to heart.

[stlukesguild]

Number One- Ignore the troll.

Number Two- How is poetry any less known than any other art form... excluding the popular arts? How many living painters or sculptors can you name? How many contemporary composers?

Number Three- It seems to me that the finest artists and art works in any art form or genre are of abiding importance to those who value that given art form. If you love poetry... or even literature as a whole... you will likely know of quite a few poets beyond Shakespeare and Blake.

[MementoMori]

Is it not arguable that poetry, or even the humanities in general, were at least more respected in the past? It was not too long ago that Literae Humaniores was the degree of choice for young gentlemen in Britain, especially those wanting to go into politics or civil service. Now it's largely considered irrelevant and 'soft'.

[cacian]

poetry stands hardly a chance because it is over taken by the monumental tasks of books in production over the years .
what one can say in two words is now taken a whole book to do so which means one takes longer to finish a book especially trilogies or one written in series. reading then becomes a task because one never has time to retire to poetry as a form of relaxation. the other thing is media which prolongs the agony or light whichever you feel about it books being turned into films.education also takes up a role in elaborating and widening innuendos and insignia of books for books and so really poetry stands practically no room in people's lives.

[Lokasenna]

poetry stands hardly a chance because it is over taken by the monumental tasks of books in production over the years .
what one can say in two words is now taken a whole book to do so which means one takes longer to finish a book especially trilogies or one written in series. reading then becomes a task because one never has time to retire to poetry as a form of relaxation. the other thing is media which prolongs the agony or light whichever you feel about it . then there is media books being turned into books .education also takes up a role in elaborating and widening innuendos and insignia of books for books and so really poetry stands practically no room in people's lives.

I don't think that the argument that people are distracted from reading poetry by the existence of over-long novels is justifiable. There have always been titanic works of literature, and poetry has always been popular. If people want to read a novel, they read a novel; if they want to read poetry, they read poetry. The existence of one does not preclude the other. I read poetry for pleasure very frequently, and often in the midst of reading longer prose works.

[Sameer Telkar]

What I meant to ask was,why isn't Poetry popular in the modern world?It was certainly popular in the 16th and 17th century when we had great poets like Tennyson,Keats and Shirley.Poetry was encouraged at that time.Today only traditional poets are quoted.Name one poet of 20th century who was as much of popular as those three.Everybody only talks of movies,music,animation etc.That's why I think,the art of poetry is dying.This may be because Poetry is difficult to understand and you can't get it in first read.Also the society of the 16th and 17th century was more spiritual,now its more materialistic and materialism means lack of time.

Poetry doesn't have the mainstream appeal like photography and painting.Every now and then there is a painting exhibition.Have you ever heard of a poetry exhibition?

[cacian]

What I meant to ask was,why isn't Poetry popular in the modern world?It was certainly popular in the 16th and 17th century when we had great poets like Tennyson,Keats and Shirley.Poetry was encouraged at that time.Today only traditional poets are quoted.Name one poet of 20th century who was as much of popular as those three.Everybody only talks of movies,music,animation etc.That's why I think,the art of poetry is dying.This may be because Poetry is difficult to understand and you can't get it in first read.Also the society of the 16th and 17th century was more spiritual,now its more materialistic and materialism means lack of time.

poetry does not make a film a book does. it works that way because media needs its feeds popularity and contingency. money is all this and a book is all that. a poet is a mere figment of the imagination because it takes no longer then two to three lines to fill whereas a book manages pages of it which requires time. the longer the book the less memory and the less memory means more words to produce. poetry however takes less words but more room to think and hardly any to turn into a catalogue of images and media sponsors.

[Lokasenna]

What I meant to ask was,why isn't Poetry popular in the modern world?It was certainly popular in the 16th and 17th century when we had great poets like Tennyson,Keats and Shirley.Poetry was encouraged at that time.Today only traditional poets are quoted.Name one poet of 20th century who was as much of popular as those three.Everybody only talks of movies,music,animation etc.That's why I think,the art of poetry is dying.This may be because Poetry is difficult to understand and you can't get it in first read.Also the society of the 16th and 17th century was more spiritual,now its more materialistic and materialism means lack of time.

I assume you mean Shelley, not Shirley, there...

As for the 20th century, well, how about T. S. Eliot, Philip Larkin, Dylan Thomas, W. B. Yeats (sort of), W. H. Auden, J. L. Borges, Pablo Neruda, Sylvia Plath, William Carlos Williams? Those are names that all spring readily to mind, and some of them are easily as popular as those you mention.