Lately I’ve been wondering a little about why poetry seems so far out of popular culture and discussion. Is it just something we always put off? The closest we get to poetry on a regular basis would be in things like song lyrics. Is it just something we as a culture have put off until we no longer experience it much?
All the best poetry seems best enjoyed in quiet thoughtful moments, so maybe as a culture we have too few of those. Maybe poetry has isolated itself so much as a means of expression that it can’t spread into new genres. Whatever the problem is, it seems the only place to run into poetry anymore is through very deliberately seeking it, whether it be in poetry specific performances or collections of poems published as books.
Why aren’t the distilled and powerful words of poetry and its imagery not as sticky as silly memes? Does something being powerful and meaningful not necessarily translate into being easily memorable? Still, even in literature, we no longer seem to have the poems and music like we did in things like The Hobbit.
Maybe the problem is that poetry isn’t very accessible. If popular writing is like the pleasant garden paths that are often tread by the people, then poetry is definitely the rocky mountain trails that only a small intrepid crowd dares to venture to.
Personally, I just don’t hear about poetry much and I always seem to put off studying the lauded poets of old. I’d love to read more, especially from personal favorites like Robert Frost. No one seems to talk much about any new or great poems or poets they’ve read, so has poetry gone down some cultural dead end and got stuck? Has poetry become a form of expression that’s grown old?
Searching for Stories 