To feel Poetry has died a death in modern society?

[Marmitemother]

Out of curiosity I searched MN expecting to find a topic page on poetry and literature....have I missed it somewhere?

Semi retired, children flown the nest, hubbie and I always busy with projects yet still find time to read poetry most days.

I'm wondering if others, particularly younger folk (we're in our 60's) didn't learn to appreciate poetry at school or just don't have time or the inclination to read, share and discuss compared to all else available these days (TV, phones, cinema, social media etc)

I read The Journey by Mary Oliver this morning and thought about how it spoke to many posting on the Relationship page.

“One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.”

I don't personally love the poems, but lots of people rate The Lost Words and The Lost Spells by Rob MacFarlane and Jackie Morris (IMO the art is way better than the poetry).

I love Charles Causley's poems for children (but they are old-fashioned in the extreme now), and I think anything you can chant is fun. DD likes Blake's The Tiger, which she doesn't remotely understand (and she doesn't know what half the words mean), but it sounds great said aloud.

I just read The lost spells from the library - I gave up on the poetry (all acrostics I think, and not really to my taste), and just enjoyed the artwork instead.

SarahandQuack had to look it up - beautiful, thanks for sharing:

Rattler Morgan | Charles Causley

Now his eyes are bright farthings

And he spindles

In seas deeper than death.

His lips are no longer wet with wine
But gleam with green salt

And the gulf stream is his breath.

Now he is fumbled by ancient tides

Among decks flagged with seaweed
But no flags sees he there.

His fingers are washed to stone
And to phosphor

And there are starfish in his hair.

[HMS Cabbala]

There is a wealth of poetry online, including for children, for almost any topic, theme or occasion. You can read or print them out or some are audio. As an example, I looked online for children's poems for Hallowe'en, wrote one out for a child to round off the evening's excitement of dressing up and going around the houses. It made a good bedtime read.
Here's a link to some that I've saved on my pc, though it doesn't have that particular one. - www.theholidayspot.com/halloween/poems.htm

The Scottish Poetry Library is an online source I've sometimes used which has a children's section. Among those I've saved, a Christmas narrative one www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/visit-st-nicholas/ Several simple ones by Robert Louis Stevenson, for instance My Shadow and The Swing. And one about housework by Julia Donaldson www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/eight-tentacles/

Also have a collection of old-style traditional songs and nursery rhymes www.gutenberg.org/files/55107/55107-h/55107-h.htm

And Yorkshire dialect poems and songs - not specifically children's but there might be some suitable there.
www.gutenberg.org/files/2888/2888-h/2888-h.htm

I think school put me off poetry - I enjoyed it more in later life. Relating everything to exams and grades really is a joy killer, schools do it every time!

Awful. I’d be thrilled if one of my students showed such enthusiasm.

😂 I hate poetry too. Never understood the point of it. And won’t miss it when it finally dies 😂

but isn’t music if all types a kind of poetry?

@TuisealGinideach not at all. I'm heartened at the response this post has received. I'm happy to read any poetry, merely mentioned Mary Oliver as had come across her poem this morning which resonated with a couple of posts on the 'relationship' board I'd just read. which then led me to wonder if others still read and enjoyed poetry to the same extent and might find it cathartic. Genuine curiosity.

So much inverse snobbery on this thread. Anyone that denies the poetry in rap has already lost the under 40s. Pathetic.

38 here, poetry was covered in school at least once that I remember. I personally love poetry and try to share that love with anyone and everyone (and my cousins, now 21, and 23 can recite the raven by poe from memory)

To be honest I don't really know the exact reasons

I hate words in rhythm and shoehorned rhymes.

I also don't like short stories

I strongly dislike musicals as well

i hate pretty much all the poetry I have seen/ heard.

Clearly I haven't heard all of it but if someone doesn't like say reading, would you ask if they have reas every book? No you wouldn't, some people don't like certain things, my thing is poetry.

I strongly dislike musicals as well

To be fair that's just a sign of sanity.

I love poetry, but it's always been an elite interest. The fact that probably only 10% of people, if that, care about poetry doesn't mean it's dying.

By definition it's a distilled, intellectual form of expression and can require a bit of effort to get the most out of it. Not everyone is going to bother - not a problem - their loss!

I don't think that's true at all. What about all the poems that people used as mnemonics or work songs or ways of communicating in illiterate communities?

I don't see why poetry has to be intellectual, either.

I was reciting "For The Fallen" to myself on Friday. (That's the one that 'we shall grow not old' comes from. I have a lot of older poems memorised.

It's tragic the way English Literature is being taught at GCSE and A' levels. The subject is shrinking and dying at degree level, quite aside from issues like the removal of caps from the Russell Group during COVID and a current low demographic affecting student numbers. Students are being put off studying it.

I'd anticipated that would happen with some of the niche subjects that sprung up and expanded during the boom years, much the same way it did with the likes of Sociology and Gender Studies. But a major decline in English - language and literature - is one I didn't see coming.

Sad. We do need STEM graduates, undoubtedly. But degrees are currently selling on the back of filling specific deficits in the labour market and if you keep that up you will always end up with a surfeit. The Arts and Humanities matter. A country without them will end up culturally impoverished.

Funny - stage musicals are not for me either, and I love theatre, I love music, and I love poetry (at least some of it, it's a big genre).

When they come together on the stage they just don't work for me (love T S Eliot, loathe the abysmal 'Cats').

I'll make an exception for Calamity Jane because Doris Day was amazing 😻

Thanks for all your comments, lovers and haters of poetry alike. Much food for thought. I will certainly be exploring poets mentioned I've not come across before.

SarahAndQuack · Today 10:32
CulturePigeon · Today 10:23
I love poetry, but it's always been an elite interest. The fact that probably only 10% of people, if that, care about poetry doesn't mean it's dying.
By definition it's a distilled, intellectual form of expression and can require a bit of effort to get the most out of it. Not everyone is going to bother - not a problem - their loss!
I don't think that's true at all. What about all the poems that people used as mnemonics or work songs or ways of communicating in illiterate communities?
I don't see why poetry has to be intellectual, either.

On the whole, I agree, SarahAndQuack. The OP didn't define what they meant by poetry, and only a brave or foolish person would try to do that! It's like trying to define what is art. I think that art is anything which someone creates with the intention of creating art - from a pencil line on a piece of paper to the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Similarly with poetry - if you intend it to be poetry, or someone finds poetry in it, then it IS poetry in my opinion. So your examples certainly are poetry if you believe they are.

But I do think that whether or not these things are any good as poetry or art can only be judged by history. Will they endure and find a resonance with people in 20 or 50 years' time? Some things are ephemeral, and there's nothing wrong with that, but I do think time will tell.

And again, it depends on your definition of 'intellectual'. I meant that word in the sense of thinking about, being aware of the words, rhythm, meaning as a created thing - all of which people would do with a rap or a shanty etc. I love folk songs and shanties - and I would count them as poetry - someone took the trouble to compose them.

Yep. Love a bit of Eminem that early 21st century literary genuius

Me too.

I think poetry is perceived as being boring or whatever, but that's just lazy

I must be lazy then, or a complete philistine. I just don't enjoy reading poetry. I enjoy reading, but much prefer a proper piece of prose than something that I find pretentious (this is my opinion only).

The only "poetry" I like is silly humorous stuff like limericks and other jokey stuff.
DD hated poetry when she took English lit GCSE, and so did all of her friends.
I'm not a Shakespeare fan either.

@RampantIvy, sorry, I shouldn't have said lazy earlier - I suppose I think that there's some poetry that will appeal to everyone, it's just about finding it. Have you read any of Brian Bilston's poetry? A lot of it is quite funny, I really enjoy it. I definitely find some poetry completely impenetrable though.

Hamilton the musical has some excellent poetry too, highly recommend it