Tuesday, November 23, 2010

News at Eleven (Back Page): A few months ago, my friend Ben

wrote a series here exhorting contemporary listeners to give classical music a second chance. When asked if I would do something similar for poetry, my first response was at first, sheepishly: has poetry dropped into the same cultural dead-zone as classical music??

As a teacher of undergraduate creative writing classes, I'm often forced to admit that it has. I remember, as a young person, being posed the question, "what kind of music do you like?," and coolly, sensibly replying, "everything but classical!"** Now, as a graduate student and adjunct professor, when I ask my students what they like to read, I generally hear the following:

"Oh, pretty much anything."

They pause.

". . . except poetry. I really don't like reading poetry."

from The Atlantic: The Righteous Skeptic's Guide to Reading Poetry
then The Atlantic: What Makes a Poem Worth Reading?
then The Atlantic: Flarf: Poetry Meme-Surfs With Kanye West and the LOLCats
then The Atlantic: Good Poetry Is Like Good Food: How to Find It . . . and Savor It
then The Atlantic: 7 Poets I Love

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