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From One Survivor to Another: that’s the problem with poetry in the west right now, actually.the...

fromonesurvivortoanother:

that’s the problem with poetry in the west right now, actually.

the mass majority of people are only taught Shakespeare plus 1800s-1900s poetry. if you’re lucky/privileged enough to be in AP english or other advanced courses, you will probably get to learn about post-WW2/post-modern type poetry. and maybe, just MAYBE, the beat poets. but then it just drops off. 

hardly anyone is being taught what kind of poetry is created TODAY. hardly any of it rhymes anymore, and it’s developed into a very personal, deep, dark, casual-voiced sort of conversational art.  but no one knows that. everyone thinks it’s Poe couplets and Shakespeare sonnets, or 10,000 allusions from 10,000 books crammed into a sprawling T. S. Eliot poem.

i’ve been a TA for multiple intro to creative writing courses, and i have seen dozens of students read a Billy Collins poem about snow days, or a Sharon Olds poem about forgiving her distant father, or a Yusef Komunyakaa poem about social anxiety, or a Nikky Finney poem about dancing with Strom Thurmond…their entire world opens up. these people had no idea poetry could actually be relevant to their lives. 

but because it’s still such a rare thing, most of the literary/poetry circles are sustained by other poets. as in, poets buying other poets’ work. and that makes it stagnant. it’s a lot of privileged, highly-educated people, mostly lower-middle class, with a couple of exceptions who make it big. they just feed each other the same things over and over again, calling it “art”. new ideas and new visions are few and far between.

people who are not writers but who are actively interested in poetry…they are such a rare breed. and it really shouldn’t be that way. everyone should know about poetry that exists beyond the public school curriculum. 

(via itspoetry-itshistory)