The Death of Poetry
Thoughts on an absent art
Who reads poems these days? Perhaps a better way to explore that question is to ask who writes poetry these days. I am talking more of the general masses than those who’re part of or closely associated with the literary world.
Does poetry feature in our everyday conversations? I don’t know if it ever did but it feels as though today it only props up on exceptionally rare occasions; it almost feels a bit odd to discuss or quote fragments of poetry in our conversations. Why is it that something as quotable as poetry hardly finds a place in our daily lives?
Part of the answer lies in how poetry is seen. Much of poetry we hear being quoted is from a time and era far detached from our present world. Wordsworth, Keats, Blake, Tennyson — these are just names which remind us of our school days when we used to mug up their poems by rote. How many of us dared to revisit their poems after school? No wonder that poetry is seen as an archaic art of the highbrows.
The other part of the answer lies in how we consume writing. Prose doesn’t have to conform to any restrictions. Each sentence carries a message which is promptly delivered to you by the time you finish reading the sentence. Poems, on the other hand, are often confusing. It is difficult to grasp what the poet wants to say immediately. We have to slow down and read and reread to understand what’s being said. This takes tremendous patience for what is supposed to be fun and enjoyable.
But reading poems is not just about understanding what’s being said but also about appreciating how it’s being said. It’s about the rhythm and the music of the words, the sound of the words, how they feel when pronounced, and the atmosphere they create in our minds. The beauty lies in the vivid portrayal of its message. It matters greatly how the words are arranged for even a slight change in the arrangement can yank the poem out of its metre. So writing poetry requires precision, both — of thought and writing.
What about free verse, you ask.
Writing in this liberated form which breaks free of all rules and restrictions is an attractive proposition, not because it facilitates better expression but purely because it requires less work. I don’t need to learn any technique to try my hand at free verse. I don’t have to understand what an iambic pentameter is or worry about any of such obscure sounding jargons from the world of poetry.
But what if I were to strum a guitar without any knowledge of what I am doing, without any training and with utter abandon? I might have lots of fun but not without delivering an unprecedented assault on your ears. There is a slim chance, however, that I might produce something that is vaguely enjoyable. There is an even slimmer chance that I might create the next big hit. So it is with free verse. You can write a lovely poem but talent in the absence of craft is a loose canon.
My own understanding of metrical writing is poor and I’m trying to work on it. As far as reading poetry is concerned, I personally would like to read more poems on contemporary experiences which someone living today can grasp intuitively. The classics are always there but of what use is art if it can’t express how I feel today? It has to speak to us if it is to matter to us. Thus if the question is how we make poetry popular, then we must first start by making it relevant.
