Poetry on the Offense

 

Image by MorningbirdPhoto from Pixabay

I get a bit annoyed when I see online discussions about the "death of poetry" or "in defense of poetry."  Sometimes those headlines are more clickbait than anything and end up talking about about the popularity and power of poetry. Still, it is annoying that poets and lovers of poetry feel a need to defend what they love because it is under attack.

Poetry as an oral art form likely predates written text. The earliest poetry is believed to have been recited or sung, as a way of remembering oral history, genealogy, and even law. Early writing shows clear traces of older oral traditions, including the use of repeated phrases as building blocks in larger poetic units. A rhythmic and repetitious form would make a long story easier to remember and retell, before writing was available as a reminder. 

People still read ancient works, from the Vedas (1500 - 1000 BC) to the Odyssey (800 - 675 BC), which appear to have been composed in poetic form to aid memorization and oral transmission.

Poetry appears among the earliest records of most literate cultures, with poetic fragments found on early monoliths, runestones, and stelae.

Deluge tablet of the Gilgamesh epic, circa 2nd millennium BC.

A 2015 article says that "Some people are still reading [poetry], although that number has been dropping steadily over the past two decades. In 1992, 17 percent of Americans had read a work of poetry at least once in the past year. 20 years later that number had fallen by more than half, to 6.7 percent." Jump to a 2018 NEA report which said that it seems to be more popular than ever. “Nearly 12 percent (11.7 percent) of adults read poetry in the last year, according to new data from the National Endowment for the Arts' 2017 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA). That's 28 million adults.

On the defensive side, a Washington Post article with the headline "Poetry is going extinct government-data show" is actually saying that "Poetry is not dying, it is merely changing. Poetry is essential to human life. It allows us to convey our thoughts and emotions through beautiful, sometimes horrible, words."

Is poetry endangered? "Languages are dying at the rate of every two weeks. Of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world over half of these are endangered. By the end of the century half the world's current languages will be lost which will also mean the loss of unique poetic traditions." I don't put poetry in the endangered species category, but the UK "Endangered Poetry Project" is fighting extinction. 

You can find a number of arguments that poetry is not dying, it is merely changing. So, why title this post "Poetry on the Offense"? The war in Ukraine was just the latest example of how poets go on the offense rather than in defense with their writing in hard times. Poetry gives voice to many things - personal and global. 

A search on Ukraine + poetry + war turns up many examples of that.

Poetry I alive, well and in the world every day.

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