07-03-2019, 01:51 PM
There is still an audience of (non-poet) readers for poetry, it’s just diminished. And those that exist - and who are willing to cough up a few bucks for a journal or book - are looking for something more structured and written in a more conversational voice; not necessarily formal or even metrical. Just something more than a series of images trying to make someone feel something.
New Formalism came onto the scene in the 80s, and it’s that crop of then-young poets who appear to be the ones non-poets are now listening to. I’m not into commercialism, but if book sales are indicative of what people are wanting, it’s the poets who have had a connection with the NF movement - to some degree - who are most successful with readers, then and now.
Both, I think, although I was speaking mostly of contemporary.
I got into poetry in high school, after reading ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’. When I got into college, they pushed Ginsberg and the beat poets, as well as other genre of the 60s and 70s. It lacked artistry, to me. So I lost interest. Until I discovered the NF movement. Then the world of poetry opened back up for me.
New Formalism came onto the scene in the 80s, and it’s that crop of then-young poets who appear to be the ones non-poets are now listening to. I’m not into commercialism, but if book sales are indicative of what people are wanting, it’s the poets who have had a connection with the NF movement - to some degree - who are most successful with readers, then and now.
Quote:Modern poetry or contemporary poetry?
Both, I think, although I was speaking mostly of contemporary.
I got into poetry in high school, after reading ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’. When I got into college, they pushed Ginsberg and the beat poets, as well as other genre of the 60s and 70s. It lacked artistry, to me. So I lost interest. Until I discovered the NF movement. Then the world of poetry opened back up for me.
There is no escape from metre; there is only mastery. TS Eliot