When was poetry at the height of its popularity?
probably before it existed
>>7829932
The Greeks
>>7829932
before the written word.
>>7829932
Well, I don't want this topic to die, so I, OP, will give my two cents. From personal observation, I believe it was at its most popularity from roughly 1900-1960. When you go to public libraries it seems like all of the critical writing is from those years, so there was more demand for critical interpretation. At my old university, an elite one, there was plenty of contemporary writing, but the books clearly have a more narrow audience in mind.
I suspect that my reasoning for why poetry has become less popular is flawed, but I do believe I am right about poetry being at the height of its popularity in those years.
My question is, what happened? Did all would be poets become rock stars?
>>7829951
This. About 300 bc to 200 ad. Virgil was the last really really great poet
>>7829960
I disagree. There were plenty of medieval poets that received great patronage and fame in their lifetime, plenty of early moderns and 20th century poets. What I want to understand, is why its popularity has declined so much. Why do many so-called poets today write with such a narrow audience in mind?
>>7829973
I think you answered your own question. You put the blame on the poets for narrowing the scope of what is written, rather than the reading public for caring less.
How I see it is poetry began to become less moderately less profitable back in the 70's and 80's. The publishers saw this slight downtrend, began to publish less poetry, only publishing the works with the highest apparent profit margins. As those margins decreased, they began to just publish less and less.
I think the publishers cut poetry a little too hard during a slight downtrend, and only worsened it.
In the current publishing climate, a newly released novel by a nobody will get at least a 5,000 book print run. A collection of stories, around 2,000. Poetry will maybe get a run in the hundreds, because there is little faith in it by the publisher. This, in turn, doesn't give the same opportunity to them. Poetry has less chance of reaching a reader's hand, and publishers won't even put the same money into supporting it. (This is all anecdotal, from an old friend who has published all three types of books with the same publishing house, but was corroborated with others.)
Tl;dr publishing industry killed it by not giving it a chance to even reach the readers
>>7830007
Then why did people stop reading poetry? Why did it become so unpopular? Are the poets to blame or the times?
Since lit shits don't like admitting modern music is poetry, no different that bards.
I'd say right now.
>>7829932
My man, Dylan Thomas. Good taste, OP.
>>7829957
>Did all would be poets become rock stars?
Sure. See Lemonov and the underground poets in the late USSR.
>>7830048
You mean to tell me toopack and bob zimmerman are in anyway comparable to Shakespeare and Tee Ess? Give me a break. They are not poets.
I loved Dylan Thomas when I was 16, but he's so bloody overwrought. Some of the imagery is so ferociously, ridiculously melodramatic that it could alienate any reader who isn't a Shakespearean actor. Poetry nowadays in the West is the preserve of wealthy middle-class liberal arts hipster types who can afford to spend ££££ studying it. There's some great stuff in amongst the bullshit - for every Mira Gonzalez there's a Sam Riviere writing 80 Austerities or Kim Kardashian's Marriage (both are great). I would have loved to have done a literature degree, but I'm too poor and I know that even from Oxford it wouldn't have got a poor, un-connected bastard like me anywhere.
>>7830247
I only posted Dylan Thomas as an example of someone who was an immensely popular poet. You don't have poets with the kind of fame he had today. He didn't have anything more than a secondary school education. These days a lot of the poets who are published in poetry magazines have PhDs and are painfully obtuse.
>>7829964
probably because it was replaced by music. I mean most music is lyrical poetry isn't it? How's a poet with a pen supposed to compete with a poet on a guitar?
![stock-photo-10706521-gentleman-tipping-fedora[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/qCN8FU8.jpg "stock-photo-10706521-gentleman-tipping-fedora[1].jpg")
>>7829957
>At my old university, an elite one
>>7830316
Don't be butthurt just because you had to go to Poughkeepsie State Teachers College.
>>7829932
Poetry sucks dog dick
>>7830336
Rude.
I can't accept rap as peotry.
Can someone guide me to light? I'm too lazy.
>>7830380
Your sentiment and rap music are equally garbage.
>>7830380
most rap is written in trochaic tetrameter
>>7829932
some time in the 16th century probably
>>7830415
Probably in ancient greece ackshually
Ezra Pound
>>7830380
Just look up the lyrics to forever close my eyes by dalek.
>>7829932
I would the Elizabethan era, and there was actually serious movement from t.s. eliot/pound's time.
>>7830631
*i would say
