In a column in the Telegraph last week Philip Hensher wondered why, despite the prizes won by poets, despite the publicity it gets, 'poetry is losing its way' and doesn't sell at all well. Poets 'are not at the centre of the culture as Tennyson, Auden, Wordsworth or Pope were'. Hensher's conclusion:
The reason we don't truly value poetry - the reason we don't buy it and share it - is simply this. We're not interested in the art form, only in the seriousness of what it happens to convey, like a magazine article, a newsflash, a tweet. And poetry has other things in mind.
This is not a matter on which I would dare to venture an opinion. However, one person I know who does is the poet and novelist Sophie Hannah. In the comments thread attached to Hensher's article, Sophie writes:
Contemporary poetry does not sell because it doesn't offer enough pleasure/enjoyment to the reader. Rhyme and metre - the things that make poetry musical and memorable - are hardly ever used these days in the way that they were by Housman, Larkin, Tennyson, etc, and so much of contemporary poetry does not stick in the mind in the way that pieces of music we love do. Too often, I read or hear a modern poem and come away remembering nothing about it - it leaves no impression. With novels, we remember and enjoy the stories and the characters - we experience a rush of positive feelings when we're reading a novel we love. Poems also should create positive feelings - and ideally goosebumps! - in readers. A poem ought to please our ears (or our inner ears, if we're reading them to ourselves!) - unless and until they start to do that again, people in general will not bother with them. It is important to remember that contemporary poems do not have to make you want to stop reading them as soon as possible - many modern poets do write musical poems. Read 'Some More Light Verse' by Wendy Cope, 'Everyone Hates the English' by Kit Wright, 'Prayer' by Carol Ann Duffy, or 'Mild Citizen' by Glyn Maxwell - those are great, memorable poems by contemporary poets. Unfortunately, they're the exception.