What do you make of the decline of poetry over the last century?

Where is the modern T.S. Eliot, W.H.Auden, William Butler Yeats, Wallace Stevens, Pablo Neruda, etc.? Asked by edfoug 54 months ago Similar questions: make decline poetry century Arts > Books > Books - Poetry.

Similar questions: make decline poetry century.

I don't believe that poetry has declined over the last century - Try reading Ted Kooser, for example, or Stanley Kunitz. It takes time for a poet to rise to the prominence of the poets you list in details, but even cursory research into modern poets reveals a vast wealth of living talent. I suggest you read the works of, for example, Amiri Baraka to read fresh, strong contempory works.

I’m particularly fond of his "Somebody Blew Up America". You might also enjoy Donald Hall - another great name in contemporary American poets. Falon's Recommendations Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry Amazon List Price: $15.00 Used from: $5.75 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 5 reviews) .

Gone - but poetry evolves. Maybe what we consider traditional poetry has declined over the last few years - but I think that poetry has evolved. If we think of poetry as something that: "artistically rendering words in such a way as to evoke intense emotion or an Ah Ha!Experience..." we may be able to say that the growth of the music industry is the new poetry.

Look at the early days of Rock and Roll, and Rap music - they were there to help challenge societies norms and ways of thinking. As I write this lyrics from "Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five" keep popping into my head. P Hop Artist Russell Simmons also presents the Def Poetry Jam on HBO - which has always amazed me on the level of talent of these young urban artist - creating poetry.

Maybe we don't have Yeats, Eliot, or Longfellow in current times - but we do have a new breed of poets.

...In the music industry... Poetry still exists, we only have to turn on our radio or ipod to hear the lines... The words and lines are set to music and get a much vaster audience than written poems can even imagine, I think. I would be that if the poets of the past had the access to the music industry and saw that a living could be made by writing songs over writing poems that we just "enjoyed" by the intellectuals, they would have been learning the guitar! For those seeking fame and fortune--or just to support a family, they have to go "commercial" and write songs that will sell.

Can a person afford to be "just a poet" in todays society? I don’t think so! You’ve forgotten Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Sinead O’Connor, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, even the rappers of today (that I don’t know all the names of )write their own kind of street poetry.

Poetry is alive and well--it has evolved like everything else into a new genre. Times change, situations change--but you can’t stop people from writing from their soul. Heck we could have an Askville poetry book with the works of TeeTee and friends!.

It's out there. I would love to say, "Oh, no, poetry has just changed and grown. There are great things happening."

But sadly, I'm not really sure it's the case. Well, I can give some hope. Don't fall prey to the selection bias.

Yeats was born in 1829. Auden was born in 1904. Pick the best poets of a century and the people who happen to be alive today are always going to look bad.

There was a vast quantity of really, really really abominable poetry written in the same time period. There were even more great names in that period: Byron, Shelley, Tennyson, Dickinson, but that's not the point. For every Great Poem there were a boatload of really crummy ones.

There are some truly gifted poets working today. Maya Angelou, Lucille Clifton, and Seamus Heaney come to mind first. I just gave a poet friend of mine a book of Margaret Atwood's poems, and it made her angry: it's just not fair for her to be so incredibly gifted while the rest of us have to muddle along.

Atwood's poetry was everything she'd wanted to do, each word a jewel, perfectly placed. This was the same friend who recommended A.S. Byatt to me. Byatt is primarily a novelist and a scholar, but she's also a poet.

And see the widget below for something truly special. There's a place to look for poetry that you may have missed: rap and hip-hop. Of course 99.9% of it is worthless tripe, but so is everything else.

Ignore the fronting and the cheapness that the beat gives to it, and you'll see a real fascination with the power of language. Honestly, the best way to see it is to watch the extras material that comes on the DVD of 8 Mile, the autobiography Eminem did. You'll see some moderately talented amateur poets, but the real thing to listen to is the feel for the power of language.

Just wait: within 20 years a truly gifted poet is going to come out of the rap world. It won't be precisely rap; somebody will rebel against the Hallmark-card formalism of that style. But listen even to the very earliest raps, in Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight, and you'll hear a joy in the syncopation and changes of time signature.

They just need to find a subject a bit more elevated than themselves. It will happen. It's true that Heaney, Angelou, etc.Have yet to come up with something with the astonishing staying power of Ulysses, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, She Walks in Beauty, or The Love Song of J.

Alfred Prufrock. But such greatness only comes along a few times in a century, and we don't even always recognize it at the time. There are already a few out there that may rise to that sort of greatness.

Angelou's Phenomenal Woman comes to mind. And don't think it wouldn't sound awesome as a rap. PamPerdue's Recommendations Possession: A Romance Amazon List Price: $14.95 Used from: $0.01 Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 207 reviews) Byatt's ability to invent several fictional 19th century poets, and produce magnificent poems in their styles, is so brilliant it makes me want to scream.

Domino effect I don't know that it's a decline in poetry but a decline in poetry appreciation. With schools kicking out the humanites and a generation that just, in large part, does not read, the market for poetry is shrinking. The market for art and music (not rap, music) is shrinking.

Attention spans are shrinking. The market for the internet and computers is growing. Go figure.My friend, Jonah Winter has written numerous books, (including a book on Frieda Khalo for kids), and his recent book, "Maine", is a hoot.

Of course there is Mary Oliver, who I quote on a weekly basis in sermons and services. Funnyvalentine's Recommendations Frida (English Language Edition) Amazon List Price: $16.95 Used from: $4.95 Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5 (based on 16 reviews) Maine: Poems Amazon List Price: $14.95 Used from: $12.50 Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5 (based on 3 reviews) .

" "any good suggestions for humorous poetry- for adults.

Searching for books of poetry by Susana March, La Tristeza is the title of one.

Any good suggestions for humorous poetry- for adults.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.