News Flash! People Like Poetry

A return trip to a Barnes and Noble reveals that poetry has grown tremendously in popularity in the last few years. Hooray!

Our local Barnes and Noble now has an entire aisle filled with nothing but poetry books. The aisle is conveniently located near the coffee counter. The existence of poetry at a Barnes and Noble might not sound significant. But I must tell you that when I went to explore the so-called Poetry section at this same store a few years ago, it—sadly—only consisted of about twenty books. And not only was the book selection almost unbelievably small, but almost all of the books were by long-dead authors. Plus there, nestled near Dickinson, Frost, Homer, and Shakespeare, was a book entitled something like "Why People Hate Poetry." I found the presence of this book on the near-empty Poetry shelf so amusing that I remember texting a book selfie (which I, alas, can no longer find) to a few friends.

I must confess that I only posed with the poetry-hatred-explainer book; I did not read it. But in any case, I am happy to report that recent evidence seems to indicate that people do not actually hate poetry. On the contrary, poetry seems, once again, to be becoming rather popular. I recently read that poetry sales have gone up by something like fifty percent in the last four years. I can believe it. Lots of people seem to be posting poems on Instagram, passing them around on Facebook, reading them aloud on YouTube, and performing them at poetry slams. When I perused the Barnes and Noble poetry section with my cup in hand this past week, it still contained volumes of Dickinson, Frost, and Shakespeare’s sonnets. But, to my delight, it also contained lots of volumes by living writers, a host of whom seem to be still in their twenties, and many of whom apparently have gained their followings online.

I vow I shall read some of these new poets, and I promise to report back with some recommended favorites in not too long!