This is my page for English B
“Does anybody READ poetry anymore?”
Last Saturday, as we made dinner at Alicia’s after finally seeing Sherlock Holmes, I asked this question rather cavalierly without stopping to think that her houseguest Becky is getting a graduate degree in something related to literature and creative writing. I don’t remember much of the context of the conversation at the time (I think it had something to do with making a living as a poet), only that I felt rather bad about my comment, especially after Becky replied, “Well, I hope so.”
And really, I hope so too, very much, if only for the sixteen-year-old version of myself who devoured literature and poetry and was, in general, I think, a happier person… but I honestly don’t think I know anybody who reads poetry. I have many friends who read prose, but I can’t really think of the last time somebody’s called me up to discuss a poem they’d just finished. I also can’t think of the last time I came across a poem at all. I never was much for “modern” poetry in high school, so yes, I don’t go out of my way looking for it, but I don’t go out of my way looking for prose either, and yet I find new and interesting prose all the time.
Freshman year of college, Zara sent me a letter about the happenings at BU, and she enclosed a couple of photocopied Maya Angelou poems, including “Phenomenal Woman”. I loved the something extra those poems provided, in that even though I’d finished reading her letter, I still had one more thing of hers, from her, to read and understand. You can’t stick books into a letter. Magazine and newspaper articles would be easier, except for that tiny snag where nobody reads actual physical magazines and newspapers anymore… it’s all on the Web now (thank goodness for the trees at least).
I read books. I read blogs. I read magazine articles, both long (sometimes) and short (far more frequently). If I ever get a Kindle or any other e-reader, it will be exclusively for the purpose of reading periodicals, should they survive the next few years. I do not read poems… but I probably should, if only so that I have something to fold into a letter, or stick on my cube wall.