Recently in the UK, poetry seems to have found its way back into mainstream culture, which of course elicits the question: did it ever leave? Over at Newsweek, Howard Swains examines the reasons we return to poetry even in an age when words like “distraction” and “multimedia” tend to hijack any dicsussion of art or literature:
“In some ways it’s that question of whether poetry is dying that keeps poetry alive,” Chris McCabe, a poet and librarian at the Saison Poetry Library at Southbank Centre in London, says. “The idea of marketing poetry and selling poetry doesn’t change the fundamental human need for excited, elevated language. When people can’t find the words, they look for somebody who has found the words. That’s what poetry is.”
