Unseen Poetry
“The dismal poetry findings stand in sharp contrast not only to the rise in general fiction reading, but also to the efforts of the country’s many poetry-advocacy organizations, which for the past dozen years have been creating programs to attract larger audiences. These programs are at least in part a response to the growing sense that poetry is being forgotten in the U.S. They include National Poetry Month (April); readings, lectures and contests held across the country; initiatives to get poems into mainstream publications such as newspapers; and various efforts to boost poetry’s presence online (poets.org, the Web site of the Academy of American Poets, even launched a mobile version optimized for use on the iPhone). Yet according to the NEA report, in 2008, just 8.3 percent of adults had read any poetry in the preceding 12 months.” Newsweek, March 25, 2009
The students hunch exam heads in school halls.
The praying pens scratch out young brains’ own best
Attempts—as though in some medieval walls
Where they are being tortured. Minds are stressed
Like those awaiting being closed inside
An Iron Maiden. Then they turn the sheet
And find the “unseen poetry,” that pride
Of English questioning. They cannot cheat
The poem question they encounter there.
But after they have left their unis they
Will never fall into the poet’s snare
Again; they’ll not become the poet’s prey
Again. And sadly it is also true
That poetry’s deep lines may dodge them, too.