Poetry Distribution

Allen Taylor’s post “Modern Poetry is Sick” discusses whether poetry is sick when it’s not accessible. In this post, “accessible” can mean the poem itself being easily understood and/or the poem being accessible via book, forum, video, blog and so on.

Allen quotes a blog post by Michael Palmer that says poetry must do the following to promote itself:

1. Shift production from lyrical to narrative verse
2. Change its distribution model
3. Working toward canonization

Number two particularly resonates with me. I’d like to see video used more with poetry. I’ve been wondering how to get poets reading their poems on video, how to host it (YouTube?), and how to distribute it. If I used YouTube, I’d not have to pay for hosting the large files.

My next question would be about the best way to get quality video of poets reading their work. Would they use their cameras? Would I only videotape people near where I live so I could do it myself? Do I really want to spend my time on this?

About point number one above, Michael Palmer writes:

To change production of poetry we need to shift toward narrative verse. This is an easy task, as nearly all poetry published today is lyric poetry. Almost no one is writing or publishing narrative verse. This alone can explain the marginal state of modern poetry because people love stories. They crave them. They pay billions of dollars a year on movies, cable bills, novels, and video games just to experience stories. But they don’t turn to poetry. Why? Poetry can tell a story with such power that the reader or listener’s body chemistry alters to fit the rhythm of the line. Nothing else can do this. But people don’t think of poetry because poetry no longer tells stories; it no longer entertains; it has become art for a dying art’s sake. When we ignore narrative verse in favor of the lyric we are depriving poetry of its natural audience.

First of all, vegging out in front of a movie, a cable show or a video game does not take the same mental exertion as reading. I can’t see anyone making the argument that watching American Idol takes the same energy as reading Wallace Stevens. I think people’s inclination to do what’s easy — like water taking the easy route through a canyon — will incline people towards spending more on movies and cable television than on poetry. Comparing cable and movies to poetry is comparing apples and oranges.

Moving to narrative poetry is not the answer. Not all lyrical poetry is “difficult” to understand or necessarily lacks a story. Please tell me if you can’t understand this lyrical poem by Philip Larkin.

I don’t think “dumbing down” poetry is the answer.

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In the world of marketing, you rarely market to everyone. You define a target market and aim to solve the problems of that target market. A dog agility expert will not care about your golf clubs (most likely). Someone who “doesn’t get” poetry will rarely be part of a market who will read your book. What we need to do is develop that market aka “audience.”

In a recent interview, I answered questions about how I started to write. That reminded me that I LOVED the poet who visited during a Poet in the Schools (PITS) program in the 5th grade. After that, no one could get me to stop writing and reading poems. Since the No Child Left Behind act was implemented, I wonder how many poets have visited schools?

I agree with Palmer that we need to add to our distribution methods for poetry and disagree that poets need to change how they write.

What do you think?

Tagged as: Poetry, video, vlog