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Comment by TotoHorner | Hacker News Reader

> Why do most people seem to hold poetry and poets in high esteem yet have approximately zero interest in reading any poetry ever?

I've wondered this for years.

Like seriously, is there anyone who seriously reads poetry for fun nowadays?

I understand if it's the 1800s and there's literally nothing else to do.

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> is there anyone who seriously reads poetry for fun nowadays?

1. IMO, there is some really great poetry out there. But the ratio is terrible. It's honestly worse than Youtube comments.

2. Poetry 1.0 mostly died for... reasons. But it's replacement - Poetry 2.0 - people absolutely love. You'd know it better by its common name "rap".

If you want some encouragement to wade through sewage to discover gems, here's one that really speaks to me:

    Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
    ------------------------------------

    W. B. Yeats

    Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
    Enwrought with golden and silver light,
    The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
    Of night and light and the half light,
    I would spread the cloths under your feet:
    But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
    I have spread my dreams under your feet;
    Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Among other things, it really captures some of the melancholy of being a parent who isn't particularly wealthy.

  Back into my TECO going, with my pounding heart now slowing,
  Soon again I heard a feeping, somewhat louder than before.
  "Surely," said I, "surely this is some strange bug of RMS's
  Which an interrupt professes, though I have no other job;
  Let me then ask DDT if it thinks there's another job --
          'Tis a bug, and nothing more!"

  Reclaimer, spare that tree!
  Take not a single bit!
  It used to point to me,
  Now I'm protecting it.
  It was the reader's CONS
  That made it, paired by dot;
  Now, GC, for the nonce,
  Thou shalt reclaim it not.

  Quaxity quuxity,
  Backus's BNF
  Drives a preprocessor,
  Generates code.
  Parsing is specified
  Metasyntactically;
  Writing it's easy, but
  reading, I'm snowed.

(if any of these snippets struck your fancy, look up that Fortress dude; there's much more)

Lots of people listen to hip hop and, while the quality varies a lot, it is remarkable that a very popular musical genre is poetry.

There was a time when lots of people read and wrote poetry that was meant to be enjoyed. With modernism this on ramp of poetry that was accessible disappeared, leaving only poetry enjoyable by wannabe poets. Poets, like literary novelists, write for their own pleasure or that of those who can offer them jobs (teaching MFAs, writers in residence, spiritually similar things). There’s no source of genuinely popular contemporary poetry in English and no reason to believe that there ever will be again.

https://hallofdreams.org/posts/the-death-of-poetry/

> no source of genuinely popular contemporary poetry in English

Def Jam, Young Money, and Roc-A-Fella might be laughing all the way to the bank.

Poetry is not accompanied by music. Rap and hip hop are vital, popular art forms but they’re not poetry.

Are we sure that αὐλητής etc. didn't accompany poetic recitals at symposia?

My classics teachers mentioned the possibility of musical accompaniment, and length instead of stress oriented metres would also point in that direction?

[Edit: cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dithyramb ]

(ancients also wrote poetry so the text of the words formed an image, which the Victorians considered Not Real Poetry. compare http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-javascript-1948.html )

> Poetry is not accompanied by music.

I could just as easily say: all this modern stuff isn't poetry either. Poetry always rhymes.

Oh wait - some people get to break the rules and others don't?

To hit the final quadrant, here's a sampled portion of a JFK speech, non-rhyming, but set to music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwPnJXXX5Ic

British poet John Cooper Clarke [1] is still actively reading poetry aloud for fun and profit these days.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYs7Gf3DoEc

There are tons of people who read poetry for fun -- they leave their physical homes (!) and travel to this café down the street from me, where, on the night of the Tuesday, they do indeed bring their works and with one another "slam".

There is also hip hop, of course -- which saved my life, probably others as well -- halfway between music and verse

In English, poetry is underwhelming. But there are languages where poetry sounds like music and is very pleasing to hear.

I read it and recite it. Not modern poetry, but ancient, in the language the poems were crafted in. I think reading modern poetry is a great way to learn to dislike it in general. If I had to guess, you've never been exposed to classical poetry. I used to be dismissive of it, until I encountered the good old stuff.

It's oft surprising how much olde becomes new again.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcKqhDFhNHI

Prithee, consider thou yon past future tense "a man of whom Chaucer will write", in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx-x_1lIXh4

Classical, like Μα Τον Δια? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5fA6dTnyrE

The German poet Jan Wagner earns money in writing poems.

Poems are good if you are in public transport. They are shortly to any story and they give you to think.

There are currently at least two (or maybe the same with separate accounts) very popular poets on Reddit who make poetic comments to posts.

https://www.reddit.com/user/Poem_for_your_sprog/

This is the one I'm familiar with, for anyone with a penchant for exploration.

And the other is https://www.reddit.com/user/SchnoodleDoodleDo/

Haikus are fun though

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