And so yet again the poetry world is spoiling for an
internal fight, aiming for civil war instead of forming a common front to
take on the fact that millions of people ignore the genre’s existence.
Everything is kicking off on the back of an article
titled The Cult of the Noble Amateur in PN Review. Written by Rebecca Watts, it
dissects the poetry of Holly McNish and has provoked umpteen discussions on social
media.
Artificial battle lines are being drawn (on this occasion
spoken word vs written verse, accessibility vs elitism) rather than
opportunities being taken. A huge new audience/readership for poetry has
developed and is growing, day after day, thanks to the emergence of new ways of
reaching people. This can only be positive for all poets, whatever their
tastes. Moreover, major publishing houses are encountering new income streams
and prominence on bookshop shelves for verse that will inevitably feed back in
to all the poets on their list, whatever their aesthetic stance and method.
Here’s an analogy with the wine trade: many young people here
in Extremadura drink lager. They find oak-aged red wine a step too far from
beer. Over the past few years, a number of wineries (mine included) have brought
out fresh, low-alcohol white wines that are aimed at this market. These white
wines have taken off and become incredibly successful.
Right now, not only have we managed to wean a whole host of beer drinkers on to wine, growing the market, but more and more of these consumers are also starting to move on to the reds they used to eschew, using those whites as a stepping stone. Of course, a newly acquired taste for those oak-aged red wines doesn’t mean they should turn their noses up at the fresh white wines they used to drink. There’s a moment, a place and a mood for both.
