The other day I read what is a frightening statistic. At least frightening for someone who is a poet in Australia, as I am.
Goodreading magazine ran a readers’ poll which asked:
Do you read poetry?
34% said not at all
22% rarely
32% occasionally
12% often
It appears statistics in USA are vastly different to these, as a survey by The Poetry Foundation found out. I wonder how many of you read poetry and where you go to find it. Do you only read the works of poets like Donne, Shakespeare, Whitman, Frost, Dickinson, Plath etc or do you read contemporary poetry? If so, who?
If you are a Christian, do you look for poets writing from a Christian perspective? Or are you happy to read widely poets from various world views?
Two of my favorite poets are:
Gerard Manly Hopkins. I love ‘The Windhover’
Kevin Hart, was born in UK but lived much of his life in Australia
Here are some favorite Australian poets you may or may not have heard of
Andrew Lansdown – also a Baptist Pastor, writes exquisite poetry. I have all of his books of poetry. He also writes children’s fiction
Les Murray – writes from a Catholic perspective. Les is, without doubt, Australia’s most famous poet.
Judith Beveridge Judy Johnson, Alex Skovron, Robert Gray are also favorite poets.
Two children’s poets I like are
Lorraine Marwood
When I first started writing I came under criticism from some Christians wanting to know if what I was writing was ‘Christian poetry.’ Let me say I object to the term. In my opinion, a poem cannot be Christian. A person can. And as I am a Christian, what I believe and live by is reflected in what I choose to write about. Many of my poems deal with relationships and the beauty of God’s creation.
Is poetry written for the secular market different to what is written for a religious market? Often it is. Magazines like Decision magazine or Caritas, are after a simpler form of verse that is more readily accessible than what the literary magazines publish. I have published in both.
Though perhaps Christian content can make it harder to get published in secular magazines, a number of my poems dealing with Christian themes have been published in secular literary magazines and newspapers, as have some of the other Christian poets I mentioned. And, one suspects, the only people who read poetry in Australia are other poets (sometimes not even then) and those required to read it for high school exams.
As the statistic I started with shows, few people read it simply for pleasure.
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Meet a families.com.blogger- Dale Harcombe