Are you full
Are you empty
Do you sing
Do you speak?

Is poetry success
Is it being asked
Do you feel it
Does it flash by?

It may be
being alone
wishing and remembering
writing the first thoughts
and leaving them for others.
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I hear you on that, but hesitate to thin that poetry should only be solace, or lament, or any one gesture. What about poetry that helps us be in the world differently?

Best,
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The question is a funny one — “are you a poet?” is a question of identity, and I understand why you answered as you did even though you both write or have written poetry. “Do you write poetry?” is less vexed and vexing a question — it asks what a person does instead of asking them to define themselves by what they do. I wrote a lot of poetry in college and then thought I had stopped, but always kept buying books; but now since I’ve started writing more regularly again (inspired by the internet — thanks, Harriet! [and others]) and am talking with an artist friend about doing a book together, I realize that I had never completely stopped; and that I still wouldn’t call myself a poet. I don’t hesitate to call myself a musician, even though I’ve never made a living from it (“semi-pro” is a term I’ve romanticized from sports); and I’m always interested to know whether anybody I meet plays music too, being a big believer in amateur music-making.

Thanks for your answers — very interesting!
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It would be interesting to see what responses you’d get through a non-poetry related poll for comparison…
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I bought and read poetry long before I became an English major, and my notes on poets and poetry go all the way back to junior high school. I have a few non-poet friends who have a similar background and similar bookshelves, and I know this isn’t typical. I wonder if there might be a gender difference in the answers to your questions.

I love the question, and it’s been interesting reading the answers. Thanks.
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Do Non-Poets Buy Poetry Books?

Based on the numbers I’m seeing and notwithstanding the encouraging exceptions noted by others, my short answer is no.

Some of my non-poet friends have a few of the classics in their library but admit they haven’t read them in their entirety. None are quick to discuss contemporary poetry, let alone buy it.

Insofar as my poet friends who do purchase the occasional book are concerned, it is usually because they’ve met the poet, often after having been dragged to a poetry reading. My experience echoes Margo’s:

But a common denominator is they mostly “wish” they were poets.

For what it’s worth, I suspect that this may always have been the case. Even in poetry’s heyday, when newspapers and non-literary magazines included it in their pages, I’d wager that most of the readers were frustrated/aspiring poets. Also FWIW, I believe that book sales may have been the third most lucrative source of income for professional poets in general, after (in both the chronological and quantitative sense) public appearances and magazine/newspaper royalties. Think of the poets who never published a book during their careers! Alas, in this era when NFL Network mentions poetry more often than PBS does, book sales (and teaching salaries, of course) have become the only potentially significant return we can measure.

Best regards,

Colin
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& just a thought to Sina & Daisy–re good/bad theatre/poetry/fiction – all the same, really, to me–like the girl with a curl, when she’s good she’s very very good & when she’s bad, she’s horrid. (Back as far as Hamlet’s hope for the “play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king,” one can hope for the play or the poem or the “art” in its best sense, to do its job. When/if it does, no matter the size…it’s a good day.

margo
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Bummer, dudes!
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Regarding prices:

1. I miss small paperbacks! Kenneth Koch and Ashbery used to come out with books that size — I love them because they fit in an inside jacket pocket. Ever since Penguin classics followed the lead of Stallone, Springsteen, and McMansions, and needlessly bulked up their reprints, they’ve become less attractive and more expensive for no reason other than mirroring an era of conspicuous largeness.

2. Theater Oobleck in Chicago (of which I was a co-founder) charges “pay what you can.” In 25 years they’ve produced 66 original plays (or evenings of short plays), almost all of them to rave reviews, and few serious theater people outside of Chicago have ever heard of them. It’s like a local band with 66 original albums, or a poetry collective with 66 books — a sad indictment of the state of national cultural awareness that they’re so obscure. None of them make a living from it, though they do get some grant money, and even before grants came in, for many many years the gate paid all production costs; they’ve never lost money to pay for rent, props, and sets.

Anyway, Daisy, theater in Chicago isn’t all expensive. Check them out next time you visit Poetry HQ.
http://www.theateroobleck.com/index.html
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Sadly, I guess this is why book prizes have become so important–it’s one way to wade through the slush pile. But it’s not the best way. What would one think of theatre if they only saw plays that won a Pulitzer?

A non-writer friend once told me poetry was a much better investment than fiction or theater: unlike theatre you take it home, and unlike a novel every time you pick a book of poetry up, it’s different.
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I do think non-poets buy poetry. They just have to find their way to it. I don’t think the poetry biz does a great job of getting outside of its circles. As Kenny points out in his recent post, the UK edition of Christian Bok’s book sold out days after an interview (BBC? Something like that?).

Extreme case, but yes, they found their way to the poetry.

Which is why I love those How Poems Work columns that occasionally appear in newspapers: they get poetry to unsuspecting readers. And often with great results.
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Eleven poems in a handsome hardcover. About 20 pages with lots of white space. A brief collection that allows one to have a sense of the horizon as one moves along. It welcomes the general public. It looks like a children’s book. But it delivers something else. It is a little jewel that you hold in your hand.

100 pages of Ashbery? Sheesh. (And I like him quite much.)
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One curious difference–in Paris there is an annual “marché de la poésie” – an open-air square of book stands in front of a famed church, filled for late spring days with sellers and buyers of small hand made editions, often illustrated, as much art-objects as books, published in France & elsewhere in Europe. This market has always impressed me that there are buyers for poetry that is not a business, in the American sene. The editions are significantly small, & no poet who publishes feels diminished, or aspires to be Collins or Oliver. These are publishers, editors, & poets, who do it for love, not Amazon or academia. (I don’t believe it’s the only way, certainly. I can admit hope to be read, if possible, across a few spaces. But this scenario has always reminded me what art for the art is.I never hope to ignore that.)

margo
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meeting the poet, and being intrigued to see what else they have to offer…

to support what they want to know more of: love poetry books or social justice books.
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