Where were you when American poetess Sylvia Plath gassed herself in her
London kitchen at the age of 30 during the harsh winter of 1963?
Not perhaps the stuff our memories are made of, but all that could
change. There is a distinct revival worldwide of interest in poetry and
poets. This is expressed in the increased purchase of poetry books –
anthologies and works by individual poets – in the new and secondhand
book markets.
There are a number of reasons for this:
The internet allows the discussion and publication of poetry in a way
previously impossible considering the uneconomic nature of the physical
publishing poetry and publishing critiques, both amateur and academic.
The brash and materialistic eighties preceded the fantastic and
terrified nineties. Now here we are here in the middle of the first
decade of the 21st century, more sober and reflective, wondering where
the world is going.
Out of this a generation is emerging a present-day version of the 60’s
and 70’s dreamers and idealists. They want more than self-help books,
more than herbal remedies and fatuous fantasies. There is a return to
serious intellectual examination and spiritual actualization.
And by serious I don’t mean lacking in humor. I’m talking about
intellectual acuity (take the works of travel poet Bill Bryson for
instance) compared to idiotic ramblings (say the books of creative
conspiracy theorist David Icke). Bryson is funny and perceptive while
Icke is obtuse and laughable. There’s a big difference. We are moving
away from weak thoughts to profundity.
Can there be any explanation other than this when a 17-year-old youth
enters our bookshop asking for The Complete Works of Byron, or when a
blonde girl no older than 15 says she is searching for the poems of
Shelley?
In a decade of book-selling this has never happened before. Suddenly we
are buying poetry books again to meet demand, and retrieving the slim
poetry books we relegated to boxes in the basement, to create a special
poetry section.
This makes sense of the revival of interest in the sixties
ballad-poets: Leonard Cohen and Joan Baez. Once again Bob Dylan is
speaking to the contemporary generation. T.S. Eliot and Ted Hughes are
being discussed again. The demand for the work of Lebanese poet Kahlil
Gibran can barely be met. Dylan Thomas is revisited. There is renewed
interest in the war poets and so-called world poetry: the Senegalese,
Thai, French and Swedish poets.
And why not? It is possible because the books are available and
affordable, thanks to the international online book-buying market and
the renewed interest in poetic thought.
Can a rediscovery of Shakespeare’s sonnets and Milton’s Paradise Lost
be far off? Horde any old poetry books and poetry anthologies you still
have. You could catch your children reading them one day in a way you
never did.
Call it poetic justice.
