fallen verses

Better Than Some Dumb Ad
For 15 years now, the Poetry Society of America has been sponsoring the Poetry in Motion program, placing poems on public transportation in New York. Do people really read the poems? Alexander Provan investigates.

As a culture, we definitely seem to be drawn to fast things: fast food, on-demand tv, etc. We want what we want and we want it immediately. Most of the time, that is accommodatable, technology has brought us so many advances in the ease of life, it’s “new normal” for everything to be “right there.” Which makes it even stranger that something like the Harry Potter series is so powerful. The books are long! Really, really long. Especially for children. Now, I have absolutely no issue with Harry Potter, and anything that gets more people interested in reading and thinking about other ways of life is a good thing. It just seems odd, in a culture where cultural activities are like snack food, Poetry is not more widely spread. It is the ultimate cultural finger-food. Generally packaged in convenient one-page-or-less bites.
I imagine a lot of people dislike poetry because of high-school English teachers. They teach poetry as if (at least in my experience) it was something a bunch of middle-aged white men did a long time ago. It didn’t have much to do with our lives. And that was a failing, one I hope is changing. There are so many talented poets practicing today, in many varied forms and voices that woud mean much more to young audiences today than Shakespeare’s sonnets. Especially Slam Poetry, and Hip Hop Poetics, which by their very nature are meant to grab an audience might be the best ambassadors of the art into schools. But, for adults, I was pleasantly surprised to come across an article at PoetryFoundation.org about the Poetry in Motion project on the New York subway System. I think we need more of this, too.

link to the Poetry Foundation article

link to the MTA Poetry in Motion website