Is poetry dead?

IS POETRY DEAD? BY DAVE MORRISON 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 22

Is Poetry Dead?

While you’re at it, consider

this: Is Tetherball Dead? How

about Paper Road Maps, or

Typewriter Repair? Is the

Yo-Yo Dead?

Isn’t this interesting?

Is Poetry Relevant Today?

What about Neat Handwriting?

The Multiplication Tables?

I thought that ukuleles were dead

but now you can buy them at

Sears! Whatever happened

to Roebuck?

Isn’t this fascinating?

No, I mean it, let’s

Talk About Poetry. And

after that we can talk about

hiking, or cooking, or

swimming. You can go

to college to learn how to

talk about poetry—don’t

you want to know what’s

right, what’s good? Thank

God, there are experts who

will tell us how to write, what

to write about, how to express

ourselves, how to be unique.

Interviews, essays, critiques;

never in the history of mankind

has there been so much talk about

poetry at our fingertips! Good

thing, because the best poems are

as indecipherable as the Bible in

Latin—how can we understand them

without help? You want to join…