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…