16 January 2017
Why Poetry? Well, yes. Most books of poetry sell a couple of thousand copies, at best. So in a quantitative sense, what's the point of supporting it? With dollars or sense? Would we make the same argument for investing in an endangered species? Like the great Indian bustard, one of the heaviest flying birds, down to a couple of hundred of its kind.
The issue is larger than the number of collections of poetry sold each year. It's about the language - our language. Is it, too, endangered? If the depleted language of emails and texts and Twitter is any indication, then there's a case to be made that it might be.
