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Whither poetry?

Is poetry doomed to go the way of morris dancing or quilting? Daisy Goodwin, host of a BBC series that features actors reciting poetry, is beginning to think so. In an interview by David Smith on The Guardian‘s website, Goodwin shares her fears about the continuing decline of poetry in contemporary life. “Twenty years ago everyone could name a Larkin or a Betjeman poem and had read them,” Goodwin says. “I think you’d be very hard pressed to find anybody who could name a poem by any of the top 10 poets today. [Poetry] is an endangered species.” Smith interviews a couple of naysayers who claim that poetry is as vital as it’s ever been, including Britain’s poet laureate, Andrew Motion, who says, “There’s a huge appetite for poetry, not just at the crunch times in people’s lives — births, marriage, death — but with a more general sense that it can belong in our lives.”

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Read The Guardian essay

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