Of all the literary forms that have fallen out of fashion, I think poetry suffers the most. The mainstream public simply doesn’t have an interest in poetry, and it shows in the painfully low sales numbers of compilations of poetry books. I think a large reason for the miserable popularity of poetry is because reading a poem is not a passive activity. It takes work. A poem needs to be read over and over again for the reader to even begin to understand it.

If reading a novel is like wandering through a museum, with all the exhibits neatly organized and laid out with a tidy explanation written for each specimen, then reading poetry is like being an archeologist at an excavation site – slowly sifting through layers of earth and piecing together meaning from the mounds of rubble. In a world that demands immediate gratification through computers, video games, movies and the like, poetry seems like an ancient relic that has lost importance.

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I spend a lot of time on this blog writing about ebooks, publishing and writing fiction. While I love writing about those topics, there is one subject that I have neglected over the last year or so – poetry. During my college days I really dived into poetry in a big way, analyzing poems from the time of Shakespeare to contemporary poems written today. It took time to carefully read a poem over and over again, but the reward came in the form of an epiphany, one of those ‘Ah ha!’ moments when you finally get it from a poem finally understood.

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Here in the United States, poetry doesn’t get much attention. Books of poetry hardly every make the bestseller list (I can’t think the last time one did, if ever). And most poets can only survive by teaching or holding some other job. But in the Arab world, poetry is very popular and even big business.

I guess you can say poetry is to the Arab world that music is to the US. So today, when I was listening to my daily mix of podcasts I subscribe to, I was very interested in this NPR Books podcast that talks about Arab poetry and its relation to culture and religion (the Quran, Islam’s holy book, is seen as the height of Arab poetry).

Even if you don’t normally listen to podcasts or subscribe to them, this episode is well worth your time, and it’s only about 6 minutes long. Enjoy!

This story is making the rounds pretty quickly on the intertubes this morning: Sylvia Plaths son has reportedly committed suicide by hanging himself, according to this CNN article. As most of you probably know, Sylvia Plath was the very tragic poet who gassed herself to death (in the oven) in 1963.

Nicholas Hughes was a marine biologist working in Alaska and has been suffering from depression:

Frieda Hughes, a poet, author and artist, said in a statement to the newspaper: "It is with profound sorrow that I must announce the death of my brother, Nicholas Hughes, who died by his own hand on Monday March 16, 2009 at his home in Alaska.

"He had been battling depression for some time."

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Sometimes I’m surprised at who is also a fellow literature junkie, no matter how low a politician they might be. Case in point: Yesterday I wrote this post about Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his penchant for quoting poetry during press conferences.

Well today, the Chicago Tribune caught on to his literary musings in this piece, and even seeks to throw in some analysis of the Governor’s taste in poetry:

The governor’s identification with Tennyson’s hero might also raise eyebrows: In Greek mythology, Ulysses was less noted for honor than for craftiness, the ancient equivalent of wink-and-nod politics. Of him, Tennyson wrote: "I mete and dole/unequal laws unto a savage race."

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Even though poetry isn’t quite a dead art form, it has sure lost a lot of popularity over the years. Perhaps that is why it’s amusing…ah…sad that it has taken a corrupt politician like Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to thrust this forgotten art back into the spotlight, at least temporarily.

Today, after the Illinois House of Representatives voted to impeach the Governor, his response was in part a quote from a poem by Alfred Lloyd Tennyson, as reported here in the Chicago Tribune:

He closed his remarks by quoting from "Ulysses," a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

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When I think of banning books, I normally think about large piles of books being set on fire in the street, or even certain books being pulled from school libraries for one reason or another. But banning books hardly conjures up the image of a large bookstore chain canceling a book signing because a religious group threatens to cause a disruption.

Yet that is exactly what happened at Waterstone’s Bookstore today in the UK. According to this BBC report, a book of poetry that was considered "Obscene and blasphemous" by a group called the Christian Voice:

Patrick Jones was due to sign copies at Waterstone’s in Cardiff but the shop cancelled the event at the last moment.

Christian Voice said the book was "obscene and blasphemous" and called on the chain to remove copies from stores.

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You can read books written by your favorite classic authors, you can even read their biographies and study other works written by them. But if you really want to get into the head of your favorite writer, then why not visit the place where they wrote their best works?

I came across an interesting snippet from the Guardian about taking vacations to famed literary spots around the world. And for those of us here in the United States, it doesn’t necessarily mean a trip overseas either:

For those keen to immerse themselves totally in the world of literature while on holiday, there’s a company in the States (www.literarytraveler.com) which offers literary tours.

A lot of bookworms would be surprised that many literary figures didn’t live in large cities like New York or Chicago or even Los Angeles (as many writers seem to migrate to today). In fact, according to the Guardian article, Concord, Massachusetts, a humble town of only about 15,000, can brag about being home to the likes of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa M. Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson and others!

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I don’t know if this story is funny, sad, or a little bit of both. I saw this news story this morning on Yahoo! (Robert Frost home vandalized). The home of the iconic American poet Robert Frost was vandalized. Not by poet-hating, knife-wielding drunks, rather by a bunch of teenagers (not confirmed, but police suspect minors were involved). Here’s what was found:

Empty beer bottles and cans, plastic cups and cellophane apparently used to hold marijuana were also found, according to Hodsden. The vandals vomited in the living room and discharged two fire extinguishers inside the building, located on a dead-end road off Route 125.

Either these kids didn’t know it was Robert Frost’s house and just chose a deserted house at random, or they knew about the poet’s house and thought it would be fun to throw a party there. The third option is they didn’t even know who Robert Frost was (wouldn’t be surprising given the low status poetry has in the US). I’m betting on the "they knew about the poets house and thought it would be fun to throw a party" option.

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Poetry can come from the most unlikely of places. The art form is not just limited to the world of academics (there’s plenty of poetry being written in popular MFA programs around the country) or those artsy folks that snub their collective noses at anything popular.

There’s a book of poetry from one of the places you would least expect: the infamous Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay Cuba where many "terror" suspects are still being held indefinitely with little or no legal recourse. The book is entitled Poems from Guantanamo.

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