The Death of Poetry greatly exaggerated

Two things strike me about Nathan Thompson’s online article in The Independent about “performance poetry slams” being “a further nail in the coffin” of poetry. Firstly, it says something about the media as it exists online today and secondly, it says something about the current view of poetry.

To summarise: Thompson’s article says: “Poetry is dead” and young people do not know any poets. Slams are part of modern “quick fix culture” and thus further destroy our ability to appreciate good poetry. Defenders of performance poetry have wrongly “politicised” the debate and are attacking an “ivory tower” that has never existed. Poetry is accessible, but only to people who have the patience to take it in slowly, “like sipping a fine wine”. See full text here if you want to read the full article.