Why Do Dead Poets Sell More Books Than Live Ones?
From Powells.com :
Top Ten: Thursday, May 15.
- Pocket Poets #04: Howl: And Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg
- Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
- Red Bird: Poems by Mary Oliver
- Love: Ten Poems by Pablo Neruda
- Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins
- A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver
- Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
- Another World Instead: The Early Poems of William Stafford, 1937-1947 by William Stafford
- The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
- Whitman: Poetry and Prose (Library of America) by Walt Whitman
For the poets on this list not with us anymore, I understand that that their works have endured long after their deaths for a reason—because they're damn good. But casual readers stick to what they know: dead poets. And there are so many wonderful, talented writers out there if readers would take the time to look for them.
Am I wrong here?
Comments
:0
You still have a good, though not flawless, point...
Sorry if that wasn't clear.
I'd rather see books like this on the list, than "100 poems to read at weddings" or "50 poems to get you through hard times" or any of the other pop-psychology pseudo-poetry compilations out there.
Only one book of poetry makes the list of best selling books published in New Zealand, and they set the bar much lower for poetry than other genres in terms of number of copies sold. It was by a poet who's very mcuh alive, but rather over-hyed, in my opinion.
of time, I think. Look back 5
years. Now look back 150. How
many 'timeless' classics are
made in a year? Like with books,
movies, paintings, sculpture,
buildings, etc. When the past
competes with the present it has
that length thing.
The general public is not at the
party much these days either.
But I'm hoping with the scores of MFA programs out there, poetry will have more readers in the next 20 years.
The bar is set low for poetry sales in the U.S., too. And publishers don't often share sales numbers so it's hard to tell how well a poetry book does.
Jim, point well taken about the Bell Jar. And it's good to see you online, my dear!
Is Neruda dead?
Since everyone is dead longer than they are alive, the best will have more readers when they are dead than when they are alive. It's simple maths. The worst will be forgotten. Unless they are William McGonigall.
Which live poets do you think most deserve to be at the top of the best-seller list?
"Which live poets do you think most deserve to be at the top of the best-seller list?"
This is a subjective answer and very U.S. centric unfortunately. But top of my list would be Robert Hass, who just won the Pulitzer Prize for his most recent book.
But what I would like to see a diversity of poetry winning top prizes and ultimately selling more books. I'd like first-time authors making the list, as well as those publishing second and third books. I'd like to hear from older poets, international poets, and certainly more African American and Asian poets at the top of this list.
And yes, I'd like to see female poets other than Mary Oliver on a top-ten list.
Good question. And now I turn the question over to other bloggers: which live poets should be on a best-sellers list?
Some of the poets I'd like to see on the list turn out to be dead anyway. Does a hundred year old living poet deserve to sell more than a much later born poet who died at fifty? For instance, Donald Hall expected his much younger wife Jane Kenyon to outlive him by many years, but she died first. So I can't suggest Jane for the list, much as I'd like to, though I could suggest Donald.
I didn't like Mary Oliver's second volume of collected poems nearly as much as the first. Joyce Sutphen is one lesser known US poet whom I like enough to buy more than one of her books (that's a horrible sentence I know, but I can't think how to repharse it right now)
I know exactly what you meant even though the list contains plenty of live poets. You ask the average person to list poets they like or have read and nine out of ten will list a dead poet. If you'd ask them about a living breathing poet that's written something in the last 20 years, they likely couldn't answer. ((sigh)).