A Controversial Opinion: Poetry Has Changed...for the Worse.
I’ve been reading a lot of poems in poetry communities on Tumblr, and there’s something that comes up a lot.
Most of the modern poems I read are easy to understand, immediate, and almost always centered on the self and one’s own feelings. They’re texts that are understood instantly, that require no pause or effort, that are simply felt.
There’s nothing wrong with writing from what one feels; in fact, it’s the most natural thing. But when it stops there, poetry starts to become predictable.
We live in an age where everything is just a click away: fast, clear, immediate. And that has also changed the way we read. I feel like we’re getting used to poetry that’s consumed quickly, just like everything else.
It feels as though we no longer want to demand anything of the reader.
And when something more symbolic or complex appears, it’s often dismissed as incoherent. Sometimes it just demands something we’re no longer used to giving: time.
I miss those poems that make you stop and think, reread, hesitate a little. The ones that don’t give you everything on a silver platter, the ones that go beyond the obvious.
Maybe it’s not that depth has disappeared, but that we’re increasingly less willing to dwell on it.
I believe that poetry can also be a space to lose yourself a little, to think more than we’re used to.
Maybe the problem isn't that those poems are difficult, but that we're getting too used to the easy stuff.
Sometimes I'm surprised by how some ancient fables (like Aesop's), despite being aimed at children, manage to achieve a depth that I find lacking in some contemporary poetry.
