Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Poetry has lost its central role in culture despite continued quality.
In plain terms
Poetry is less important to most people now.
What can you take from it?
Poetry needs more support to stay relevant.

Where it applies

  • literary events
  • education
  • public funding

Putting it to work

  • read poetry aloud
  • support poets
  • attend readings

Questions to consider

  • Does poetry speak to you?
  • Why has poetry faded from culture?

Another view

Poetry might not need mass appeal to matter.

More from Dana Gioia

  1. Most editors run poems and poetry reviews the way a prosperous Montana rancher might keep a few buffalo around - not to eat the endangered creatures but to dis…

    Permalink to quote #28
  2. Forty years ago, when Dylan Thomas read, he spent half the program reciting other poets' work. Hardly a self-effacing man, he was nevertheless humble before hi…

    Permalink to quote #30
  3. The engines that have driven poetry's institutional success - the explosion of academic writing programs, the proliferation of subsidized magazines and presses…

    Permalink to quote #27

Related quotes

  1. Image:that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.

    Ezra PoundEzra Pound quote #1
  2. The poetical tendency of the present and of the preceding century has been divided in a manner singularly curious. One loud and conspicuous faction of bards, g…

    H. P. LovecraftH. P. Lovecraft quote #1
  3. I hate bainting, and boetry too! Neither the one nor the other ever did any good.

    George II of Great BritainGeorge II of Great Britain quote #2