ABSTRACT
Most poetry is not ‘poetry’. Artfully assembled words are everywhere affecting human consciousness, from billboards and passing busses, to the endless stream of internet memes. ‘Poetry’ – for its own sake – is held aloft like a waiter’s dish. Today, the chef’s speciality is spoken word. What has hitherto been considered an emerging and countercultural art form, has recently become content for marketing departments. (Lazell) In doing so, it has simultaneously reached the audiences it has long been denied and marinated in the sullied waters of consumer capitalism. Is this a milestone of poetic achievement or, as the Old Testament might put it, a sin for which the poet should have ‘a large millstone hung around their neck’ and ‘drowned in the depths of the sea’?
