"I think poetry is more popular now than it has been in the last 100 years, at least," says Eleveld. "'Poetry Speaks,' published by Sourcebooks, sold 100,000 copies because of three CDs that had canonized poets like [Walt] Whitman, [e.e.] cummings and [Sylvia] Plath reading their own work. 'Spoken Word Revolution' sold 20,000 in its first run. In poetry, these numbers are unheard of. The National Poetry Slam in 2003 ran for four nights, taking up eight clubs in Chicago's Wicker Park area, and boasted 1,100 people at the individual finals at the Metro, which is where the Rolling Stones, Smashing Pumpkins and more have played."
According to Eleveld, those numbers are a far cry from a literary landscape before poetry slams. In the mid-1980s, he remembers, "Poetry readings were sparse; audiences were usually around something like 15 people. Now, professional poets are regularly touring high schools, colleges and clubs. If you go to Billy Collins' site, you'll see that he travels 15 days out of the month reading his work. This is all related to slams, hip-hop and the appreciation of oral tradition." |
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