People attend classical music concerts and listen to the great composers. People flock to art museums and stare at walls of paintings by the old masters. But rarely do people regularly attend performances of classic poetry (the plays of William Shakespeare being an exception to this rule).
People, of course, will attend slam poetry events at coffee shops and cafes. But these spoken word poems are little more than everyday prose recited in a way that emphasizes cadence, and the performers mostly talk about themselves. Compared to the best verse of the past, they don’t hold up well and are unlikely to last.
