Traditionalists need to reclaim poetry.
Seriously, when was the last time that you went into a bookstore looking to buy a book of poetry? When was the last time you pondered a poem that you had read?
Poetry is a subject that is seemingly laughed at by the modern world, and I would argue, has been treated irreverently since the end of World War Two.
There is so much value in poetry that is untapped. What remains of poetry today exists in the notes app of those unfortunate souls who are now called to be poets in the darkness. A century ago, they would be writing chapbooks, and if successful, would be able to live off their work and focus all of their attention to creative output. Now the most successful “poets” make their reels into quick entertainment to be output as short form content on Instagram and TikTok. Even more often you will not see the face of the individual but will just have an auto generated AI voice read aloud over a stock video background. What has poetry become?!
English literature departments are often places of sterilization, where writing is stifled, dreams suffocated, and every word becomes something to dissect. When the western world began its decline and stopped producing beauty in as great a volume as it used to, poetry is noticeably one of the first things that went down the drain. This is because poetry is hard. Poetry takes a great deal of emotional or psychological stress to be able to craft a well articulated poem. This is contrasted with the English departments that now just “deconstruct” and “analyze” what already exists, while creating nothing new of value. Who can people look to today as a traditionalist poet that is in the mainstream culture, as Lord Byron was in the mainstream of his day? My mind comes up blank, because no one is producing literary beauty in a constructive context. Where are the poems about love of family, country, faith, and nature? Long gone are the days that we hear about the morning dew on the rolling hills of old England! Now our minds are inundated with catchy social media audios, news headlines, and meaningless celebrity drama. It is astounding that we have to even ask why poetry is so important! However, here is why traditionalists must reclaim poetry, and why it is currently an open space.
“We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.” (Dead Poets Society)
While this quote is often shared on social media by aesthetic accounts relating to the Dead Poets Society, it nonetheless rings true. Poetry is how people expressed beauty in literary terms up until World War Two, after which it seems to have died out, as so many great artistic pursuits did.
While advocating for a reclaiming of poetry by traditionalists, I would argue that due to there being this sense of an open ground for the taking, it is necessary to not speculate, but rather to take action. Begin writing poetry, posting it on social media, sharing it with friends and family. If those who believe in beauty practice the pursuit of beauty through the revival of poetry, this becomes the embodiment of traditionalist ideals. People claiming to be the inheritors of poetry have tried to move into the territory and claim it as their own but have failed, and only have successfully created a limp social media framework that rehashes aesthetics and trite axioms. Those of us who look to the past can take the wonderful inheritance of Euro-American poetry and innovate on this for modern times, while still keeping ourselves tethered to the foundations.
Writing poetry in a notebook overlooking the ocean, or typing away on your laptop in a cozy café by the fire, whatever environment works for you to write is crucial to the creative output. Putting in just 30 minutes to an hour each week to not only writing, but reading poetry as well, can be seen as a tithe of your time to revitalizing poetry towards a traditionalist orientation for posterity to enjoy.
