The National Endowment for the Arts earlier this month announced part of the results of its 2017 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, reporting that nearly 12 percent of adults, or roughly 28 million people, read poetry in the past year.
These numbers, the highest on record in the survey's 15-year history, might seem meager in a world where the latest blockbuster is considered a disappointmentdespite amassing sales topping $100 million in its opening weekend. But in the poetry world, 28 million adult readers represents a significant uptick from the previous survey in 2012, which showed only 7 percent of the population reading poetry. That survey suggested a steady decline in readership and occasioned one of the many, many by-now-familiar headlines announcing (or contesting) poetry's slow demise. (My favorite was a 2012 bar graph in the Washington Post with the heading, "Poetry: Less Popular Than Jazz, Dance, and Knitting.") In this context, 12 percent participation in poetry, however modest, can feel to proponents of the form like a sign of its revitalization and cause for celebration.
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