Claire Booker Poetry – a time of change in the UK Poetry faces many challenges in the UK. Where once it was read by the majority of educated people, it is now largely read by poets and their friends. There are even serious plans to make poetry an optional element in the GCSE English Literature exam. School is where many of us started reading (and writing) poetry. How many children will continue to do so in the future if poetry is seen as an option, not an essential of education? Poetry is the deepest, innermost expression of the spirit. It has the power to change the course of the world, not least of all, by changing us as individuals. It is, and should be, available to all. As George Sand said in 1851 – “He who draws noble delights from poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.” About 3% of the adult population of England currently writes poetry, according to a 2016 survey. That equates to about the same number of people who attend contemporary dance, and a little fewer than those who go to the Opera. Contemporary poetry is very much a minority interest within an already limited poetry-reading public. A recent poll revealed Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If ’ to be the most popular poem in England. How very different, it seems, to Bangladesh. When I visited in 2019, at the invitation of the International Poets Summit, I was
34
