Is poetry dying?

“Is poetry a dying art?” by Kaiser Haq published in TDS on September 27 has touched us who are concerned about literature in current age. The number of books published each month and the number of sustainable literature journals points to the simple fact that production and promotion of knowledge here is actually going down the drain.

People write in their leisure time, which is not adequate. Nobody has the time or the needed focus to do adequate research before writing a fiction or non-fiction. There was a time when writers were avid readers. Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina from the scratch thrice. Is it possible to write a novel that big in current times, let alone rewriting it for the sake of quality?

I blame mostly the decline in the quality of journals/periodicals. In the past, people used to make a living by writing in journals. I do not believe that we have a shortage of readers. And of course, people still read poetry with great love. I think we just fail to meet the demands of different kinds of readers here.

Ariful Hossain
Dhaka University