Washington Post In 1992, 17 percent of Americans had read a work of poetry at least once in the past year. 20 years later that number had fallen by more than half, to 6.7 percent. Those numbers come from the national Survey of Public Participation in the Arts , a massive survey that's run every few years as part of the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey.
The survey finds that the decline in poetry readership is unique among the arts -- particularly the literary arts. "Since 2002, the share of poetry-readers has contracted by 45 percent—resulting in the steepest decline in participation in any literary genre," the study concludes. Over the past 20 years, the downward trend is nearly perfectly linear -- and doesn't show signs of abating.
The survey finds that the decline in poetry readership is unique among the arts -- particularly the literary arts. "Since 2002, the share of poetry-readers has contracted by 45 percent—resulting in the steepest decline in participation in any literary genre," the study concludes. Over the past 20 years, the downward trend is nearly perfectly linear -- and doesn't show signs of abating.
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