IN JUNE 2018, a study by the National Endowment for the Arts reported that 11.7 per cent of U.S. readers had consumed poetry in 2017, the highest number in 15 years. Most notably, young poetry readers had doubled to 17.5 per cent from 2012. Experts attribute the popularity to social media and, of course, the success of Instagram phenoms like Canada’s own Rupi Kaur.
A lt houg h a simi la r study doesn’t exist in this country, BookNet Canada’s market reports support the American study’s indings. In 2016, Canadian poetry sales increased 79 per cent over the previous year, and between 2016 and 2017 the units sold rose another 154 per cent, mostly thanks again to Kaur.
It’s easy to get caught up in sales and trends, but I don’t think numbers should stand as a measure of success for Canadian poetry. I am more encouraged by the new voices that are being published and celebrated alongside the works of those from generations before. It was so thrilling last year when 23-year-old Billy-Ray Belcourt, a poet from Driftpile Cree Nation, won the prestigious Griffin Prize for his debut This Wound is a World, published by the small Calgary independent press Frontenac House.
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