Poetry Is No Longer A Commercial Art

By

Micheal Ace

If the total amount earned in a year by an experienced and acclaimed poet cannot commensurate with what an upcoming artist earns at a single musical show, then it should be unarguable that poetry is no more a commercial art.

With such an evidential point above, we cannot completely disregard the widely known clause “Poets are poor”. And at this particular juncture, there should not be any interference of doubt to this claim that poetry is now at loggerheads with the social market.

To begin with, poetry can be considered an old form of art. For instance, ninety-nine percent of the readers of poetry are poets themselves as you cannot possibly find the eyes of a neutral and average individual behind the verse of poetically weaved lines.

Most people prefer musical lyrics, riddle and jokes, even prose to poetry.

Why? It’s impossible to say, the reason is far-fetched because poets themselves know the gravity of their grandiloquence.

Furthermore, as said by a sage that “If you wish to hide a treasure from an African, put it between the pages of a book.” The world lacks readers.

It was first the problem of Africans to read but the virus has now infected the whole wide world as every socially acceptable art and craft is confined to music as an audio form and graphics as the visual form.

We can partially blame this on the advancement of technology which has arguably done more harm than good to our society.

Moreover, the spoken word is an audible form of poetry. But presently, the rate at which a melodious spoken word poem is downloaded and heard is way less than that of a mere rap instrumental. That is why we have musical producers making millions at the dance of their fingers on keyboards while the saliva of spoken word artists get dried up by the mean and scorching heat of fatigue.

Nevertheless, even if I do not know the number of cars and houses owned by Wole Soyinka and I do not know the number of airports built by Niyi Osundare and the amount in the back account of the late Chinua Achebe, I do know that their names cannot vanish in the tongue of each and every living being around the world.

If I fail to know the financial status of William Shakespeare while he was alive, I know that as everybody acclaims him a hero, so will the next world because there is immortality in poetry.

The cost of a pen may be more expensive than the poetry it writes but both the writer and the pen cannot live as long as the written poem.

So, there is immortality in poetry, even though it’s no more a commercial art.

Micheal Ace

Micheal Ace is an African-born poet and writer who hails from  Osun State, Nigeria. He began his writing career professionally in the year 2012 with essays and articles and is currently the vice president of World Union of Poets-Nigeria Chapter. He is also the Founder and CEO at ACEworld.

He recently released an anthology “THEMANTHOLOGY OF NIGHT” alongside a poetry legend Funsho Richard of U.S.A. The thematic anthology successfully featured 50 poets all across the globe.

He believes in a self-muse which has always been the instigator behind his consistency: “The world is too complex for a pen to remain idle.”