Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative

"Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments." — so remarked Mark Strand, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, who often spoke with equal measures of irony and lament about the state of poetry in the modern world. In these words, he casts a sober light upon the condition of poetry in our age: that what was once the breath of the people, the song of farmers, lovers, prophets, and revolutionaries, has in many places retreated into the halls of academia. Poetry, he suggests, no longer lives at the heart of public life, but survives in classrooms, workshops, and creative writing programs.

Strand’s observation carries both truth and tragedy. Once, poetry was not confined to institutions. In the ancient world, it was central to culture: Homer’s epics were sung aloud by rhapsodes before vast audiences, shaping the Greek sense of identity. In Ireland, the bards held honor as the keepers of history and lineage, their poems binding together the memory of clans. Even in more recent centuries, poetry flowed in the streets: Shelley, Byron, and Whitman wrote not for professors, but for people, their verses addressing the spirit of nations and the struggles of humanity. Poetry was life itself, made music in words.

But Strand, speaking from within the late twentieth century, saw how this flame had dimmed in public consciousness. In America especially, poetry had become marginalized, relegated to small circles, university readings, and student workshops. While still alive, it no longer commanded the attention of the crowd; it had been confined to English departments, preserved like an artifact in a museum rather than sung in the open air. What once was the language of common experience now too often seemed the possession of scholars, critics, and the small community of those who studied it professionally.

This is not to say, however, that poetry ceased to matter. Even within the universities, poetry retained its transformative power. Strand himself, who taught in such settings, knew that poetry could still awaken the soul, could still act as revelation. But he mourned the narrowing of its audience. For poetry, he believed, was meant to belong to all — to the worker as much as to the professor, to the child as much as to the scholar. When confined, its voice loses breadth; when liberated, it speaks to the human heart in its entirety.

Consider, for example, the life of Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet. His poems were not contained in classrooms, but read aloud at rallies, whispered in love letters, carried in the pockets of laborers. He did not need an English department to validate his work; his audience was the people, and they in turn made him one of the most beloved poets of the twentieth century. In contrast, Strand’s lament reminds us that too many modern poets have audiences limited to the walls of universities, their words echoing mainly in lecture halls rather than in public squares.

The lesson here is clear: poetry must not be imprisoned in institutions. Though universities may nurture it, preserve it, and teach it, poetry’s true destiny is to return to the people. It must speak to their fears, their joys, their griefs, and their dreams. To leave poetry only in the hands of professors is to betray its essence; to restore poetry to the streets, to the homes, to the gatherings of the people, is to give it breath again.

Practical action is within reach. Read poems aloud at family gatherings. Share verses in public spaces, not just classrooms. Write not only for critics, but for neighbors, for children, for friends. Let poetry walk once more among the people, as song and story, as cry and comfort. And if you are a student or teacher of poetry, remember that your task is not merely to analyze, but to keep alive a flame that belongs to all humanity.

Thus, Strand’s words, though tinged with sadness, are also a call to action. “Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments.” So it may be now — but so it need not remain. Let us return poetry to the hearth and the marketplace, to the voice of the people. For poetry is not only an art of scholars; it is the oldest language of the soul, and it longs to be heard by all.