Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to

“Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man; it has become the amusement and delight of the few.” Thus lamented John Masefield, poet laureate of England, whose words strike like a bell tolling for a lost age. In this declaration, he does not curse the press—one of humanity’s greatest inventions—but mourns the change it wrought upon poetry. Once the shared song of the tribe, poetry became, with the written word and the printed page, a more private art, withdrawn from the fire of community into the chambers of the few who sought it.

The meaning of this saying lies in the contrast between the communal and the individual. Before the printing press, poetry was oral, sung aloud, performed to the many. It was not the property of the learned, but the heartbeat of the people—heard in the chants of harvest, in the songs of sailors, in the ballads told by wandering minstrels. All knew it, all partook of it, for it lived in the air and the memory. With the press, however, poetry became more fixed, bound in books, purchased and preserved by those with learning or leisure. Its voice grew quieter in the marketplace, louder in the study.

The origin of Masefield’s thought comes from his own love of the ballad tradition. He, a sailor before he was a poet, knew the power of poetry as a communal art. At sea, men sang to endure labor, to tell stories, to drive away fear. These songs belonged to all, not to one. Yet in the modern age, he saw poetry slipping into isolation, studied by critics, prized by academics, read by a minority. The printing press, though it spread knowledge, also transformed poetry’s nature—from living sound to written word, from the delight of the many to the possession of the few.

History confirms this shift. In ancient Greece, Homer’s epics were not books but performances, sung by rhapsodes to entire communities. In medieval Europe, troubadours carried their songs from court to village, and ballads were sung in taverns and fields. These were not elite amusements but collective inheritances. Yet after Gutenberg’s invention, literature increasingly became a matter of ownership. Poetry was printed, preserved, but also distanced from the common ear. It survived, but its communal fire dimmed.

The lesson here is not despair but awareness. If poetry has withdrawn from the public square, it is our task to return it. Poetry is not meant to be locked in libraries alone, but to be spoken, sung, remembered. The community still longs for rhythm, for song, for words that bind the soul to the moment. When we share poems aloud, when we weave them into music, when we let them echo in the public square, we reclaim the ancient purpose of poetry—not to amuse a few, but to awaken all.

Practically, this means we must take poetry out of isolation. Read it in gatherings, teach it to children, sing it in festivals. Support those who bring verse into music, performance, and daily life. Write poems not only for the page but for the voice, for poetry is breath before it is ink. Each of us can help restore poetry to the community by daring to speak it, to hear it, and to share it beyond the confines of the book.

Thus the teaching endures: the printing press, though it blessed mankind with knowledge, also changed poetry’s role, making it the treasure of the few rather than the delight of the many. Yet Masefield’s lament is also a challenge. Let us not allow poetry to remain imprisoned in pages; let us release it again into the air, where it first belonged. For poetry is not only the delight of the reader—it is the song of the whole human family, the fire that warms the tribe, the voice that binds us across time.