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Trends in poetry reading II
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From: Charles Bayless <charles.bayless_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 11:21:38 -0400
Reporting on information generated from off-line questions and discussion. The general question centered on trying to get a clearer bead on young adult poetry reading and then related to that, some clarity on community reading patterns. Basically, are there other terms which might show some significance which were not initially covered? Specifically, "poetry by teenagers", "African-American poetry", "Hip Hop poetry", "slam poetry", and
"talk poetry". I did searchers on those terms and expanded the list somewhat to include the other major ethnicities (Asian American, Native American, Hispanic), and some other forms of identity (environmental poetry, feminist poetry, LGBT poetry, etc.). I also looked at interest in international poetry. The results are interesting. Same caveats as before regarding big data (see Big Data: Are We Making a Big Mistake? by Tim Harford for a good short summary of concerns).
Ngram Viewer
I changed the time frame to 1970-2008 as most the terms suggested don't show up in books until the late 1980s. Here are the results: http://tinyurl.com/o4yz562
"Hip hop poetry" doesn't show up in books often enough to return any results.
"Poetry by teenagers" also appears too few times to show as a result. Same with "poetry for teenagers", "teenagers and poetry", and "teen poems".
"Teenage poetry" emerges from the base line circa 1990 but is miniscule and flat line.
"Talk poetry" as a phrase shows up from about 1820 onwards with a peak in the early 1880s then steadily declining till 1980 but then a perhaps 30% rise by 2008 over 1980.
"African-American poetry" emerges from the base line about 1988, rises to a peak in 1996 and then falls steadily. In 2008 it is down to 16% of the 1996 peak.
The breakaway is the phrase "poetry slam". Shows up about 1990, steady climb through 2002 and then a sharp increase through 2008. It is discussed in books about 8 times more often than the other terms.
Fishing around, I turned up "teen poetry" which emerges in 1991 and has a strong and continuing growth to 2008. A real result but you have to be careful because the term "teen poetry" has two possible constructs in a text which we cannot distinguish without the context; poetry for teens and poetry by teens. Results here: http://tinyurl.com/nrwcts5
Trends
Results are here: http://tinyurl.com/pohhbhd
As with Ngram, "poetry slam" is the winner. Very high results compared to all the other terms. There is a mild decline from early 2004 to mid-2013
(though with a lot of monthly noise in the data). But since mid-2013 there has been a strong increase in searches for "slam poetry". I wonder if it might be related to the Rachel Rostad/J.K. Rowling kerfuffle (April 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFPWwx96Kew)
A lot of searches for "African-American poetry" circa 2005 but pretty much disappearing by 2011. It peaks at about 3X the baseline each February, corresponding to Black History Month. This decline in observance intensity matches what I have seen in our city over the past eleven years. I had thought it might just be a local thing but clearly it is nationwide, or at least clearly the same thing is reflected in the searches in Trends.
"Teenage poetry" starts reasonably strong in 2004 but disappears in the shallows and miseries.
Same with "hip hop poetry".
"Talk poetry" only surfaces above the base line occasionally.
Alternate Identities
Based on the initial questions, additional searches made sense to look at. Since we were looking at more identity based aspects, I did searches on terms related to ethnic identity, gender identity, and topical/ideological identity.
Ngram Viewer by Ethnicity: http://tinyurl.com/nlfrwbr
By identity: http://tinyurl.com/ngd9nlj
By Gender: http://tinyurl.com/otc9bat
Trends by ethnicity: http://tinyurl.com/lr7ny58
By identity: http://tinyurl.com/ptqvwuf
By Gender: http://tinyurl.com/p9mrhtr
Ethnicity - Ngram: This one is really interesting. Interest in Hispanic poetry begins in 1955 with two peaks, one in 1965 and the other in 1985 but broadly pretty steady from 1970 to early 1990s. A slow decline since then. Currently about 25% of the 1985 peak. Interest in the other three groups, Native American poetry, African-American and Asian American only begins circa 1970. Discussion about Native American poetry rises the fastest, the earliest, and to the second highest level of interest. It peaks in 1993 and declines to about 30% of peak in 2008. Interest in African-American poetry takes off in 1985 and peaks in 1997 with fairly steep decline since then. Currently it is 16% of the 1997 peak. Asian American poetry starts around 1970 as well and builds rather slowly. Takes a significant jump in 1999 and peaks in 2003. After dropping for four years, it then resumes its growth. It is currently about 70% of the 2003 peak and is the ethnic poetry in which there is the greatest interest as reflected by number of references in books. All others are in continuing decline but Asian American poetry is on an uptick. That seems to match what I think I recollect is happening with the CCBC books.
In terms of Trends, Asian American and Hispanic poetry searches are fairly minimal for the entire 2004-2014 period with occasional spikes of interest in Hispanic poetry. Native American poetry starts at a medium level but declines steadily. Interest in African-American poetry drives the greatest interest, particularly 2004-2009 with the characteristic sharp spikes in Black History Month, February. However, since about 2011, searches on all ethnic poetry have virtually collapsed.
One further observation. I wondered whether interest in ethnic/identity poetry might be driven by formalized university studies in those groups. There were no strong correlations for any of them other than for African-American. The results are here: http://tinyurl.com/kktljmp. As you can see, there is a suggestive correlation between Ngram discussion of African-American studies and discussion of African-American poetry with a lag of three years between the former and the latter. With interest in African-American studies collapsing by about 55%, interest in African-American poetry has similarly fallen steeply by 35%.
The ethnic/identity information raises some questions. The interest in poetry overall is hugely greater than any of the individual ethnic components (see results here: http://tinyurl.com/lf8xok4). The peaks in ethnic poetry in the 1990s don't even register in terms of the decadal decline in interest in poetry. Declines in ethnic poetry are presumably subject to the same long term trends but the falls from peak are much more dramatic than the overall general decline. Their rise and fall seems to be driven by something more than the systemic decline of poetry.
Looking at the relative interest within America regarding ethnic poetry, it made me wonder to what degree are Americans interested in multicultural/international poetry. The results surprised me. I kept
"African-American poetry" as a baseline comparison, and then added "German poetry", "French poetry", "Haiku", and "Romantic poetry". The results were not quite what I expected, but I can rationalize them in hindsight. The results are here: http://tinyurl.com/kabetzm. Among the clerisy, there is much greater interest in the other forms of poetry than in African-American poetry. Basically there is about 17 times as much interest in German, French and Romantic poetry as there is in African-American poetry. And for Haiku (granted it is a form) there is about 4 times as much interest in Haiku as there is in the European poetry. I substituted "Japanese poetry" for Haiku and that showed up with the same frequency as the European poetry
(see here: http://tinyurl.com/q8zfaxf). The final comparison substitutes English poetry for Romantic poetry. The results are here: http://tinyurl.com/ntruczh.
Trends shows a broadly consistent story in terms of popular searches. German, Japanese, English, French and African-American poetry all start well in 2004 but decline through 2007 when the interest plateaus. For the entire period, the most common searches are for French poetry, followed by African-American, then Japanese and then German. Oddly, and interestingly, if you look at the most recent years it is different. For example, for the past twelve months (http://tinyurl.com/p62m9sw), it is reasonably stable and the results are French, Japanese, German and then African-American. The kicker is if you add English poetry http://tinyurl.com/mevq88f compared to the others, http://tinyurl.com/jwzok29. As with the others, there is a fall off in searches between 2004 and 2007 but it is stable since then. It is the proportions that are striking. Of all the searches in March 2014, 85% were for English poetry.
Compared to all the declines we are seeing in the other searches, this interest in multicultural poetry is much more positive. Much higher interest in German and French poetry in the pre-war years but broadly stable since 1960. Interest in Romantic and Japanese poetry were lower in the first half of the century but rose steadily and then plateaued in 1960 at about the same level as interest in German and French poetry. English, German and French poetry end the data run with 6 years of growth in interest. Japanese poetry and Romantic poetry are down from peaks in 1990s but still about where they were in 1960. That is heartening.
Identity - Ngram: Tried Environmental Poetry, Feminist Poetry, GLBT Poetry
(and LGBT) and Gay Poetry. Only the first two registered. Environmental poetry had a peak of interest between 1995 and 2005 but back low again. Feminist poetry had a steady rise from circa 1970, peaking in 1995 and steadily dropping since then. In 2008 it is about 25-30% of its 1995 peak. Trends shows little interest in environmental poetry and virtually no interest in GLBT/LGBT/Gay poetry. There are occassional spikes of searching for feminist poetry but no steady interest.
Gender - Ngram: Clearly a lot of interest in boys reading poetry with discussion 2 or 3 times that of girl poetry. Big peak in interest in the 1960s-70s but low (about 10% of the peak) and steady since 1980. Interestingly, Trends is the opposite. Searches for "girl poems" and
"poetry for girls" 10-20 times more common than comparable searches for boys. Interesting as well that the search volumes are pretty steady over the ten years (though with a particular interest in girl poems 2009-2011).
Interpretation
As I mentioned, I am cautious about how much weight to place on Google Trends and Ngram Viewer as they are such relatively recent research tools. That said, I have seen a number of papers from reputable researchers at name universities whose results are reliant on Ngram Viewer, inclining me to believe they have vetted it pretty well for statistical biases. Still, I am cautious.
My take-away from the alternate terms that were suggested is consistent with the other analysis with two striking exceptions.
I think the overall message is that there is a significant decline in engagement with textual poetry (very low rates of readership, declining searches, declining discussion in Ngram, etc.).
One exception is that poetry as performance or poetry as personal branding seems to be experiencing a boost (significant upward trends in slam poetry, talk poetry, writing poetry and poetry recitation). This is, to me, an interesting point and gets into that slippery gray area between textual poetry and songs, plays, ballads, slam poetry, recitation, etc. While these trends are trivial in absolute terms compared to the overall decline in interest in poetry, they are significant in relative terms. It isn't that there is no interest in poetry. There is. But something is disabling interest in traditional textual poetry while at the same time there is a strong and increasing interest in performance poetry. Perhaps the problem is that traditional poetry has been made analytic and antiseptic - critical reading of poetry whereas performance poetry is poetry that can be experienced. Just speculation.
The second exception is that there is also apparently quite strong interest in international poetry which shows a steady presence over the decades and growth in the past few years. Again, evidence that perhaps the issue is not a lack of interest in poetry per se, but perhaps a lack of interest in particular types of poetry (or how it is selected, or how it is treated, or how it is presented).
If we are focused on people finding poetry they enjoy reading, we seem to have a real issue to address. If we are talking about people experiencing
(as performer or audience) spoken poetry in its various permutations, it is less clear that there is a problem.
Charles
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Received on Tue 15 Apr 2014 10:22:59 AM CDT
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 11:21:38 -0400
Reporting on information generated from off-line questions and discussion. The general question centered on trying to get a clearer bead on young adult poetry reading and then related to that, some clarity on community reading patterns. Basically, are there other terms which might show some significance which were not initially covered? Specifically, "poetry by teenagers", "African-American poetry", "Hip Hop poetry", "slam poetry", and
"talk poetry". I did searchers on those terms and expanded the list somewhat to include the other major ethnicities (Asian American, Native American, Hispanic), and some other forms of identity (environmental poetry, feminist poetry, LGBT poetry, etc.). I also looked at interest in international poetry. The results are interesting. Same caveats as before regarding big data (see Big Data: Are We Making a Big Mistake? by Tim Harford for a good short summary of concerns).
Ngram Viewer
I changed the time frame to 1970-2008 as most the terms suggested don't show up in books until the late 1980s. Here are the results: http://tinyurl.com/o4yz562
"Hip hop poetry" doesn't show up in books often enough to return any results.
"Poetry by teenagers" also appears too few times to show as a result. Same with "poetry for teenagers", "teenagers and poetry", and "teen poems".
"Teenage poetry" emerges from the base line circa 1990 but is miniscule and flat line.
"Talk poetry" as a phrase shows up from about 1820 onwards with a peak in the early 1880s then steadily declining till 1980 but then a perhaps 30% rise by 2008 over 1980.
"African-American poetry" emerges from the base line about 1988, rises to a peak in 1996 and then falls steadily. In 2008 it is down to 16% of the 1996 peak.
The breakaway is the phrase "poetry slam". Shows up about 1990, steady climb through 2002 and then a sharp increase through 2008. It is discussed in books about 8 times more often than the other terms.
Fishing around, I turned up "teen poetry" which emerges in 1991 and has a strong and continuing growth to 2008. A real result but you have to be careful because the term "teen poetry" has two possible constructs in a text which we cannot distinguish without the context; poetry for teens and poetry by teens. Results here: http://tinyurl.com/nrwcts5
Trends
Results are here: http://tinyurl.com/pohhbhd
As with Ngram, "poetry slam" is the winner. Very high results compared to all the other terms. There is a mild decline from early 2004 to mid-2013
(though with a lot of monthly noise in the data). But since mid-2013 there has been a strong increase in searches for "slam poetry". I wonder if it might be related to the Rachel Rostad/J.K. Rowling kerfuffle (April 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFPWwx96Kew)
A lot of searches for "African-American poetry" circa 2005 but pretty much disappearing by 2011. It peaks at about 3X the baseline each February, corresponding to Black History Month. This decline in observance intensity matches what I have seen in our city over the past eleven years. I had thought it might just be a local thing but clearly it is nationwide, or at least clearly the same thing is reflected in the searches in Trends.
"Teenage poetry" starts reasonably strong in 2004 but disappears in the shallows and miseries.
Same with "hip hop poetry".
"Talk poetry" only surfaces above the base line occasionally.
Alternate Identities
Based on the initial questions, additional searches made sense to look at. Since we were looking at more identity based aspects, I did searches on terms related to ethnic identity, gender identity, and topical/ideological identity.
Ngram Viewer by Ethnicity: http://tinyurl.com/nlfrwbr
By identity: http://tinyurl.com/ngd9nlj
By Gender: http://tinyurl.com/otc9bat
Trends by ethnicity: http://tinyurl.com/lr7ny58
By identity: http://tinyurl.com/ptqvwuf
By Gender: http://tinyurl.com/p9mrhtr
Ethnicity - Ngram: This one is really interesting. Interest in Hispanic poetry begins in 1955 with two peaks, one in 1965 and the other in 1985 but broadly pretty steady from 1970 to early 1990s. A slow decline since then. Currently about 25% of the 1985 peak. Interest in the other three groups, Native American poetry, African-American and Asian American only begins circa 1970. Discussion about Native American poetry rises the fastest, the earliest, and to the second highest level of interest. It peaks in 1993 and declines to about 30% of peak in 2008. Interest in African-American poetry takes off in 1985 and peaks in 1997 with fairly steep decline since then. Currently it is 16% of the 1997 peak. Asian American poetry starts around 1970 as well and builds rather slowly. Takes a significant jump in 1999 and peaks in 2003. After dropping for four years, it then resumes its growth. It is currently about 70% of the 2003 peak and is the ethnic poetry in which there is the greatest interest as reflected by number of references in books. All others are in continuing decline but Asian American poetry is on an uptick. That seems to match what I think I recollect is happening with the CCBC books.
In terms of Trends, Asian American and Hispanic poetry searches are fairly minimal for the entire 2004-2014 period with occasional spikes of interest in Hispanic poetry. Native American poetry starts at a medium level but declines steadily. Interest in African-American poetry drives the greatest interest, particularly 2004-2009 with the characteristic sharp spikes in Black History Month, February. However, since about 2011, searches on all ethnic poetry have virtually collapsed.
One further observation. I wondered whether interest in ethnic/identity poetry might be driven by formalized university studies in those groups. There were no strong correlations for any of them other than for African-American. The results are here: http://tinyurl.com/kktljmp. As you can see, there is a suggestive correlation between Ngram discussion of African-American studies and discussion of African-American poetry with a lag of three years between the former and the latter. With interest in African-American studies collapsing by about 55%, interest in African-American poetry has similarly fallen steeply by 35%.
The ethnic/identity information raises some questions. The interest in poetry overall is hugely greater than any of the individual ethnic components (see results here: http://tinyurl.com/lf8xok4). The peaks in ethnic poetry in the 1990s don't even register in terms of the decadal decline in interest in poetry. Declines in ethnic poetry are presumably subject to the same long term trends but the falls from peak are much more dramatic than the overall general decline. Their rise and fall seems to be driven by something more than the systemic decline of poetry.
Looking at the relative interest within America regarding ethnic poetry, it made me wonder to what degree are Americans interested in multicultural/international poetry. The results surprised me. I kept
"African-American poetry" as a baseline comparison, and then added "German poetry", "French poetry", "Haiku", and "Romantic poetry". The results were not quite what I expected, but I can rationalize them in hindsight. The results are here: http://tinyurl.com/kabetzm. Among the clerisy, there is much greater interest in the other forms of poetry than in African-American poetry. Basically there is about 17 times as much interest in German, French and Romantic poetry as there is in African-American poetry. And for Haiku (granted it is a form) there is about 4 times as much interest in Haiku as there is in the European poetry. I substituted "Japanese poetry" for Haiku and that showed up with the same frequency as the European poetry
(see here: http://tinyurl.com/q8zfaxf). The final comparison substitutes English poetry for Romantic poetry. The results are here: http://tinyurl.com/ntruczh.
Trends shows a broadly consistent story in terms of popular searches. German, Japanese, English, French and African-American poetry all start well in 2004 but decline through 2007 when the interest plateaus. For the entire period, the most common searches are for French poetry, followed by African-American, then Japanese and then German. Oddly, and interestingly, if you look at the most recent years it is different. For example, for the past twelve months (http://tinyurl.com/p62m9sw), it is reasonably stable and the results are French, Japanese, German and then African-American. The kicker is if you add English poetry http://tinyurl.com/mevq88f compared to the others, http://tinyurl.com/jwzok29. As with the others, there is a fall off in searches between 2004 and 2007 but it is stable since then. It is the proportions that are striking. Of all the searches in March 2014, 85% were for English poetry.
Compared to all the declines we are seeing in the other searches, this interest in multicultural poetry is much more positive. Much higher interest in German and French poetry in the pre-war years but broadly stable since 1960. Interest in Romantic and Japanese poetry were lower in the first half of the century but rose steadily and then plateaued in 1960 at about the same level as interest in German and French poetry. English, German and French poetry end the data run with 6 years of growth in interest. Japanese poetry and Romantic poetry are down from peaks in 1990s but still about where they were in 1960. That is heartening.
Identity - Ngram: Tried Environmental Poetry, Feminist Poetry, GLBT Poetry
(and LGBT) and Gay Poetry. Only the first two registered. Environmental poetry had a peak of interest between 1995 and 2005 but back low again. Feminist poetry had a steady rise from circa 1970, peaking in 1995 and steadily dropping since then. In 2008 it is about 25-30% of its 1995 peak. Trends shows little interest in environmental poetry and virtually no interest in GLBT/LGBT/Gay poetry. There are occassional spikes of searching for feminist poetry but no steady interest.
Gender - Ngram: Clearly a lot of interest in boys reading poetry with discussion 2 or 3 times that of girl poetry. Big peak in interest in the 1960s-70s but low (about 10% of the peak) and steady since 1980. Interestingly, Trends is the opposite. Searches for "girl poems" and
"poetry for girls" 10-20 times more common than comparable searches for boys. Interesting as well that the search volumes are pretty steady over the ten years (though with a particular interest in girl poems 2009-2011).
Interpretation
As I mentioned, I am cautious about how much weight to place on Google Trends and Ngram Viewer as they are such relatively recent research tools. That said, I have seen a number of papers from reputable researchers at name universities whose results are reliant on Ngram Viewer, inclining me to believe they have vetted it pretty well for statistical biases. Still, I am cautious.
My take-away from the alternate terms that were suggested is consistent with the other analysis with two striking exceptions.
I think the overall message is that there is a significant decline in engagement with textual poetry (very low rates of readership, declining searches, declining discussion in Ngram, etc.).
One exception is that poetry as performance or poetry as personal branding seems to be experiencing a boost (significant upward trends in slam poetry, talk poetry, writing poetry and poetry recitation). This is, to me, an interesting point and gets into that slippery gray area between textual poetry and songs, plays, ballads, slam poetry, recitation, etc. While these trends are trivial in absolute terms compared to the overall decline in interest in poetry, they are significant in relative terms. It isn't that there is no interest in poetry. There is. But something is disabling interest in traditional textual poetry while at the same time there is a strong and increasing interest in performance poetry. Perhaps the problem is that traditional poetry has been made analytic and antiseptic - critical reading of poetry whereas performance poetry is poetry that can be experienced. Just speculation.
The second exception is that there is also apparently quite strong interest in international poetry which shows a steady presence over the decades and growth in the past few years. Again, evidence that perhaps the issue is not a lack of interest in poetry per se, but perhaps a lack of interest in particular types of poetry (or how it is selected, or how it is treated, or how it is presented).
If we are focused on people finding poetry they enjoy reading, we seem to have a real issue to address. If we are talking about people experiencing
(as performer or audience) spoken poetry in its various permutations, it is less clear that there is a problem.
Charles
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Received on Tue 15 Apr 2014 10:22:59 AM CDT
