[Maryann Corbett]

I'm spreading the word about this project to collect data about what poetry people are reading. Take a look; see what you think; consider participating. I think formal poetry could end up being underrepresented if readers here don't take a swing at this. Read the intro here. Do look at the what, where, who, and why links as well as the "how to help" page I've linked to.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Is there some way to read the whole survey without having to log in and start answering questions? Or can somebody who's taken the survey share some impressions?

Having read all the introductory material, I'm finding the survey potentially interesting and worthwhile, potentially dumb. I don't feel like investing a lot of time and attention until I know more. Here's some information Donald Dunbar provides about the project:

About a year ago, I was sitting around with Rachel Springer, who’s both poet and statistician, wondering at different spectra of poetry. Not good/bad, but things like wordy/sparse, and extroverted/introverted. I’m not allowed to say what categories we settled on, but Rachel broke out her stats software and created a cubic 3D graph to chart our friends’ poetry on. As we added more poets, famous and not, little clusters began forming, and as we rotated this cube, so many similarities between so many poets became easily apparent.

Then we thought, what if we could make it only show, say, books published in the 1980’s? Or show poets by gender, or race, or geography, or sexual orientation? What if we could select which presses’ books to display, or show poets associated with certain schools or movements?

One of the outcomes of this project will be a web-app that will allow anyone to do just that. Using the data you give us about your favorite books, we’ll create an interactive map of poetry that can be used for thought experiments, scholarship, as a guide through the bookstore, and as a teaching aid.

Beyond that, Rachel wants to mine the data for secret trends. How does poetry respond to changes in the world? What trends in one tradition of poetry are mirrored in another? When has poetry been transformed, and how is it transforming now? We can’t say what we’ll find, but the more data we get, the more we’ll see.

Are they asking questions that we should be interested in answering? I can't tell. It's not that I'm not allowed to say, I just don't know. I don't yet have enough of a feel for the thing.

[Maryann Corbett]

I took the survey, and most of the questions seemed pertinent to me. We're asked to answer questions relative to one book, and we can take the survey multiple times for multiple books, as far as I can tell.

I'll copy and paste the first few questions, in case that helps:


1. How consistent are the poems in this collection in form and style? *
Do the poems mostly use a similar approach to line and stanza length, capitalization, etc.? Do they seem written in a similar aesthetic space? If they include elements of other forms—narration, dialogue, song-like refrains, Wendy’s comment cards, etc.—is this done consistently throughout?

Consistent in form/style
A dominant style (mostly consistent) with some departures
All over the place

2. Does this seem like a collection of individual poems or like a whole "project"? *

Individual poems
Project

3. Do the poems seem to fit into poetic traditions dating back before 1900, or do they seem to want to stretch what poetry is? *
The traditional poetic modes: lyric, narrative, meditative, etc.

Fit in
Stretch

4. To what extent are prosodic concerns (rhythm, meter, patterns of sounds and pauses) foregrounded? *

1

2

3

4

5


5 Does the line length tend to be short, medium or long? *
Short ~ 1 to 7 syllables, Medium ~ 8 to 12 syllables, Long ~ 13+ syllables

Short
Medium
Long
Too Varied to Generalize
Prose Poems

6 Do lines function more as discrete units, or do they push forward with momentum? *
A poem that asks the reader to linger on each line, or that uses a line to deliver a whole or complex thought/image/feeling is using lines more as discrete units. A poem that reads more as speech, or spreads a thought/image/feeling over multiple lines is pushing forward with momentum.

1

2

3

4

5

Discrete, lingering





Pushing forward
7 Are sentences short and compact, or are they long and expansive? *

1

2

3

4

5

Compact





Expansive
8 Are multiple thoughts and images often compressed into one sentence, or do sentences read more prosaically? *
Reading the poems, do you often need to re-parse a sentence to see everything that’s going on? Or is the poet using language more like everyday speech?

1

2

3

4

5

Compressed





Prosaic

--Well, copying and pasting doesn't work perfectly, I see. But I hope this gives you at least some idea.

[ross hamilton hill]

I wonder if you are asking the wrong question, at least for me you are, 99% of poetry I read is on the net. Havn't read a book of poetry for 2 years.
Here bookshops are a thing of the past, libraries remain, but we have embraced the digital completely, suits this vast but hi-tech country.

[Michael Cantor]

I fail to see what the value of this is, beyond staring at ourselves. You're going to get a very spotty, incomplete and poorly structured pool of data which the kind of people who got off on this will manipulate to prove whatever it is they want to prove.

Imagine if all this time and effort went into writing poetry instead.

[John Whitworth]

I tend to agree with what Michael has said.

[Maryann Corbett]

Agreement around here is so vanishingly rare that perhaps I should celebrate it.

But I'll just say this: The survey was not time consuming. It will surely fail if too few people take it. Those who wish to make an informed judgment about it should pick a book, devote a few minutes to the questions, and decide for themselves. There are pleasures involved in thinking again about a book you really like.

And the best way to improve a survey design is to complain to the designers.