I recall reading in George Seferis' (who won the Nobel) biography, that some of his work in the early 20th century was only read by a small number of people, mostly other poets.
Do we have any evidence that poetry was ever read widely, at any point in time? If you stretch back much further than 1900, a good amount of people couldn't read at all, let alone read or own sophisticated writing.
Back then, poetry would have been more novel, and would have had less competition - but human nature doesn't change over the course of a few centuries, let alone decades.
I've also heard the argument that in sheer numbers more poetry is being written now than ever. And given that, one of the problems in gaining a readership is that readers don't have the time to read it all. Fewer people are interested in our books, because there are now 100 to choose from instead of a handful.
Leonard Cohen was a very successful poet up until 2016, and worth millions. So the audience is out there.
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