Wild Iris Book

In response to Louise Glück receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, someone wrote:

"Giving the Nobel to a poet is like giving an Oscar to a street mime."

Is the spirit of this statement in any way justified? In other words, is it fair to give the award to a poet when novelists like Isabel Allende, Milan Kundera and Martin Amis have inspired and enriched the lives of, if not millions, then certainly many hundreds of thousands of readers across the globe?

The statement got me thinking. I spent a career with a large NYC based publishing company. For one national meeting, as a way to introduce employees to one another, the company put together a booklet with each employee's photo and a few bits of information, including "favorite author." I recall reading everybody's choice and doing a quick calculation: of the 200 women and men, 197 said their favorite author was a novelist (from Jane Austen, James Baldwin, Ernest Hemingway, J.R.R. Tolkien, Yukio Mishima to Philip K. Dick, Gillian Flynn, Alice Monroe, Margaret Atwood and J. K. Rowling). And 3 said their favorite author was an essayist (Dave Barry received 2 votes). NOT ONE PERSON INDICATED A POET!

I'm the first person to recognize quality literature, worthy literature is not a popularity contest. However, there is a dynamic here that can't be overlooked: poetry has a dedicated readership but compared to readers of novels it is minuscule.

Belgian novelist Jean-Philippe Toussaint told an interviewer: "Nowadays, the novel is the only literary genre that is visible, available to the public. If I'd lived a century earlier, I probably would have written poetry."

I still ponder these questions.