Lyric Outliers

When Even the Study of Poetry has Left Academia

Knowing our shared interest in poetry criticism, on a commute this week my colleague Jeff asked if I’d checked out Adam Walker. Fresh out of Harvard’s PhD program, he claims like me to find academia too stifling for the experience (as opposed to mere study) of verse.

Some years ago my English department voted to do away with Intro to the Study of Poetry as the gateway course for our major. I wondered where it has gone, especially since over two decades ago I think I was the only one in my PhD program pursuing poetics.

Well, as evidenced by his YouTube followers, much of it has gone online to fresh voices like his. I don’t always agree with his takes on why the humanities have lost their popularity, but a deeper dive into his pedagogy often seems spot on. Why, he asks, do we insist on teaching the 5 paragraph essay in composition? Instead, he makes a strong case for returning to rhetoric, getting students to learn how to craft persuasive oral arguments from good models.

My larger takeaway from his getting 60K views (when a poet is mad-popular after selling 600 books) and making his living giving YouTube classes to students around the world