Fred’s University’s newly endowed Department of Podcasting is working with the Association of Imaginary Schools to produce a Friday Office Poetry Podcast with a tiny number of listeners. Dan, thank you for listening–even if you were feeding the dog and texting with your boss at the same time.
Cognizant that most podcasts never make it past ten episodes, the Association insisted that Fred’s U stockpile twenty episodes in advance, though only four are up as of now because it is really really hard to put together a podcast. Still, that’s more poetry than the average adult hears in a lifetime! The glut of unread poetry in comparison to the small number of consumers is an ongoing problem, which the Association of Imaginary Schools would like to address.
Studies show that readership of traditional poetry is largely made up of people who want to publish their own poems, checking out the competition, or looking to place their own work. Even those readers often fail to engage beyond annoyance that the mean girl from their poetry workshop is somehow getting ahead despite her drippy writing style and horrible “poetry voice.”
The new Friday Office Poetry podcast aims to bring poetry to readers who are already so bored that any distraction is welcome: office workers. To be relevant to the target demographic, the poetry is on the subject of office work itself. Ideally, this should create a good SEO match on the relevant keywords.
There is reason for optimism. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, poetry readership, though small, is actually trending up. By readership of course we mean those who click on Instagram poems cutely photographed taped to a windowsill over a giant yellow cat.
If you include Spoken Word and poetry slams, poetry is actually quite relevant right now. But the Fred’s University English Department has refused to acknowledge these forms of poetry, dominated by people of color and young people, as poetry. As the Department of Podcasting slowly replaces the English Department, that could change.
Sadly the Friday Office Poetry podcast has no cats, but you can listen here on Spotify for your barely-digested, often quoted, oddly haunting headphone background to the dulled despair of the open-plan office.
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