Poetry as entertainment

Maltese don't see poetry as 'entertaining', writes Giselle Borg Olivier:

On Saturday 25th March, the National Book Council (NBC) held a meeting for a substantial number of writers, poets, university lecturers, critics, publishers, librarians, broadcasters and organisers of literary evenings at the Coastline Hotel with the intention of producing a strategy about how poetry can be conveyed to the masses.

Chairman of the Council, Dr. Ġorġ Mallia, said that our problem as a nation is that we have a culture that does not see poetry as entertainment. He said that “the reading of poetry is not intrinsic to the reading habits of the Maltese people.” The problem begins from schools where poetry is not taught in a way that appeals to the senses and the emotions, but merely as part of the curriculum. He said that very often this teaching is lacking in the humane aspect which is dearest to poetry. In the small Maltese book market, poetry was on the lowest rung of sales...