Arguments about the decline of poetry's cultural importance are not new. In American letters they date back to the nineteenth century. But the modern debate might be said to have begun in 1934 when Edmund Wilson published the first version of his controversial essay "Is Verse a Dying Technique?" Surveying literary history, Wilson noted that verse's role had grown increasingly narrow since the eighteenth century. In particular, Romanticism's emphasis on intensity made poetry seem so "fleeting and quintessential" that eventually it dwindled into a mainly lyric medium.

To the average reader, the proposition that poetry's audience has declined may seem self-evident. It is symptomatic of the art's current isolation that within the subculture such notions are often rejected.

poetry boom has been a distressingly confined phenomenon. Decades of public and private funding have created a large professional class for the production and reception of new poetry comprising legions of teachers, graduate students, editors, publishers, and administrators. Based mostly in universities, these groups have gradually become the primary audience for contemporary verse.

Not every girl who comes to my school will be a PhD

Together we created a training program for boys and girls who could not attend my school, sharing vital information about gender equality, health and human rights. Today we have reached over 10,000 boys and girls and counting.

Six months of schooling

We’re used to seeing the stuff on our plates, but what about all the stuff that goes missing in between?

A chef came to talk to me, I finished my bowl, and halfway through the conversation, he stopped talking and he started frowning into my bowl. I thought, “My goodness, what taboo have I broken? How have I insulted my host?” He pointed at three grains of rice at the bottom of my bowl, and he said, “Clean.”

start going up the supply chain, you find where the real food waste is happening on a gargantuan scale.

Can we achieve the Global Goals? Certainly not with business as usual.

if the world’s average wealth goes from $14,000 a year to $23,000 a year, social progress is going to increase from 61 to 62.4.

does everyone have the basic needs of survival: food, water, shelter, safety? Secondly, does everyone have the building blocks of a better life: education, information, health and a sustainable environment?

When you’re uncomfortable, speak up and tell others, so they know

Be open-minded toward others’ ideas and understanding of their backgrounds

Act toward and write to others as you would want them to do for you if the roles were reversed