THIS JUST IN

today's New York Times contains a brief report of a survey on poetry reading habits conducted by the National Opinion Research Center. The survey, a sampling of self-confessed readers, found that African Amerian readers are the most likely to read poetry. 85% of African American readers surveyed read poetry. [One has to wonder about the wording of the questions in this survey. Did the poetry of the Bible get counted as "poetry," for instance?]

The demographic group most likely to read poetry turns out, in this survey, to be educated white women.

One piece of news that should be delivered to all those who go around repeating that poetry is only read in college classrooms today is that fifty-six percent of poetry readers have less than a college degree.