If you think writing novels is a mug’s game, try poetry.

Few people read poetry. And the few who do, usually don’t pay for it. The poor poets often must resort to publishing their stuff in pathetic little pamphlets called chapbooks, put out by companies with names like Green Booger Press.

The New Yorker publishes a few poems in each issue, but they’re by the luminaries. People like W.D. Snodgrass, whose name is a poem in itself. But I’m betting no more than 5% of the persons within the sound of my voice have ever heard of Mr. Snodgrass.

After a girl broke my heart in college, I wrote a poem. It started “Littlegirl, littlelegs” and went downhill from there. It was so bad, I cringe every time I remember it. I don’t think I ever tried to write another poem after that.

So who cares about poetry and poets? Let ‘em flip burgers, right?

Well, no. Poetry may not be doing so well on the printed page, but it’s all around us.

Take headlines. When I was a working journalist, it dawned that writing a good “head” actually was writing poetry. You use as few words as possible to convey as much meaning as possible; and try to grab the reader’s attention while you’re at it. If that isn’t poetry, what is? Two famous headlines (both in Variety decades ago) come to mind: The one about how Ma-and-Pa-Kettle-type movies failed in small towns (”Hix Nix Stix Pix”); and the one about the great stock market crash (”Wall Street Lays an Egg”).

Take song lyrics — poetry of course, sometimes extraordinary poetry (Bob Dylan comes to mind). The best pop-music poetry these days is to be found in rap/hip-hop. I don’t listen to it much but I ought to. Its energy and inventiveness are impressive.

What about spoken-word and “slams”? I don’t attend many poetry slams either but I ought to. A talented “slammer” generates electricity, adding vocal and physical energy to the work itself.

Reading between the lines, you can probably sense eat-my-spinach guilt over not paying poetry enough respect. To remedy this, I’ve taken the following steps:

• I try to read the “Poet’s Choice” column in The Washington Post Book World. The current poet-in-charge is U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky. Frankly, I don’t like Pinsky’s poem choices or exegeses (look it up) as much as those of previous authors of this column, Edward Hirsch and, especially, Robert Hass. Good ol’ Google, though, tells me the columns of those two worthies are available in book form. If you’re interested, Google “poet’s choice.”

• I subscribed to Poetry Magazine. I did this because (a) this is where to read What’s Hot in poetry, which I felt I ought to know in case someone wanted to talk about poetry at a cocktail party (that hasn’t happened yet); and (b) the sub was cheap. What’s Hot in poetry turns out to be a mixed bag; the magazines are sitting in a stack, mostly unread. But I’ll get around to them.

• I swallow hard and try to listen to Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac” on NPR. Garrison, whom I knew personally a lifetime ago, finishes each segment with a poem. Gotta hand it to Garrison, though: He’s a pretty good reader of poems. Not all readers are, including many who read their own work. Listening to a poet reading his own stuff with flat affect is one of the most uncomfortable experiences known to man.

You can raise your own PQ (poetry quotient) by doing these things and more. For instance, a number of websites will put a poem a day in your inbox, including the Library of Congress (www.loc.gov/poetry/180/), Poetry Daily (www.poems.com/), the Academy of American Poets (www.poets.org/poemADay.php) and the Knopf/Borzoi Poetry Center Online (www.randomhouse.com/knopf/poetry/poemaday/).

Why not start reading more poetry today? After all, poets are the real writers, the writers’ writers. They wring more out of language than us novelists for sure. They deserve to eat too.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. You can find me among the poets Monday, March 5, 7 p.m. I’m appearing with poet E. Louise Beach at “Café Muse” at the Friendship Heights Village Center. “Café Muse” is a monthly event cosponsored by WordWorksDC (www.wordworksdc.com) and the village of Friendship Heights MD. The Village Center is in the vest-pocket park at Friendship Blvd. and N. Park Ave., off Wisconsin Ave. a few blocks north of the D.C. Line. A map is at (www.friendshipheightsmd.gov/AboutCommty.html).

P.P.S. Larry Janowski is a real poet. Larry has risen from a lowly station — he was my copyboy at The AP while in college — to his present eminence as a Franciscan friar. He’s the only monk, and only published poet, I know. His new book “BrotherKeeper” is real good poetry. Buy it at www.angelfire.com/poetry/puddinheadpress/Brother.html