It’s not just the Odyssey effect: poetry is booming because it’s the only language for these times of violence and chaos | Charlotte Higgins

<p>From Homer’s epic to conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, we can see how poetry fills the gap when ordinary ways of writing or speaking aren’t enough</p><p></p><p>The biggest sales of poetry since records began are expected this year. The reason? The movies, of course. UK print sales of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/the-odyssey">The Odyssey</a> increased by 1,400% in the four weeks to 25 July compared with the same period last year. In the US, year-to-date sales of The Odyssey are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/aug/03/the-odyssey-book-sales">up 76% so far</a>. Christopher Nolan is doing miracles for Homer – whatever problems one might have with the movie (and Emily Wilson, who made the most popular recent translation, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jul/27/odyssey-translator-emily-wilson-attacks-nolan-blockbuster">has a few</a>).</p><p>Strip out the Odyssey factor, though, and poetry is still doing exceptionally well, driven by writers whose work is often mildly denigrated as “Instapoetry”, such as <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/318941/lucas-jones">Lucas Jones</a>. His is a kind of versifying that delivers immediate uplifting aphorisms rather than either the kind of dense, allusive play with language that might reward repeated reading; or the sort of limpid, performable music that propels a well-translated Homeric epic. But even so, the poets of Instagram reach for something that can’t quite be expressed through everyday speech. And readers respond to it.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/10/poetry-boom-language-violence-chaos-odyssey-ukraine-gaza">Continue reading...</a>