‘Let me live, love, and say it well...’

March 1961. Sylvia Plath is recovering in hospital (she has just had her appendix removed). Somebody has sent her a bouquet of flowers, tulips. It is a kind gesture — but the bright, odorous flowers only make her feel worse.

The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me. / Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe / Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby. / Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.

Personal, candid and soaked with emotion: Plath’s Tulips is just one example of the confessional verse that won her reputation.

Yesterday, to mark National Poetry Day, she was voted the most-loved poet among people aged 11 to 17. Not only that, she is seen as a key inspiration for a new generation of poets.

In recent years, poetry readership has soared. In America, the number of readers has almost doubled since 2012. Why? Some point to the craze for “Instapoetry” — short confessional verses shared on social media.

Rupi Kaur is the most famous Instapoet. Dubbed “the Syliva Plath of Instagram”, her short verses have secured her three million followers and two bestselling books. “We need more love / not from men / but from ourselves / and each other”, reads a poem she recently posted titled Medicine.

Is poetry more important now than ever?

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Of course, some argue. Money, fame, material goods: modern life revolves around shallow and fleeting things. Poetry is the antidote to all this. Emotion, sensation, morality, philosophy: this is the substance of poetry — from short scribbles to sprawling epics.

Not so, others respond. Other art forms can achieve this too, and often far more effectively. Think of the cathartic impact of theatre, or the ability of cinema to transport you to entirely different universes.