Here is my stance: Poetry is the most misunderstood genre of writing.
So many people have told me they have an aversion to poetry. They hate it. They can't write it. They've never "figured it out." My leading theory is that a person's opinion of poetry is connected to their experience in K-12 or higher education. Since everyone is required to take English during K-12, it is common for most people to form an opinion on poetry in that time.
The problem is systemic. Students are taught that poetry comes with complicated rules like rhyme and meter. They are taught terms like iambic pentameter and shown poets like Wordsworth and Shakespeare-- great poets but their work is so detached from the students that reading becomes a chore. In this way, poetry becomes something reserved for academics and/or old white men. Students find this boring or too difficult, they hate it, so they form the opinion they hate poetry. Students turn into teachers who have to teach poetry but aren't sure they understand, so they lean back on tradition, the way it's always been done. The cycle continues.
I am not suggesting that students are learning meaningless content, but what I'm suggesting is teaching poetry in this way takes away the essential aspects of poetry that make it so powerful. Teaching poetry in this way skips the ways poetry relates to the reader, how it finds new ways to describe impossible emotions, how it allows the writer absolute freedom on the page and space to explore one's soul or community.
Poetry is rage, joy, grief, and peace. It is quiet, loud, beautiful, and ugly. Poetry is the human experience. It is personal and it is public. Poetry is the way to explore the heart of humankind.
When people say they hate poetry, they mean they hate the poetry they've experienced. They hate the time they spent as a student forced to read something that made them feel unseen or incompetent. To become a poet is to explore what poetry can be, and to find the poems that mean something to you. The first step toward becoming a poet is to realize the heart of poetry.
Poetry is for everyone. It's not reserved for those with degrees, training, or those who understand every poetic tradition. Poetry is for you, as you are.
I challenge you, reader, to write a poem. Right here, right now. Find a napkin, a sticky note, your phone-- whatever is around you and let's write. Especially if you hate poetry, this exercise is for you.
Now, find a poem any poem. There are some great ones on this site or you could look up others on the worldwide web. Search "poems about __something you like/ care about__" or "poems that look weird." Anything
works, but find a poem you like, even if it's a vague it's-not-that-bad kind of like. Read the poem. Now try to write your own by mimicking what the author did. Use them as a blueprint, a framework for your new poem.
The goal here is not originality, but trying something new. You may love your poem, you may hate it, but you tried poetry. And that is all that matters. Great writers are, first and foremost, great readers. Reading and exposing your mind to the wild west of poetry-- to see it's more than rhyme, meter, Wordsworth, and Shakespeare-- is the first step toward fully realizing the heart and possibility of poetry. The first step toward realizing you're a poet, and you're not even aware.
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