What is poetry?
Poetry is the great language because poetry is the art of saying what can’t be said. Every poet knows this. – Alan Watt
When you think about poetry. A few things come to mind
- The poems you read in school
- Sad, depressing words about falling leaves and moaning winds
- Complicated ballads and epics that go on forever
Poetry is incredible!
Poetry at it’s core is digestible, it’s created to read rhythmically like someone is talking. It’s a form of raw emotion and thoughts.
When you think about poetry, the way it sounds and the meaning behind it you can start to believe that it’s alive. It’s a living breathing thing as the cadence of the poem fall and rise.
When you read a poem you’re connected to the world. You’re linked to the poet’s views and emotions and these can show much more than just if the author wrote prose like in a novel.
Poetry is highly emotional. While you’re reading from a poets thoughts. You experience it in your own life. You contextualise it, absorb it and ponder it. If you let it.
Poetry offers you time for self-reflection:
When reading and writing poetry you allow yourself time for self-reflection. It’s time by yourself, just you, your thoughts and words like a puzzle that aren’t yet put together or aren’t yet understood.
Poetry is humanness concentrated into music.
Poetry is innately human.
A.I. cannot create poetry to the same standard that we can. Poetry created by A.I. is clunky and noticeably different. Read this article for more information about What Happens When Machines Learn to Write Poetry
Why your experience of poetry is skewed
While in Education you likely learn to hate poetry.
I’m challenging that notion.
Poetry is so wide ranging and all encompassing that everyone can learn to love poetry.
Styles of poetry can vary from explicitly emotional to the point where it causes sadness or even discomfort, it can be fantasy and evoke the imagination, it can be art such as redaction poetry. They can be as simple and short as a haiku or long and intense like an Epic.
It allows writers to play with words and language in such a way that they can describe feelings and explain things that words generally cant. It gives them the means to conjure powerful images and feelings.
How to start reading poetry
I’ll shortly create a blog post on this, as part of a greater series of posts on poetry, but for now. If you follow these steps you’ll be able to engage with poetry from today.
Find a poem you like – this might take some time. Try looking through books or through Google images or Pinterest or go to a website such as https://www.poetryfoundation.org/
Read the poem and set it aside
Come back to it another day and read it again. Take your time and read the words and speak them outloud. Keep coming back to the poem as you’re in different moods and engage with it on an emotional level and even on an analytic level as well.
Rereading poems lets you get the best out of them. It’s a stress-free way to understanding the poem in the context of your own life and engaging with them poem on all levels
Conclusion
Poetry to me is entirely misunderstood; it is a beautiful form of literature and art and can provide so much in today’s society. Bringing back poetry, in an accessible and fun way would benefit everyone.
Poetry describes the human condition – and I think we could all do with some reassurance from that.
If you enjoyed this post about poetry, reply below with a comment. Let me know if you want to hear more about poetry and drop your favourite poem as well.
