I would wager that when most folks hear the term ‘poetry,’ the cringe internally a little bit. Poetry is often the brunt of a lack of appreciation and understanding, and as someone with an academic English background, I really cannot fathom why. I think part of the misconceptions affiliated with poetry has relevance to people assuming all poetry is encompassed of cheesy rhymes, and this could not be further from the truth.
Poetry in itself is a vast concept. There are many different types of poetry, poetic styles, and iambic pentameter, which is a fancy way of saying the rhyme scheme, beats and syllables in a given poem, and considering how huge the realm of poetry is, this is why I believe it is a misunderstood form of writing. Saying you hate poetry is like saying you hate music – it is a hugely generalized and misinformed statement.
I consider poetry to be creative writing, meaning there isn’t necessarily a correct or incorrect way of going about it, unless you’re writing a poem with rigid structure, like a haiku. Specific forms of poetry do have rules and stipulations the author must abide by in order to classify their poem as such.
I also speculate that another contributor to poetry’s poor reputation is the idea that you either get it or you don’t. I have pondered whether or not a lot of people avoid poetry because they assume it will be beyond their literary knowledge and comprehensions, and they therefore will not ‘get it’ and will fail if they try; allow me to inform you that poetry is subjective, meaning it is not a black or white concept. There is grey area in both poetic writing and reading, so don’t sweat it if you come across a poem that, to you, makes absolutely zero fucking sense.
Let’s stop hating on poetry as a collective unit and witness just how beautiful it can be.
Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash
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