The appeal of writing poetry

Become inspired to write some poems with the ideas in this video.

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Poetry is an interesting art form that seems less practiced among the general populace than perhaps painting or playing instruments. It seems that many people enjoy painting or playing the piano or guitar as a means to express themselves, but few count themselves as poets and this is a perplexing divide.

What makes this odd is the fact that poetry is arguably one of the most accessible forms of self-expression available. Whereas being able to paint or carve is a gift that very few of us have, and being able to play an instrument is something that requires both a certain level of aptitude and years and years of practice. Being able to write poetry simply requires that you be able to write words and doesn’t even necessarily mean you need to be able to spell.

Writing poetry is something that all of us can already do, and it simply means putting words into an order to describe a feeling, an emotion, or even an experience or sight. It’s common to think of poetry as being distant, like those written by great poets, such as Shakespeare, with a unique structure and sometimes sounding lyrical, like the words are flowing off the tongue. But poetry doesn’t require having to be so structured. It just takes time to sit down and do it.

In fact, Shakespeare wrote many major works while he was in quarantine from the pandemic of his era. He just took the downtime from theatrical performance to put pen to paper. This is the fundamental requirement of poetry: just write it down. Don’t worry about meter or rhyme. Sometimes rhyming or using gimmicks can even cheapen an otherwise very touching and moving poem. This can be done in a few words such as in Haiku, or can be done in the form of a huge story known as an epic poem.

In many ways you could also consider poetry a more flexible form of art. The whole point of art is that you are trying to convey emotion and feeling, and very often beauty or ugliness. In poetry, you are often trying to challenge and move the listener or reader emotionally. Try capturing the intangible: an urge, a reverence or a feeling that you can’t communicate with the rest of the world except through your art, so that this art makes you feel as though you are lifting a great weight off of your shoulders.

At the same time you might be using it to explore yourself, to see what you really feel. In these capacities, you could describe other forms of art or instrumental music as potentially limiting. Here you are trying to tell a story or convey a complex emotion with just splashes of color or notes. Here you can only show and can’t tell. However, the words of poetry allow you to be far more descriptive, elaborating on an idea and to generally say far more.

Poetry doesn’t even need to be “good,” as it might be just for your own use, to make you feel better and to help you work through your emotions like any good hobby. It is by doing this though, and by being completely honest with yourself, that you will hopefully create truly great poems that you eventually find yourself wanting to share. And when you do, you will be showing people a little piece of your soul.

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