Give Poetry a Chance

A little ways back; I talked about how, despite being a poet, I didn’t like poetry overly much when I was younger and it wasn’t until close to the end of my time in high school that my opinion started to change.

It’s fine not to like poetry. It’s definitely not for everyone. But, there’s a lot of it out there - a lot of different types, a lot of different subject matter and a lot of different, unique voices. I wouldn’t be surprised if you found something that resonated with you more than you’d expect if you went looking.

So, for the purposes of this article, I’m not going to tell you that you should like poetry. But I am going to try and convince you to shop around a little and see if you can find some you like.

The Difference Between Poetry and Prose

For those who don’t know, prose refers to writing with a typical grammatical structure and a flow that is akin to speech. It is the style of writing generally presented in both fiction and non-fiction writing. Although, in my experience, it is mostly used to refer to stories and that is how we’ll be using the word here. Poetry, comparatively, is a little harder to define. However, we all know what it is. It’s not presented in a normal manner of speech and instead is heavily stylised making use of meter, rhythm, rhyme schemes or other such structures and it is saturated in imagery and metaphor. Of course, Prose can use imagery and metaphor too, but it also tends to be much more literal than poetry. Prose poems also technically exist, but I’m not writing this to get into the weeds about classification.

So, we have a (somewhat) technical definition of poetry and prose established. But what does this really mean? Not at a functional level, but an experiential one. Prose is about the narrative. It’s about the progression of the plot, the development of characters, narrative arcs and a definitive (usually) conclusion. Poetry isn’t typically like that - and even when it is, it isn’t.

Poetry is about ideas and emotions. It is about using various writing devices - metaphor, analogy, imagery etc. - to craft an experience that communicates these thoughts and feelings to the reader in a way that is meant to be felt and understood at a deeper level than an intellectual one. Poetry is simultaneously less direct and structured, but all the more tangible for it.

Why You Should Try Poetry

Because of the way poetry is written, more analogous and less literal, it presents things in a way that prompts a willing reader to think more deeply about the words on the page. The more indirect means of communication encourages the reader to actively interpret the concepts being presented, to examine both the ideas being presented and how they themselves feel about those ideas.

Poetry doesn’t just communicate ideas in a unique way, it can do so with a pretty much limitless number of those ideas. A good poet brings their own unique voice to an idea and presents things in a very specific way. When I write poetry, I typically present things as scenes or self-contained little stories. My favourite poet, Bruce Dawe, uses very mundane places, objects and experiences as lenses to explore very complex and relevant topics. Someone like Edgar Allen Poe wrote a lot about death, but explored many different aspects of it - everything from the physical processes of dying, to fear of death to the grief of those left behind.

For thousands of years poets have explored the political, social, philosophical and emotional - in fact, poetry used to be the norm for storytelling at one point. Old poems provide windows into the lives and thoughts of people who put pen to paper in centuries gone by. Modern poems provide a thought-provoking way of re-examining the world we currently live in. With regularity, the topics explored in one group also appear in the other, providing insight into how thinking has changed and how it has remained the same - how far we have come and how far we still have to go. Poignant and pertinent topics such as race, social class, love, fear, oppression, change and mortality have been prevalent in poetry for a long time and continue to be so, and those are ideas that are worth examining through the voices of others.

Of course, if all that sounds a bit pretentious to you, then maybe I can help you out a bit there. While poetry is very often open to interpretation and tends to be more about symbolism than the literal with a lot of flowery language, more modern poetry (like that I linked at the very start of this article), tends to be a lot more straightforward - and without losing all the things that makes poetry special. It is also a lot more accessible than you might think with a wealth of it easily available online both for free or for purchase. Most libraries will likely have a lot of the more well-known poets available as well.

Conclusion

So concludes my attempt to sway you. If this doesn’t pique your interest at all, I’m not going to condemn you for it. There’s many different ways to tell a story and poetry is but one of them. However, I think a lot of people look at poetry as something old-fashioned and pretentious, and I don’t think it is either really. There is plenty of modern poetry out there - online or elsewhere - and a lot of it is very genuine and sincere, illustrating pictures that are as important to interact with now as they would have been in bygone times. So, I hope at the very least, I’ve convinced some people to at least appreciate what the medium brings to the table and give it a chance.

If I’m lucky enough for you to be interested in reading my poetry - or my prose - you can find both for free right here. I also have additional content like my novels which can be enjoyed with a Premium subscription or purchased in my store. I appreciate each and every person who takes an interest in my work, it all helps me keep doing what I do in one way or another.