I like to write poetry. I don’t say that to sound contrived or pretentious. I am under no impression that my poems are anything exemplary or innovative. In fact, I’m quite certain that a 14-year-old with a moderate interest in English literature (and a questionably small social circle) would probably be able to do a more compelling job. Nonetheless, I do like to write poetry in my free time. Why, you might ask, would I willingly spend my time engaging in a so-called dying art form? Why would I choose poetry over a more socially palatable pursuit? And why, more importantly, do I implore others to do the same?
I find poetry to be uniquely liberating, an art that allows you to say almost anything without the immediate dangers of social exposure (along with songwriting, but I will not be partaking in that, as I can’t sing to save my life). Anything can be discussed in your own words (your fears, desires, and contradictions), offering what I like to call linguistic camouflage. As long as your thoughts are packaged neatly, tied with a ribbon, and presented as a “poem,” they are often received with far more generosity than if you were to express those same ideas plainly in front of a room full of people. Life is so complex, nuanced, and incredibly messy, and for me, poetry becomes a calm within the chaos, helping address the things I’m yet to fully understand.
For me, I’ve found that poetry has become a portal I can step through when my thoughts become too unruly to manage in ordinary conversation. It gives me a way to write about my most difficult and troublesome emotions under the guise of intellect, as though the poem itself is responsible for the chaos rather than me. It gives me an opportunity to scream my thoughts into the confines of five-millimetre line spacing in black ink, in a way that saves people from experiencing the full weight of my irritability. There is something so innately powerful and liberating about being able to rearrange your stream of consciousness into some intelligible form of literature. Every literary device, each simile, metaphor, and allusion, is carefully chosen to describe your emotions, so that when you’re finished, you can look at the manuscript you’ve created and say, “This is what it feels like,” even when you don’t fully understand why it feels that way.
When I was in secondary school, I didn’t quite get it. What was the point of studying all these so-called great poets who spoke in tongues about sentiments and endeavours that no one truly cared about? The topics felt irrelevant, the analysis forced and unnatural. It was only as I got older and reread the works of people like Sylvia Plath, W.B. Yeats, and Elizabeth Bishop that I could really understand why they wrote what they did. They wrote about marriage and motherhood, about longing and remembrance, about home and displacement, about the struggle of belonging. These are not niche concerns. They are all essential elements of the human condition that we all experience at some point in our lives. What once seemed irrelevant began to feel exceedingly familiar. I found myself recognising my own thoughts in lines written decades earlier by people unknown to me. I think that is one of poetry’s greatest strengths, and as I’ve gotten older, I can now appreciate this poetic prowess. To convey one’s thoughts so eloquently as to stand the test of time against a rapidly evolving English language is no mean feat.
I do not claim to have any such talents as these, nor do I think you need to possess them to write poetry. The act itself is enough. Poetry can exist solely for you, as a way to help you bear the burden of whatever it is you may be carrying, or to simply talk about the world in the way you see it, without the pressure of being right or articulate. Ultimately, I think poetry is about being a keen observer of yourself and your surroundings, and capturing the subtleties of life in a way that illuminates it for others. No matter what walk of life the reader comes from, there is always the possibility that they will find familiarity or even comfort in your words. Maybe that reader will be you in five years, looking back to understand your past self. And most importantly, the very act of writing will leave you with new insights.
So, why should you start writing poems? I think poetry is a form of emotional resonance disguised within a myriad of words. It’s the ultimate form of self-expression. Moreover, some things are worth doing simply because they help us understand ourselves a little better. And I think that’s reason enough.