Before we talk about writing poetry, it would probably be a good idea to talk about what poetry is exactly. People have different ideas of what poetry is. To some, poetry is rhyming. To others, poetry is something boring that they were forced to study back in school. Some people love it, some people hate it.
Let’s go for the official definition. According to Wikipedia, poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent, literal meaning.
In other words, poetry is pretty words that can have multiple meanings. Now, see how easy that was?
Why should you write poetry? Well, because it’s awesome. I love poetry because it involves breaking down and analyzing the world in a very concrete way. Yeah, we’ve all got different ideas in our heads of what goes on around us, but when you write poetry you’ve got to extract those ideas and feelings. You’ve got to suss it out, to get down to the nitty gritty, to whittle everything away to its base form. When you’re down to pure emotion, thought, and feeling, you’ve got a poem.
