Poetry can be something beautiful, poetry can be something ugly. It’s a literary art that redefines the mentality: “beauty is in the eyes of the behold.” I’ve read a lot of good poetry, and quite frankly, a lot more bad poetry. But even now, I still can’t find myself to truly understand what poetry is — or even if I ever may. But now, I think I’ll ramble on about what poetry is exactly.
I know it’s an expressive tool — that much is obvious. But I can’t understand how. To me, I can easily gather up my emotions and craft a paragraph on how I feel (making it as artsy as I wish). But others usually find it more relieving to write works of poetry infused with amateur symbolism and cryptic dialog that makes no real sense to anyone but themselves (these are fine examples to the quote I stated above).
Then I see the poetry that is more often speculated, and praised by thousands upon thousands of people. Not anyone in particular, but to name two of my favorites, I’m thinking of: Walt Whitman, Robert Frost. I read, and evaluate their work, and notice that it’s not really much ever expressing their feelings. It IS expressive, but hardly (I know Poe spoke very much of his emotions, but that wasn’t all) ever about purely themselves.
So that brings me to my dilemma of not understanding truly what poetry is. It’s used by many as a means to cope with what’s wrong or what’s right in their lives, or used to make wonderful tales to relate with humans and emotions. After thinking about it all, only one possible answer truly remains: poetry is a map to emotion. Might I try and explain myself…
One of the most confusing and unexplainable phenomenons that has ever graced the human race is…well, love. Love is perhaps the strongest reason to write poetry, and the only possible form to map out how it works for means desiring a proper explanation. In basic words, no matter how articulate, love is unexplainable; but in poetry, moments, emotions, and desires are placed into a cryptic plane to better understand. So I guess, poetry is used to better explain things without looking like a pompous douche…is that right?
Okay, rambling ends now!
