this is nothing too special-- just a little response i wrote to a question in an english class about what my experiences with poetry have been, whether it matters to me, etc. i just wanted to share it, 'cause why not? alright, here you are:
I absolutely adore poetry– I sort of live and breathe it. I’ve been writing poetry for about 6 years now and it’s become such an integral part of my life, especially as I started editing it in lit mags, and as I’ve started publishing in lit mags and zines.
I think that there’s something really special about the way it allows you to express your thoughts and emotions and observations, and writing poetry has made me more attentive to every little detail in my life.
I do have to say, though, that my definition of poetry is a little odd. Personally, I think that anything you approach with the intention of engaging with poetry (whether creating or just experiencing it) is poetry. Sometimes, I think little moments between people can be poetry, and photography can be poetry, and something in a more traditional prose format can be poetry, and a phone number can be poetry, and Facebook comments can be poetry, and a Wikipedia article can be poetry. To me, it’s all about intention.
Of course, I understand that we’re usually talking about something written that just isn’t prose. I love that kind of poetry. I love how much language can overflow with feeling– not just when put together, but in a single word, just because of the way it sounds. I love body words, specifically, like stomach, and flesh, and digest, and throat, and swallow (and I love that a swallow is also a bird). I love words like coil and spiral, and I love talking about things like horseshoe crabs.
I have a friend I’ve adored since the 7th grade, and we call each other our muses, and I absolutely adore the way he writes, because he gets so enveloped in the sound and feel of words and the shape of emotions that it doesn’t need to be perfectly coherent for it to make sense. I fall into his poetry and just get a sort of feeling from it– an aesthetic or an energy or something like that. I remember his poetry in images, and it inspires me, and I love it.
It makes me sad that so many people haven’t found the right poetry for them. Even an English teacher last year told me last year that he hates poetry, and then talked about Shakespeare, and I was so offended and disappointed that that was his idea of poetry. I wanted to be able to pull Hanif Abdurraqib’s The Crown Ain’t Worth Much out of my backpack like a sword out of its sheath and hand it to him– change his world. Who knows if he would have read it? I wish I had had it, though.