Why Do We Still Read Poetry?

“His eyes went white, like a shark about to attack.” 

“I feel the color in my cheeks rising again. I must be the color of The Communist Manifesto.”

We live in a terrible era in which sentences such as the above describe the extent of our literary awareness. Verbose phrases that drag on for miles and clustered irrelevant adjectives dominate the literary sphere. But fear not, for amidst this chaos lies a gem that just needs to be dusted and honed – poetry. Oh yes, poetry is complicated, poetry is incomprehensible, poetry might seem only for literature nerds. But poetry can make you soar to heights you haven’t been to before, make you see things from a whole new perspective. It sets your grey cells in motion, makes you pull out thoughts from the depths of your heart, thoughts you weren’t even aware existed. Poetry is a perfect cathartic outlet for all the emotions churning in both the poet and the reader.

Poetry can make you soar to heights you haven’t been to before, make you see things from a whole new perspective

To me, the true strength of poetry lies in its power to create a world of meaning with just a few words. These simple words can rearrange our lives and bring order to the chaos within us. Strung together in harmony, they help us make sense of the disorderly world we live in. These words impart a multitude of meanings, each one more profound than the last. Poetry does not feed you knowledge like prose, it makes you revel in the words and set you thinking. After all, we are men because we think. And when we are handed the tool to evolve men and their minds, shouldn’t we immerse ourselves in it?

The true strength of poetry lies in its power to create a world of meaning with just a few words

However, to truly love poetry, you need to learn to read poetry in a certain way. Hugely influenced by the poem Howl, I’ve learnt that there really is no point in trying to extract every grain of meaning from a poem. The trick is to simply let the words wash over and engulf you. Trying to decipher it destroys the experience of reading the poem. You remain preoccupied with extracting meaning and fail to comprehend the beauty it holds. The worlds these words create sweep you off your feet and carry you to a land where beauty exists in anything and everything, from ancient urns to weed-smoking hipsters. And immersing yourself in this beauty is the true objective of poetry.

The trick is to simply let the words wash over you and engulf you

Like Shelley once said, poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. If you accept the power of language, poetry can present the past, change the present and predict the future.

Image Credits: Emma Farrer / Flickr (Header)