When I hear someone say that they don’t like poetry, whether it’s my freshman students sitting down for my lesson on haiku and the writing process or my sexagenarian neighbor walking her dog down the sidewalk, I am stunned. This isn’t because this is a response I am not expecting, but because I can feel the poignancy of a world gone wrong. Like hearing about crime on the other side of town, I already know it’s there, but it feels wrong nonetheless.
To hear that for someone poetry is “not their thing” is like hearing someone say they balk at visual art, that every painting bores them out of their mind. It is like hearing someone say they can’t stand any kind of music, that any genre of it is equally abhorrent to them. It’s not just the EDM, the Emo ballads, or the orchestras; the simple sound of a metronome is enough to set them off. Finally, it is like hearing someone say they can’t stand the taste of any food, that all of it alike is insipid, a waste.
Poetry is delicious, and there are so many kinds from which to choose–whether you are peckish and crave the frog legs of a Bashō haiku or want to wander the days long harvest feast of Milton’s lost paradise or anything in between. Go to the Costco sampler stations at your local library, read some Dickinson, some Donne, some Hughes, some Storni, some Whitman, and nibble, nibble, nibble till you find verse that will not only leave you unharmed, but will apprise you of a craving you didn’t know you had, that was primal all along within. Enjoy what was always already there.
By M.
Over/Poetry 