Words defining their existence
In the presence of your soul;
working towards unlocking
the minds of a universal scroll.

Poetry is an art that combines the essence of life through the fabrication of reality. Strike me with your wisdom, philosophy, love and journeys beyond your creative imagination. Poetry is, poetry was, and poetry will sharpen your very being.

That’s why you should read poetry, in short anyway. Poetry has this ability to change and question the way you think. If you’ve just started reading poetry, it might be difficult to understand or connect with, mainly because it alters your state of thinking and moves you into a direction that may be unfamiliar territory.

However, keep reading the pages filled with poetic words that pour from the writer’s consciousness. Poets in their raw form are connecting to a higher frequency, even they, themselves are not sure where the words spill out from.

The more you read poetry, the greater your quest for knowledge awakens. Doorways will open inside your mind and unlock your hidden potential for a greater understanding of life. Anyone who reads poetry often can connect with this conclusive sentence formation that defines your very questionable outlook on life. (“I know, I’m just playing with words with that last instance”).

Moreover, poetry has this strange ability to help you see how democracy entwines with philosophy, how nature connects you to life and how the galaxy you reside in, radiates at an equilibrium state that ejects its infinite presence among a universal law of code. It gives you significance, reflection and a powerful ambience in this space.

How To Read Poetry

You may have already read some poetry and thought, well, I just don’t get it. That’s fine; you’re not going to connect with all poets. That’s a good thing; it just means you haven’t found poems that bridge or resonate with your mindset.

The art of poetry comes in many different styles and touches on different types of life scenarios. Some are heavy on current affairs, politics or even feminism. Some poems are light and cheeky, funny and even rhyme. Poetry today, can come with beautiful illustrations, photographs, graphics and turn into works of art. This helps define the purpose of the words and gives the reader a fascinating visual experience.

Poetry is best read when you’re hidden from the outside world, in a quiet little spot, somewhere away from all the hustle and bustle. Absorb the poem and take some time to work out the meaning of the full entity. Don’t try and swallow a whole book in one sitting, read a few poems and leave the book until the next day. Sometimes, you can reread a poem, and you will find other meanings or pick up on information that you couldn’t see before. That’s poetry; you create the film, journey or picture inside your mind from reading the words on the page.

Different Types Of Poetry

Here are some popular poetry forms that might interest you in future readings.

Free Verse – No rules. Rhyming, syllable count, punctuation, number of lines, number of stanzas, and line formation can be executed; however, the author wants it. There is no right or wrong way to create a Free Verse poem.

Acrostic – An acrostic poem is where the one letter in each line spells out a word or phrase vertically that acts as the theme or message of the poem. The word used for the acrostic poem can be the name of the person you are writing about, a message such as Happy Birthday or a theme such as love.

Epic – A lengthy narrative poem in grand language celebrating the adventures and accomplishments of a legendary or conventional hero.

Couplet – Two lines of verse which rhyme and form a unit alone or as part of a poem.

Narrative – A narrative poem tells the story of an event in the form of a poem. There is a strong sense of narration, characters and plot. It may be dramatic, with objectives. Narrative poetry may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be simple or complex.

Haiku – This ancient form of poem writing is renowned for its small size as well as the precise punctuation and syllables needed on its three lines. It is of ancient Asian origin.

Limerick – A five-line witty poem with a distinctive rhythm. The first, second and fifth lines, the longer lines, rhyme. The third and fourth shorter lines rhyme. (A-A-B-B-A).

Sonnet – A short rhyming poem with 14 lines. The original sonnet form was invented in the 13/14th century by Dante and an Italian philosopher named Francisco Petrarch. The form remained largely unknown until it was found and developed by writers such as Shakespeare. Sonnets use the iambic meter in each line and use line-ending rhymes.

As you can see in some of the styles chosen here, poetry can be varied and requires skill and a directional thought process. Many poets tend to use Free Verse, as this gives them more control over the final poem. You have the ability to discover your own take on poetry and even conceive your own form.

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Writing Your Own Poetry

Why not have a go at writing your own poetry? Start with small poems about a subject or idea. You have a natural ability to produce poems that are wonderful, enjoyable or maybe even dark and venerable. There is no right and wrong way and that’s why pure creativity should be celebrated in the art of poetry.

The best way to get going would be to start using Free Verse; this way, you can construct a poem the way you see it. You can’t get free verse wrong; so don’t worry about getting into a state of perfection in the first instance.

You might start writing a few poems and really enjoy the creative edge poetry commands. Before you know it, a collection of your work will be on your computer, blog or phone. An assortment of poems is called a poet’s anthology. This can be a selection of different subjects, one topic or one long poem. Depending on the size of your final work, it might be wise to show people, discover poem evenings, classes or start looking at publishing options.

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Poetry Is A Sharable Commodity

Poetry is useful and a valuable entity, but only to readers who find significance in words before them. A poem is timeless and can be drawn upon by the future youth, education systems and be found again through historical fingerprints, which can promote further understanding or open a lost doorway into a new beginning. A single poem has the power to make the creators name last forever. A poem can influence a nation to make a change or stop and question the outcome before it happens.

Most of all, a simple or well-constructed poem can make a human being – feel.

4 thoughts on “Why You Should Read Poetry

  1. Curtis Butler says:

    I like that you brought up how it is best to read poetry when you are in a quiet place. My wife and I have been interested in finding some inspirational pieces of poetry to share with my brother. Maybe I should consider finding some poetry that he would appreciate.

  2. Jaime says:

    Loved the content and how you explain on why we should read the poetry. Poetry is the disclosure of an inclination that the artist accepts to be inside an individual which the peruse perceives as his own.

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