What is poetry?

Is there a good reason to encourage our children to read more poetry?

First of all, what is poetry? Well, if you look up a simple definition of poetry you will find something like this:

 ‘Poetry is literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm’.

So that’s nice a simple! But what does it actually mean? The truly simple answer is, that poetry is written to make us feel first and then wonder about it afterwards. It’s like finding a locked box and sensing there is something extremely valuable inside. To see what it is, takes the effort of finding the key.

There was a time when poets were the rockstar-gods of the world. Back in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, especially, people adored them. Byron, Shelley, Keats – they were the mysterious people who appeared to have unlocked the box, looked in and caught a glimpse of the secret of life. Poetry was a way of revealing it to us in a form we (mere mortals) might understand, but only if we took the time to think with both our hearts and our heads.

Back then, if a book of poetry was published, people would queue around the block to buy a copy. It’s hard to believe that a slim volume of poetry was the ‘must-have’ of the day. Harry Potter, perhaps; an Ode to a Nightingale, well… 

Today, pure poetry seems to have taken on a dusty, old-fashioned feel – especially in the internet age, when everything is explained immediately. If you need to fix a lightbulb, you can Google it. And it’s true, if you want to find out the meaning of a poem you can Google that too, but only because someone has already done the thinking for you. That’s the thing about poetry, it doesn’t give up its secret meanings straight away. You have to think and feel your way through it. As a result, it can feel like hard work, but then nothing truly worthwhile ever comes easily.

So where are all the poets today? In fact, they are all around us and people are still queuing around the block to buy their works (at least they are virtually). Poets have become rappers and songwriters, advertising creatives and speech writers. They are people who understand that words become truly powerful when they make people feel and think.

So perhaps, the question to ask isn’t, ‘What is poetry?’ it’s ‘What can poetry do for you?’ Now, that’s a thought…