“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.” — Dead Poets Society
Yes, I am writing a blog on poetry. And yes, I am writing a blog on poetry.
I wrote my first poem when I was eight years old. I was an early bloomer. I learned to read and write when I was six, so by the time I was eight I already had my first diary. I didn’t know I was writing poems. I thought I was just writing in my diary.
Later, when I started school, I learned what a poem was, what a short story was, what a novel was. I also learned that poems had rules. They had to rhyme, follow a rhythm, use metaphors, and fit into a structure.
I think that’s when I lost interest.
Sometimes I wonder how many children lose interest in poetry for the same reason. How many stop writing because it suddenly becomes too difficult, too full of rules, too cryptic to enjoy. I wonder how many beautiful voices are lost before they even have the chance to be heard.
I think freedom is what makes a poem shine, not the rules, the imposed rhythm, the sound, or even the metaphors. Those things are part of poetry, but they are not poetry itself.
When I wrote Poppies Grow in the Wilderness, the main idea behind it was simple. I wanted to be understood by everyone who wanted to read it, no matter their age. I challenged myself to create something with flow, something that tells a story but still feels lyrical and emotional. I wanted it to feel less like solving a puzzle and more like listening to a close friend telling you something they have carried for a long time.
That has always been my idea of poetry.
To be felt.
To be understood.
I think the rules around poetry can become a box. We put our ideas and feelings inside it because we want to be accepted, less judged, or published. I wanted to step outside that box and make my own rules. My own way of telling a story. My own way of expressing emotion.
We live in a world of systems, and every system has a way of deciding who belongs. Poetry is no different.
But we don’t all live the same life.
We don’t all love the same way.
We don’t all grieve the same way.
So why should we all write the same way?
I think it’s sad that, in a world full of possibilities, we still try to fit something as personal as poetry into one shape. A poem shouldn’t need to be explained before it can be felt. If someone reads your words and finds a piece of themselves in them, then the poem has already done its job.
People often ask what poetry is supposed to do.
I don’t think it is supposed to do anything and everything at the same time.
I have a few favourite lines from poems, but I always come back to these by Robert Frost:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.