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When I think about poetry, I think about feelings more than I do words. While that may be my bias towards poetry as an art form, I like to think that anyone who takes the time to read poetry with an open mind will find that it’s an exceptionally beautiful art form. In mainstream media, poetry can be seen as a sign of pretension or moral superiority. There’s a reason for this stereotype, but in the words of my father, “It’s always the loudest voices that are heard.” Regardless of the level of truth behind this idea of flashy, inscrutable poetry, the voices of those who perpetuate this idea of pretentious poetry are the loudest.
As a poet, I’m always wary when I reveal that part of myself to others. I’ve had every reaction under the sun, from unadulterated delight to scoffs and eye rolls. Often, I get the question “Why?” I’ve found that people see self-proclaimed poets as these unattainable beings who have experienced unimaginable pain and sorrow. And while I can’t speak for all poets, I can speak for me and the poets I know. Mostly, we’re like everyone else. Some of us simply have a different connection to words than others.
Claiming that I have a special connection to words is no different than saying that someone could have an eye for photography, an innate understanding of color theory or any other artistic cliches you can think of. I love visual art, but I have never had much of a knack for painting, drawing or photography — basically, until I started writing poetry, I assumed I would never be an artist. I was exposed to the wide world of poetry when I was fifteen. I never looked back.
Despite what people may say, poetry has no rules. There is no law that one must rhyme in their poetry or even use the typical stanza. Poetry can come in any form it wants to, and it does. The same can be said for just about any other art form, and these art forms come to us naturally. Intrinsically, even. Cave paintings from hundreds of thousands of years ago make the human urge to document obvious. Poetry predates the novel by several thousand years, and became known to us in antiquity with the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” the oldest poem in history, a religious text from Mesopotamian mythology. “Gilgamesh” is also the oldest piece of epic world literature, meaning that poetry is the oldest known form of literature. It shows that poetry is not elite; it’s the way that people first learned to express themselves with the written word.
This long-standing history of poetry has given rise to countless poets, many of whom were artists in many ways. Sappho of Lesbos, for example, wrote much of her poetry in a straightforward and vulnerable style, breaking away from the heroic style that defined much of Greek literature. Her poetry was also musical, intended to be sung and accompanied by a lyre. What survives of her poetry is mostly fragmentary, but it’s all beautifully raw and has a visceral feeling of yearning. Sappho’s poetry is the earliest example that poetry does not have to be complex or hard to read — it can simply be.
That same kind of poetry that challenges one’s perception of vulnerability and truth exists in poets way beyond the ancient world. One of these poets is Tupac Shakur. Like Sappho, his music is lyrical, and his work is direct and unforgiving. Rap and hip-hop have a distinct poetic style, one developed outside traditional literary institutions. Tupac’s lyricism is subversive and complex, with a huge emphasis on social commentary, a foundational aspect of contemporary art.
To me, poetry is everywhere. When I see a beautiful painting, listen to a new song or simply see the sun shine through dappled leaves, my mind swarms with words, metaphors and potential stanzas. That’s what’s so wonderful about poetry and art in general: it doesn’t need permission to exist. I think that’s a tell-tale sign of creativity, of art in progress. Poetry, in essence, is not just an art form. It’s a lens through which one can see the world. To me, anything with the power to elicit emotion and make you think is poetry.