Top 10 Reasons to Write Poetry

Expands your Creativity.

Feel like you’re in a rut? Writing poetry might get you out. Writing poetry puts you into a state where anything is possible with words. Every word in your vocabulary is fair game when it comes to squeezing words into a rhyme. You can start with a theme, go off course, take a side road, and then come back to a conclusion by the end of the poem. Just like painting a picture, whatever ends up on the canvas is considered art. Some is good and some is bad, but you always get a reaction. To push the boundaries of creativity, you have to work in a medium where all the outcomes are acceptable. Really bad poetry can be pretty awesome. People love watching trains wreck. Give them a smashup!

No Rules!

In a world full of square pegs for square holes, poetry releases you from the constricting rules that shut down the creative side of you. The only rule is that there needs to be some wisp of rhythm and rhyme. But even pushing those rules to the point of breaking them is allowed and accepted. Breaking the rhythm mid-stride adds its own punch to a poem. Withholding an expected rhyming word at the end of a phrase can shock the reader and make a startling shift in the theme. And in a world where there are just too many damn rules, isn’t it great to get to a place where there aren’t any?

Sneaky Points!

Poetry allows you to get your point across in a sneaky fashion. You can drop in your philosophical viewpoint or social commentary in a subtle phrase and it will be stiffly embedded in the reader’s brain. In order to finish the poem the reader has to accept the passage to get to the end of the rhyme. Unspeakable truths can be spoken in the frivolity of a poem when they are forbidden in other places. Poets have been rounded up and killed because of the power they possess with their pen. Sadly, this is how the music industry gets away with pornographic lyrics that were unacceptable in previous generations. It can be used to counteract that as well.

Timelessness

Very few books get re-read, despite years on the shelf left there for that very purpose. But a poetry book can be re-read, put down, picked up, and it doesn’t matter where you left off. In fact, a good poem will be re-read immediately because it went by so quick the first time. This is the same as when you buy a new album – only quicker, because you don’t have to slog through the music. You can enjoy a poem written in the 1700’s without knowing any history of the era or social structure. But, of course, you will learn much of their times by their words and their rhymes. (Hah – that rhymed!)

Great as Gifts!

Trying to buy something unique for the person that has everything? Tired of buying some crap for a birthday gift that will be opened and lost in the sea of other useless gifts at the end of the party? Write a poem and stuff it in there with that gift bottle of wine. The wine will be gone but they will hang on to your poem with their keepsakes and personal treasures. Chances are, that poem will be kept forever. And when they unfold the brittle pages of your poem decades later, it will be even sweeter than the first time they read it.

It’s a Brain Builder!

Crossword puzzles are thought to be brain builders, but I never could stand them. They keep you in a box and you are forced to play within its boundaries. Writing poems explodes the box to smithereens. You are the Master in the driver seat playing Tetris with all the words at your disposal. And, what’s better than Tetris, is that if you don’t like the shape (word) falling down the screen (your brain), you can discard it and pick another one. Poets may be considered artsy fartsy, but they are always considered smartsy! It’s because anyone who ever tried to write a poem realizes it takes mental gymnastics to pull it off. Your brain can sweat, thus expanding it. Want smart kids? Encourage them to write silly rhymes.

Vocabulary Expanding!

If your vocabulary is limited and you run out of words, writing poetry will push you to learn new ones or recall the words you haven’t used in a long time. It might even lead you to grab a thesaurus or read the dictionary. In fact, the more expansive your vocabulary, the more intelligent you are. Not that you need fifteen syllable words in your poems. That might be a neuron nightmare. But if you spend any time trying to find a rhyme for the word ‘orange’, you know what I am talking about. In fact if you have little kids, challenge them to find a rhyme for ‘orange’ and you could keep them busy all afternoon.

Trance Inducing

Just like tribal drumming, the rhythm of poetry can induce a trance over the writer and the reader. If you want to cast a spell over an individual or the masses, make it rhyme. Political speech writers know to incorporate rhythmic patterns in their speeches to cause their audiences to accept their otherwise impossible promises and nonsense. They don’t venture into full blown rhymes because that would be too obvious and cause suspicion. Think of the speeches of JFK and MLK and Abraham Lincoln. They stop just short of poetry, but are so memorable because of the rhythm of their words.

No Musical Skills Necessary!

So many adults lament that they never picked up an instrument as a kid. However, everyone picked up a pen and learned how to use it. The truth is, a good lyricist can find an endless supply of talented musicians out there who wish that they could also write lyrics. Think of James Brown, Robert Plant, and all the rappers of today. Music can be generated by machines and by monkeys but it takes cogitation to write the lyrics. So, while everyone else is learning how to play “Stairway to Heaven”, please go forth and write the song that replaces that worn out piece of posterity.

Overcome Writers Block!

Writing is hard work. Many of us have a book inside of us that we always wanted to write. And even prolific writers suffer writers block from time to time. But when you simplify and reduce the task to just finding a word that ends in ‘aye’, ‘ite, or ‘ed’, it becomes easy to throw words down on paper. It can be a warmup or the final product. Also, poems are very short compared to that novel lurking inside you. The intimidation factor goes down when you can be done after four lines. Writing poems make you start fresh ideas and then allow you many possible rhyming words to fill them up.

Make People Laugh!

Everybody needs more laughter in their lives – especially the sourpusses. Writing comedy is super hard work and so is the delivery. Those old enough to remember Andrew “Dice” Clay know that he leaped to the top of the heap re-writing old nursery rhymes. Nobody cared that he took this shortcut – they were too busy laughing. His bits are more memorable too because of the effortless entrainment rhymes produce in your brain cells. In fact as soon as I mentioned The Diceman, your mind started repeating his famous, “Hickory, dickory dock” bit. You couldn’t help it.

People Like it!

(This is number 12 out of the 10 reasons I promised you by the way. Always over deliver)

We are wired to like poetry. The world and everything in it is constructed of vibrational wave pattern energy. From the stars down to the sub-electronic particles, everything is wiggling and dancing to some kind of rhythm. Poetry is a way to connect words to the natural and endless rhythms going on around you, in you, and through you. Tap into it and feed off its magic. Share it and get in sync with its endless and effortless energy. It must be there for a reason!