Poetry as a style of writing is often considered soft and flowery, and I’ve heard it said that poetry is often unapproachable, or boring for the majority of today’s people.
As a form of written expression, many equate poetry with softness.
I politely disagree.
Poetry is the language of strength, of identifying those aspects of our being which are often difficult to understand and express. Finding the right words to express what is often not immediately clear or easily understandable, yet commonly shared between individuals – that is difficult, not easy; it is hard, not soft.
Perhaps this is by design. The power of a name can help you summon the force of ideas and inspire the emotions to conquer all foes, to rise above all obstacles.
Such power might be inappropriate for the unwashed masses. People could get hurt.
Calling out the truth of people and their motivations, shedding light onto the aspects of being which define character and drive their actions, these are the challenges of attentive observers and distillers of truth, those poets.
Poets are necessarily dangerous, especially to those who traffic in power and exploitation.
Husking the platitudes and insincere bluffs of greed and fear, revealing the inner kernel of what is otherwise unrecognized, unacknowledged, and uncared for, despite being obvious for all to see.
A monster with no name will not heed your call. Only through deliberate experience and understanding can a proper address be given to the forces of nature, with whom we can plead for understanding. This is the quest of poetry.
Poetry is an unstoppable act of saving humanity, of shining a light throughout the entirety of our collective being, so that no part of us is left to diminish and fester in the shadows.
Poetry is not flowery language too delicate for the masses, poetry is the language of toughness, daring to explore that which so many strong men fear most: emotional vulnerability and truth.
Poetry is not a hiding place for sensitive souls to avoid reality, it is a place of discovery where essential truths of our human experience are laid bare for the common good.
Bringing forth the beautiful and noble truth of our best aspects, sharing inspiration and love, those most cherished and conspicuously scarce elements of any life.
Poets are often disregarded and ignored as unimportant, though the world certainly needs more beauty, more understanding, more appreciation, more love, and more truth.
In a world driven to a frenzy in a competition made so needlessly cruel and exploitative, perhaps it is the poetic sensitivity to nature and the questioning of all the ambitions of the human heart that we most need if we are to save ourselves.
In these troubled times, as climate is changing and war is breaking out across the globe, poetry is not viewed as a solution by those with the power to inflict massive pain and destruction.
The rest of us, in preparing for the brutal nature of hardship we can not escape, instinctively harden our hearts and brace for what will come, hoping the survivors may someday have time and hearts ready for poetry.
Yet time somehow provides opportunity for every guarded heart to react to life in a moment of pure expression. Uninvited and unstoppable, poets will emerge in the most unlikely of places, even though most of their poetic impulses will not be encouraged or appreciated by a society focused on the business of war.
What these poetic souls create and leave behind might still be gathered and shared, their insight and individual truth becoming beautiful in the eyes of those who survive and remember. A record of the moment, a testament to the spirit of humanity, a mark on the world left by so many ghosts who now haunt our collective minds.
Poetry to ignite your soul, to set ablaze the wonder and fury of life, the inescapable dread and excitement of what it means to be truly alive. The expression of an act of consciousness, magically transformed through careful marks on a page, capturing the thought and emotion of a sensitive soul and carrying it through time and space to your mind and heart. In this way, poetry can save the world – even in these troubled times.
There may be some irony in the fact that the appreciation for poetry is in such short supply precisely at the moment when the need for poets is so overwhelming.
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