What Poetry Is

I think poetry is one of the things that you either get or you don’t. Poetry is not simply words that rhyme, and I personally often think that too many people force their poems to rhyme when they don’t need to; this can make the poem look fake, forced. I only usually use rhyming when I write silly/funny poems. The more serious poems I write hardly ever rhyme. If something has been forced to rhyme then it doesn’t look like it’s from the heart so much, in my opinion.

But at the same time, I’ve seen people go too far the other way and just write their thoughts down in short lines, and this doesn’t work either because it comes across as not very well thought out.

Poetry is about a special way of writing. It’s a way of writing more descriptively, imaginatively and expressively than you would in other forms of writing. It is about the use of imagery, and the use of metaphors and very descriptive words to illuminate the reader to what is going on.

For example, when you’re reading a book, you’re less concerned about the individual words, and more interested in the overall meaning, the overall story, whereas in poetry the individual lines (or even individual words) can spark images in your head and feelings in your heart.

A poem is a song without a tune. You create your own inner melody when you read it.