Dear Poetry, Stick to What You're Good At

Poetry is always a complicated topic to talk to people about. Either they are the artsy type that thinks poetry is the highest art form and good poets are descended from on high to bless us with their work, or they think that poetry is dumb. For me, I'm always torn on where I stand on poetry. On one hand, a good poem can captivate my attention, make me self reflect on my life, and change my outlook on life, on the other hand, I read most poetry and go, "Yo, what the heck did I just read?" because it is so stupidly esoteric. Poetry seems to me, to be falling down the same path that made me hate reading.

I, like many young adults, don't like reading. I can barely sit through a two-hour movie, how do you expect me to read a 300-page book? Not to say I don't read, I just stick to non-fiction because that's what I think books do best. They are so densely packed with information that in order to use it most effectively, a book either needs to be non-fiction or be a Lord of the Rings-esque novel that attempts to flesh out a wide-spanning world, otherwise it's just being a more boring version of a tv show or movie. That brings us back around to poetry. Dear Poetry, ahem, STICK TO WHAT YOU ARE GOOD AT!

Poetry is best when it is short and easily digestible. I am reading poetry cause I barely have the patience to finish a song to make it a short experience that I can walk away from after 30 seconds. I don't want to have to bust out the lemon juice and a hairdryer to figure out that some pretentious hipster was writing about the cold war when he wrote that line. I'm sure these poets have some life-changing wisdom to drop on me, but if it causes me to have Corpse Husband level IQ to figure out your message then I won't care to hear it at all.

Your poems don't even have to be deep. Shel Silverstein is an amazing poet and he treats the poetry structure like a joke

structure. I have probably spent hours reading all of Where the Sidewalk Ends

and Falling Up because of one key reason, I can read a poem, get it, and then move on. But if I had to treat his poems like a Shakespeare play, then it would be a different story.