Poetry and I have had an interesting relationship throughout my life. Our first true interaction was in my 6th grade English class, where it seemed that we would never get along. Poets spoke in long, confusing sentences with words that I couldn’t even pronounce. 

Who could ever understand it, let alone enjoy it? I knew one thing. Not me. 

The more I fought to understand it, the more elusive it became. It seemed pretty clear that the hatred was mutual between us, and with this I was content. I hoped that if I left poetry alone, it would do the same to me. Unfortunately poetry is a staple in most English curriculums (for some odd reason…). It followed me around like a bad smell, always there and always bad. I learned to cope with its lingering presence, and did my best to scrape through the reading, analyzing, and writing of it. 

However, in 8th grade, I discovered modern poetry online, and suddenly my eyes were opened to a whole new world. There were words I could understand and metaphors that I had seen before. My perspective had completely changed, to the point that I began to write my own poetry. Shockingly, it was horrible. But the effort to write it really emphasized my changed opinions.

I began to understand why people wanted to write poetry, and the feelings you could express through it. It felt more abstract and beautiful than story-writing, but it still could tell stories, and make comments about real world issues. 

Going into high school I was hopeful that we would read some modern poetry, and thankfully, we did. But, for the most part, I was face-to-face with my arch nemesis: Old, ancient, annoying, ugly poetry. 

I knew that in high school English, I couldn’t get away with just scraping by. So I looked for other ways to cope. Instead of trying to fight to grasp the big themes and meanings, I searched for the parts I could understand. Slowly but surely I put the pieces together, eventually learning to find meanings in even the oldest of poems. 

While I obviously still struggle with poetry, my journey alone shows why poetry needs to be taught in schools. It forces students to open their minds to a new way of learning. Students are so used to being given the meaning of stories and writing on a silver platter, but with poetry finding the meaning (in which there are usually several) is something that the reader has to search for. 

Some poetry is also just fun, beautiful, and encapsulating! If you think you hate poetry like I did, I highly suggest finding some easy modern poetry, even if it is on unserious topics. Trusting the process is one of the biggest keys to understanding and even enjoying poetry.