Why is poetry important?
Poetry is an art form that needs little to no materials. A pen and paper is about it, so it’s accessible to all income brackets. It’s also a neat, portable art form. You rarely have to clean up after yourself or require a large place with a furnace to create your poems. All your materials inhabit your brain. Every time I teach a class, I tell the students that their stories are important. Everyone needs to tell their story, so others will listen.
Poetry is the way I tell my story, and how my soul speaks to the world. We live in a harsh world, and so we’re seeing an influx of diverse voices in contemporary poems, and it is about time. George Floyd’s murder definitely affected our poetic landscape, and Amanda Gorman’s poem at the Biden’s Presidential Inauguration gave a voice to those who have been ignored for so long.
Getting an audience for poetry has always been difficult, but Ross White, the Executive Director of Bull City Press, pointed out at the North Carolina Writer’s Network Online 2021 Spring Conference, “if more people write poetry, we all rise together.” For myself, when I find new poets with vibrant voices like Taylor Byas, Tiana Clark, and Lukas Ray Hall, I am excited because they teach me ways to hone my own voice. The world needs each of us to make it a better place. We inhabit our planet for some reason, and poetry speaks that reason to the world.
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