Why is poetry important?
This is a hard one to explain, and there was a recent Twitter discourse about this very subject (whether it is or is not important)—for me, poetry is important. It speaks past a silence and allows others to inhabit and experience something. Poetry is better at exploring the intricacies of a single moment, and at explaining the unexplainable, as Carl Sandburg said. Only can poetry can speak through those times you can’t speak what’s happening. It breaks the walls other forms have. It also does this sonically, and with interconnected images.
This is particularly important when it comes from marginalized or underrepresented individuals. Poetry shaped the whole world, it connects us to the past, to the present, to voices we might never experience otherwise. It’s also such a solitary and individual art form. It’s one voice crying across a void—and I think it’s natural and instinctive for us, to desire and to create poetry. For me, poetry has always been instinct, but it’s so important to my sense of identity and connection to the world. As a stay-at-home mom in Ohio, poetry gives me my solitary purpose and helps me to stay in conversation with the universe.
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