Why is poetry important?
Poetry is important because it has been a good friend throughout my adult life. I mean this not only in terms of my own writing, but in the 1000s of the poems I have read over the past four decades, pieces that have helped me get through it all. And let’s not also forget the crowd of poets/novelists/artists/musicians it has introduced me to - who I know and talk to - because I decided to sit in a room many years ago and craft words on a page. Poetry has opened so many doors. My life would have been flatter, more monotone without poems. I’ve been fortunate enough to end up teaching it for a living. How good is that. Every now and then, I have entered in correspondences with readers of my work who are interested, moved by what I have to say to them. How humbling is that. Even when I have bad-mouthed poetry it has never sought to retaliate, punish me back. If you are asking me why poetry is important in the world that we live in… well, I always find it instructive, illuminating even that at key points in people’s lives they always turn to poetry to make sense of what is going on. Poetry can be forgotten about, marginalised, considered a ‘minority sport’ but it always returns to us: at baptisms, naming ceremonies, civil ceremonies, marriages, funerals, individuals choose poems to speak for them and their situation. Yes, poetry can be more quotidian than this, can fit into every nook and cranny of our everyday existence - but poems have this atavistic quality too.
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