Eleven Reasons Why I Love Writing Poetry

   Hello! Owing to my owing poetry so much, I’ll start with a confession. I did not start out liking poetry, let alone loving it. Prior to studying creative writing at university, I had always assumed that poems were dull, cryptic and absolutely depressing.  It did not help that as a teenager who did not read poetry – except for those assigned in my English classes – I used to write them, poorly of course, when life was hard. When I was a bit older, I thought that was just a phase, that I had outgrown it all. Fast-forward a few years, convinced by my university’s guidance counsellor that writing poems would help me express myself beautifully and that I had it in me to write great poetry, I signed up for a poetry writing elective. This probably sounds dramatic but my life was changed for the better. I fell in love with poetry and with writing them since, though the road was still rocky at times. Initially there were all those insecurities. It didn’t matter that my creative writing instructor told me that a poem I wrote was the star of the show. I could not write one poem without reading three poetry collections, or to be more honest with myself upon reflection, I would not. And fast-forward to September 2021, I found myself participating in a writing competition organised by the human right’s NGO Empower and a month later, winning it with my satirical poem ‘Six Ways to Expose Your Daughter to Domestic Abuse’. Was it sheer luck? I didn’t even have time to read three poetry collections as usual before writing that poem thanks to time constraint! 😂

   Looking back on that moment of triumph, I realised that my grit had paid off, because despite being massively insecure about my poetry writing skills, irrespective of the poetic compliments my friends and lecturers seemed to have lavished on me, I chose to feel the doubts and write poems anyway. I was further surprised by my own response to the cyberbully I encountered recently, who told me that because of how my poems defied what he considered to be the poetic norms, he was now averse to poetry thanks to my poem – in not just one comment but three. Yes, there was shock, but only by the casual cruelty – my belief in my poems had by now grown unshakeable. I know for certain that if the comments were posted three years ago, I would have been crushed and I might have stopped writing poems altogether, but I am different now – I now love writing poetry unconditionally. Here are eleven reasons why:

 

1)    As a good friend has poignantly put it, writing poetry is like playing jazz music – no outline required. My mind is free to roam free of all the constraints.

2)    I have found, through time and trials, that it is much easier to write poetry compared to prose when my emotions are raw – when processing them proves to be a struggle.

3)    Writing poetry has always helped me to de-stress so that I can feel relaxed enough to write prose.

4)    Writing poems has enabled me to express something I would normally use 5000 words to express in prose with just 500 words, or sometimes even 50.

5)    Not sure why, but I have found that poetry pairs so well with sarcasm, like mocha and biscuits – so writing poems is handy when I am angry and want to lighten my own mood by being cheeky.

6)    I am biased, though a poem paints a thousand pictures whereas a picture paints a thousand words 😛

7)    If I feel like being dramatic, I get to perform my poem by memorising it in a day, whereas getting ready to perform a short story is too time consuming. I suppose I could just cheat and read my short story out loud from my blog or Word doc – since I don’t film myself in my YouTube videos – but I’m sure people can tell if I’m reading from the page or reciting.

8)    Sometimes I don’t know how I feel, so I use this exciting word association game called poetry writing to help me get to know my feelings better. Haha!

9)    Writing poetry has always managed to rescue me from the hot soups of mental paralyses and writer’s blocks.

10) When I feel that my poem is rubbish, I can always rework it by transforming it into a completely different poem, with not a single word from its previous guise left, sometimes in mere hours – whereas reworking a novel takes months to years.

11) When I write poetry, I am allowed to choose words that are not usually related to what I want to express, and mould them into what I want them to mean. It’s fun and enhances my creativity.

 

Those, my friends, are eleven reasons why I love writing poetry. Why do you love writing poems? Care to share?