1. It’s short (mostly). I have a short attention span, but I can read or even write, a poem in just a few minutes. And there it is—complete in a page or two. I can read it over and over, enjoying or seeing something new each time or savoring again what I liked the first time. Writing poetry, I can actually finish it in one sitting. I’ll probably go back and revise it, but I’ve captured a moment—something I’ve seen before but now see in a new way or something that I’ve never noticed before. Those passing things that are so easy to lose—a scene, an overheard conversation, an insight, is there to be seen, heard, or thought again.
2. It’s fun. Poetry is playing with words. I’ve always loved words, not just for regular, necessary communication, but as toys. Sound, rhythm, rhyme, metaphor, and form. It’s the world’s best word game.
3. It lets me show off. Example: A friend sent me her “word for the day” from a vocabulary building exercise: “Terpsichore.” Her comment: “Now use it in a sentence.” My response: “I once knew a dancer/His muse was Terpsichore/He sought her whenever/His dance needed trickery/ While travelling in Asia/Learning dances Korean/He found out that they too/Were Terpsichorean.”
4. It saves original thinking. Lines and fragments of poems fit many occasions and let you say something iconic without your having to work so hard at it. Examples:
“Out, damned spot, out I say.”
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”
“I wake to sleep and take my waking slow/I learn by going where I have to go.”
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood/I took the one less travelled by/And that has made all the difference.”
“For love, the leaning grasses and two lights above the sea.”
“Pigeons on the grass, alas.”
“Rest, perturbed spirit.”
Share your favorite great lines in the comment section. And, if you can name the poets who came up with the great lines I quoted above, leave a message on my contact page and I'll send you a prize. http://www.writingwomanpress.blogspot.com/p/about.html
5. Poetry takes me places I didn’t even know I wanted to go. When I read a good poem, I may think I know where it’s leading me, but often I end up in a different place entirely. An example: Robert Frost’s “Departmental,” a poem about insects that is really a wry comment on the Roosevelt administration.
