Thoughts on Why I Don’t Like Poetry

Spoiler: it irritates my inner child.

In case you’re curious, it is pretty much impossible to be a candidate for a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing without being exposed to poetry.

A lot of poetry.

When my last semester started, a year ago now, I had a stack of writing craft books to read before I showed up for my residency. Including The Art of Description by Mark Doty.

And, you guessed it, it’s about poetry.

And I have this resistance. This instant wall that goes up. I’m not a poet. Poetry makes me feel stupid. Everyone around me makes that little hum of agreement and I don’t understand.

I don’t like poetry. I didn’t want to read a whole book about The Art of Description that’s written by a poet and is full of poetry.

I still don’t want to.

Even though it’s beautiful. Even the descriptions of descriptions are fantastic. Even then. I don’t want to.

I liked poetry once. When I was a teenager I carried around a little notebook filled with bits of it I collected like other kids might collect stamps or coins or pretty stones.

I memorized the Robert Frost poem that Ponyboy read to Johnny. And damn near all of Where the Sidewalk Ends. I…