How expressing your inner poet can help you cope with life
I’m pretty sure even the most uninterested of us of would have heard a poem or two, whether that’s by choice or by compulsion (in school). There would have been those English classes where we had to read poems by famous poets from olden times. Names such as William Wordsworth, Shakespeare rings a bell? Well, let’s explore poetry a little more.
With respect to affinity and interest towards poetry there are 3 types of people. The first are those who really, really love poetry. When I say love, I mean they eat, drink, sleep, dream, breathe, read and of course write poetry. These are the people who will use poetry to relate to almost each emotion or situation they encounter. They may on facing situations and emotions write poems to express themselves or will search for related poems on the said emotions and situations. By doing this it strangely seems to amplify positive emotions such as love, excitement, happiness, etc. that they feel and similarly deepen feelings such as sadness, melancholy, regret and so on.
On the other end of the spectrum, which is the second group, you have people who may be deeply or slightly disinterested in poetry and give a sarcastic demeaning smirk at a mention of it. For whatever reasons, whether it’s that they find such expressions too cheesy or they have a bad experience writing, reading, gifting poems is a mystery only they know.
Then the third type of people who are between these two extremes who are the majority. These people are not as passionate and extreme about poetry though they also don’t utterly dislike or distain them. They will occasionally show interest towards poems and quotes, and you would see these people posting an occasional poem or quote on their status and stories. For such people, poems make sense at times, especially when they are experiencing deep emotions such as love, breakup, depression, etc but they don’t necessarily write poetry or search for poetry for each and every emotion or situation.
So, that was just an introduction about the types of people in the poetry universe. Now, let’s get to the real topic about why I write poetry and why you too should get a little poetic.
It wasn’t always that I wrote poetry, and also it wasn’t always that I liked poetry. Like for many, in the early days poetry was just something I had to recite and write exams on in school. It didn’t exactly have any special connotation to me. Long story short, we had an assignment to write an original poem in English class, so I wrote one nonchalantly hoping to just score some average grade but it turns out the teacher really liked it and ended up praising me in front of the whole class. That started me off as a poet and, yes, I got the best grade in that assignment.
Then soon after that I started to get interested in writing random poems and slowly it became a medium of expression for me. Whenever I would feel an emotion or had an unforgettable experience, I would try to channel my thoughts into the poems. At the start, my poems were dull and repetitive and sounded like a nursery rhyme and I wasn’t always able to use the right words to express myself but slowly, as time went by and I wrote more and more. it started to feel natural.
I usually wrote for myself or for someone else. At that time it was merely an artistic way of expressing with words but little did I know that it would be an asset for me in the later years of my life and that’s why I want you to try it.
As life would have it, we all face challenges as we move through life and after the initial growth spurt and abrupt entry into adulthood, the problems and stress really seems to be without end as the light at the end of the tunnel seems to fade. So, what do we do when we’re stressed? We do a lot of things whether they make sense or not, whether they help or not. They say that if you share your problems with someone, your emotional baggage or stress becomes lighter. It’s one of the great ways to relieve stress and on that note, that is one of the reasons why we keep friends. It would be great if we could share our problems with our friends or family all our life but we all know the reality, it doesn’t work out. Either we grow apart from our friends or they too have so much problems of their own, that we don’t want to bother them with ours, and obviously there are some things you don’t want to burden your family with, and then sometimes you’re so down the gutter that you become antisocial and don’t want to reach out to anybody. so, what do you do to cope with stress and emotions, consume yourself with vices? No, you use poems.
That is the asset I mentioned earlier. When you need a positive way to cope with life, just write poems. Poetry strangely seems to tap into your subconscious mind and helps you express your deep underlying emotions. It helps express what you feel in metaphors and counterintuitively simple lines. As you take your pencil and start letting your emotions flow into the pages, there’s no stopping them, they just flow like a stream gushing out from a rock on a mountain. At times you will even surprise yourself, and you’ll be wondering where the words are coming from, how you could write such deep lines and so on.
That’s the magic of poetry, it’s no less a tuning fork for our deepest emotions. It’s the link between the submerged world and the conscious world. It’s the bridge that that connects the inexpressible thoughts to the realms of human understanding. It’s the authentic language of the heart, the song of your inner self and the keys that set your soul free.
So, next time you’re stressed, lie down with a notebook and a pencil beside you. Imagine you’re on the shore, and as the waves of your mind gently sways you around, feel the rhythm, the breeze, and let it flow into the pages.
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