Personal Opinions on Poetry

I am a firm believer that words, despite how high the diction is or how beautifully they are arranged, cannot truly capture human emotion to the fullest degree. I remember during the pandemic, when I had a lot of available time to myself to self-reflect, one of my favorite daily routines was to walk over to the park near my house, sit on the bench or the swings, and just think and reflect on everything component of my life- my behaviors, decision, interactions, future, etc. I, like many of you, had a lot of emotions and thoughts circulating in my brain, and I tried to write what I was thinking, what made me so stressed at the moment, on notes through my phone, but when I tried to put these thoughts into words, it was practically impossible. I had few successful attempts in the sense that I was able to coherently describe my feelings into words, but when I read back upon what I wrote, they still are far from perfect to truly capture how I feel. 

To be honest, I like poetry... actually never mind, I don't. But I do like the concept as it is. I visualize poems as a bunch of small puzzle pieces that can be placed together to create a larger image that can be representative of my emotions at large. However, despite the intricate work of the poems, the complex and ambiguous nature of the poems is what distracts me from appreciating the true work. Usually, when I read a poem, it is mainly for academic purposes, but because they are filled with so many allusions and symbolism and other literary devices, I am, most of the time, left aimlessly staring at the words on my paper, trying to make sense of what the author's meaning and purpose is. And sometimes, I feel like I do successfully find the meaning of the work, but when this happens, I feel rather satisfied with the accomplishment that I just made than actually connecting the poem to my personal experience, which is a bit contrary to the purpose of a poem in the first place. 

Though this does not mean that I hate poems, or I dread the poetry unit (well kinda). In fact, there are poems that I really do enjoy, although they are mostly in the form of music. One poem that I really appreciate is "Imagine" by John Lennon. I used to vibe with this music so much during the pandemic, and sometimes I still go back to it on my "oldies" music playlist and it just puts me in comfort. The lyrics of the poem really sing with how I feel, and I think the reason why I love this poem so much, although it still does not perfectly capture my visualization of a perfectly harmonious world, is due to how straightforward his point is, and that is something I appreciate in his works a lot of the time.