Why do you write poetry?

kborsden said:

Not writing poetry would be like a tourniquet on my mind.

Click to expand...

This is fascinating to me right now because I feel this way EXACTLY at this moment but more in a writer's block sort of way - I am being twisted and blocked by my own frustrations, which is making me feel unable to write, which is making the twisting worse.....

Because I have to. And because I love it.

Right now I write poetry to improve...make myself, and my next poems, hopefully better than what came before.
I also write becuase it gives me a form of expression I don't have anywhere else in my life...a chace to express things in words more kin to the way I think than the way I might converse with someone.
I love the rhythm of poetry and am becoming more drawn to form, althoug I'm not sure why. I also like the challenge of the succinctness that most, not all, poetry seems to demand. I don't mean the economizing of words per say, but more the use of the best words surrounded by the best words to say what you want to say. If you are using the best words or best phrases to get the message across, that alone is enough word economy for me.
Poetry is beautiful when done well, and who wouldn't want to create beauty in the world...for me, it's worth the effort to try. I think there is a difference between a person writing poetry and a poet writing. I have been both, and still am, just not at the same time. When I feel like the former, I 'want' to write poetry. But when I feel like the later, I 'need' to write poetry. Don't know how much sense that makes. And there is that always hopeful feeling that you might achieved the perfect poem this time, but of course, there always seems to be room for improvement....that keeps me going too. So I guess there are several reasons that I write poetry...mostly though, I just love it. I love what it has the potential to do, I love creating something, it's just a blast most of the time to sit down and peck away....even if it turns out bad...no one has to see it, right.

You ask of me the reason why
I turn my hand to versify.
The secret is, from time to time,
I find it fun to think in rhyme.
My poetry tends to be light -
A serious poem I cannot write.
I save my deep thoughts for my prose,
Which must seem odd, I do suppose.

I write because I must write. I wish I could write prose, a novel, even a short story. But they cannot come forth from my muddled brain. So, since the 1960s, it's been poetry for me. Yeah, poetry...not a bad gig.

Hmmmm, haven't been writing poems for a while now. When I did, I guess it was to... express what couldn't be expressed any other way... make sense of what couldn't be made sense of any other way... generally, to push the boundaries of meaning and sensibility through words and rhythm... Other modes of expression/communication didn't seem quite enough at the time...