I Was a Poet and Didn’t Even Know It

I find myself to be of two minds about poetry. There is a part of me that wants to discuss it with everyone I meet and go to open mike nights at arty bars and recite my original works and send my poems off to be considered for publication. Then there is another (larger) part of me that wants to deny that I have any idea what poetry is and disavow any knowledge of poems I have ever written and even wipe my hard drive clean of said poems and maybe even smash my laptop in case some computer savvy person came along who knew how to restore deleted files.

Poetry can be a little embarrassing.

Writing fiction is fun. You get to create all these characters from nothing and give them these traits and an interesting past and none of it has to have anything at all to do with you unless you want it to. You can't do that so much with poetry. My poems come from a part of me that I barely even know exists and most of the time, I don't want to know it exists.

It boggles my mind that so many poets and songwriters can just put themselves out there in the public like that. I can't imagine the bravery it takes to show someone your soul and then ask them to tell you straight up what they think about it. What if your soul isn't really as unique as you thought? What if it's kind of creepy or just plain weird? What if you think that you're all deep and inspiring, but really you're like Nickelback, out there thinking that you're saying something profound when really you're just making me want to bash my radio in?

I mean, come on, "And this is where I went to school, most of the time had better things to do." Yeah, no duh, I can tell you didn't go to school much by your inane lyrics and complete inability to be subtle in your songwriting. Clearly, Nickelback missed the class on metaphor. Just because you put words on paper and then put these music note things around them and then sing those words with a gravely voice, it does not mean that it's good, or even that it's music.

Total aside—but stop leading them on people! I mean it, stop buying their albums! You're just encouraging them!

So, if you're expecting one day for Hollie Sessoms to be crowned Poet Laureate or to see me up there at a presidential inauguration reciting something I scribbled on a paper towel whilst I was doing dishes one night, let me just tell you—what's poetry?