There seems to be a bit of an aversion to poetry in our culture. Something happens to us when we're in school—we're given Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson or Robert Frost, and we don't really feel like we can relate so easily to it. Then we're told to dissect the meaning of every line, told to identify the meter and rhyme scheme, told to break down the poem like it's a math equation. Somehow, in these lessons, poetry begins to feel far away from us. It begins to feel maybe elitist, or stuffy, or too difficult to understand...
...But the world of poetry is vibrant and thriving, filled with voices that seem to reach out and take our hand, that let us know we're understood, we're not alone. And that's what poetry can do. A great poem can help us put words to feelings we couldn't explain before, or help us empathize with something new, or reaffirm our place in the world. And a great poem can touch that lonely, dark part of our hearts and wake us up, bring us out of the cold.
