poetry

I've often wished that I liked poetry.

It seems like the sort of thing I ought to like. I ought to like to write it, or read it, or analyse it, or share it. I love to write in almost any other form, even if I'm not very good at it. When I accept I'm not good at writing a certain way, I still enjoy other people's rather more successful attempts at it; in fact I admire it more, as a skill I understand but don't possess. I ought to feel that way about poetry too. I ought to want to study it, to see underneath language, find the nuances, construct my own interpretation of the narrative. I've seen people on Facebook and on blogs I frequent post their favourite poems, poems that perfectly express their mood right now, poems that give the most amazing life advice. I ought to enjoy that.

But I don't. It just irritates me. It irritates me as a concept, and every single example I read irritates me on its own specific merits. I don't understand why this is. I've tried to come up with explanations before, when upset poets ask me what, exactly, is wrong with the medium they love so much. And since my degree was based around creative writing, there have been a lot of upset poets.

This happened more than once at uni:

Fellow student: Hey, if you've got some time, would you mind critiquing this poem I wrote?
Me: Really? Me?
Fellow student: Please. I really think it needs another set of eyes.
Me: I mean, I can do, but my critique is almost certainly going to be "is there any way to make this not a poem?"

Usually what I end up telling people is that I don't like what poetry does to language. The rhyme schemes feel tortured, the structures feel forced, the words feel out of place, and I find myself wishing that they'd just tell the fucking story already instead of trying to make it into a pretty shape and losing half the content in the process. Then this happens:

Them: Read this one. It's my very favourite poem. You cannot possibly read this beautiful thing and still hate poetry.
Me: Look, I can see that it's good in terms of what a poem is, but I still really wish it would go away.

I don't really have reasons for hating poetry. I couldn't provide you with an empirical argument for its being a bad or unworthy art form. I would probably argue that most of the world's poetry is objectively bad, but then most of the world's writing is objectively bad, and something being of objectively terrible quality has never precluded the possibility of it being enjoyable. I just don't like it, in much the same way I don't like cabbage or Sex on Fire or comedies for which the word 'excruciating' is deployed as a compliment. It just upsets me, and there is no good reason for it.

I've been told I'm missing out on so much. I've been told that I'm blinkered, that I have no romance in my soul. Once I was told that it was no wonder I didn't like it since English is a horrible language and I might learn to understand poetry if only I could become fluent in French. I turned the lack of romance into a point of pride for a while. Yes, I am unromantic. I am the most unromantic person ever. I hate poetry with all of my cold, stony, untouchable heart. 

Perhaps there is hope for me. Perhaps when my midlife crisis hits I'll suddenly fall in love with poetry in all its glorious forms. Perhaps when I become a little well-known for writing, it'll be my poetry that people respond to. Perhaps the word 'poet' will precede my name wherever it goes. Perhaps.

But I doubt it, because frankly, poetry is bollocks.