What Is the Value of Poetry?

In the opening poem ("matters of great importance") of my collection, Solving the World's Problems, I ask a simple question: "what's more important / writing a poem / or building a bridge..."

(8 Reasons Why Poetry is Good for the Soul.)

At least, the question starts off simple enough, but then it continues to spiral out into giving thanks, stocking chairs, delivering chairs, managing systems, and so on. But there are times when I waste time worrying about which really is more important. There are times when I wonder, "What am I doing here?"

Here being writing poems and devoting a tremendous amount of time and energy to a poetry blog. After all, there's not a lot of money in writing poetry--even for a publisher like Writer's Digest Books. But there's more to measuring value than dollars and cents, isn't there?

Every so often, there's some kind of "death or uselessness of poetry" post or article that runs all viral on the Internet. So I've been meaning to write a post on why I think there's value in poetry for a long while, but it was still simmering in me until I received this message on Facebook from Aleathia Drehmer, a poetry advocate who lives in New York:

Aleathia is not the first person to send me a message like this, and I know she won't be the last. But for me, this displays exactly what the value of poetry is, and it's something more important and primal than shelf space at a brick-and-mortar bookstore or an online sales ranking.

Poetry is something deeply human.

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Play with poetic forms!

Poetic forms are fun poetic games, and this digital guide collects more than 100 poetic forms, including more established poetic forms (like sestinas and sonnets) and newer invented forms (like golden shovels and fibs).

Click to continue.

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Anyone who's read this blog for a significant period of time knows that I'm not afraid to get personal, but let me get really personal. Poetry has helped me get into relationships, deal with break ups, absorb deaths, and other feelings. For instance, I was sexually abused over the course of two years as a child, and poetry helped me unbottle all those emotions and feelings that I had bottled up from that period of my life.

In college, I went so crazy on poetry that I burned out on it. In fact, I'd convinced myself that I was a horrible poet and that I should just focus on fiction, a genre in which I was actually winning some awards (and money). So I kinda wrote some poetry, but mostly I didn't. That part of me fell dormant, and I thought I'd never get it back.

Then, I separated from my wife and my uncle died, and I had these huge gaping holes in my soul. I tried running some of the emotions out of me, but what ultimately helped me conquer these developments was poetry. The act of writing poems helps me tap into parts of myself that often don't make sense until they're down on paper.

I've shared what poetry means to me. It's helped me deal with anger, frustration, heartbreak, headache, hopelessness, isolation, depression, and more. It's helped me be human. That's the true value of poetry as far as I'm concerned. Everything else is icing.

What does poetry mean to you?