WHY POETRY?
POETRY:
Fully Human! Fully Alive!
Poetry is powerful and playful. Poetry-based expressive writing can be a platform and a playground for creativity, spirituality, intellect and emotion.
Poetry enhances skills in communication and understanding. A poetic lens and poetry tools enhance all forms of expression and understanding. Writers and other artists often find mentor poems and techniques helpful in jumpstarting and reinvigorating their creative process, whatever their medium or genre may be.
Poetry promotes living authentically with one's self, with others, and with the environment. Poetry is as much about personal experience, perception, and reflection as it is about writing. It expands the depth and breadth of what we take note of, how we process experience, and how we reflect on the world around us.
Poetry builds empathic bridges. Poetry-based writing enables us to explore, name, and voice our own experience and to imagine and try on other voices and lives. Reading or listening to poetry, we hear others' perspectives and stories, some familiar and some quite different. A great pleasure of poetry is recognizing our own thoughts and feelings in the experience of others.
Poetry fosters dialogue and builds community. Poetry gives voice to our hopes, fears, questions, and opinions. Poetry-based writing is an avenue to share our thoughts and feelings with others. Doing so in a Poetic License workshop builds connection and community while strengthening relational skills.
Poetry is a safe haven. We all need a safe space to retreat as we navigate a multitude of challenges and the intense, sometimes unsettling thoughts and emotions those challenges evoke. Crafting our writing poetically can provide a greater sense of personal agency and equanimity. Reading poetry and writing poetically is a healthy alternative for risky or otherwise counterproductive behaviors and their potentially harmful consequences.
Poetry is a level playing field. Poetry is equally well suited for those comfortable expressing themselves and for those who find self-expression challenging. People for whom English is not their first language often find poetry a comfortable genre to navigate. Young people who readily do well in school and those for whom school is a challenge can equally succeed in exploring poetry.