Applications of Poetry

There are many people who see poetry as useless. It has been highly useful for me.

Poetry is the reason that I was accepted on a full scholarship to a private school. Poetry is the reason that I have most of my friends. Poetry is the reason that I have had beautiful relationships with a number of wonderful women, including the mother of my daughter.

Many people do not see practical application of poetry. In fact there are many practical applications of poetry. It can be a way to express one's feelings for the people one cares about. It can be a way to express oneself and work through one's issues. It can be a way to produce something beautiful that adds to the civilization and to the world.

In the country I come from, poetry is a big and respected endeavor. I see no reason at all why the same should not be the case in countries such as America and Australia. The Russians are no sissies, and the idea that poetry is for sissies is absolutely wrong. The Bible, for one, has lots of poetry in it. And I've known any number of poets who were tough men.

Am I a tough man? Not really; I am however in better physical shape than most people my age. For me poetry is a way to create things that are beautiful and meaningful. The same can be done by someone who is a tough man. It can also be done by someone who is not.

A large part of the problem is that much of the poetry that has been produced in recent decades has been of exceptionally low quality. Nobody wants to read avant-garde stuff that has nothing of beauty and is nothing but clever wordsmanship. People do however read Renaissance poetry, romantic poetry and early 20^th century poetry; and if poetry is again to become a major force it needs to become beautiful again.

There is no reason why poetry in the present should not be as beautiful as the poetry in the past. People today are just as talented as they were during the times of Shakespeare or Byron, and there are more people now than there were during the times of Shakespeare and Byron. We, today, can produce poetry at least as beautiful as what was done during Renaissance and Romanticism. The more people do that, the more people actually read poetry. The more poetry becomes again a force in the world.