Poetry is one of my favorite forms of creative writing, and perhaps one of the most misunderstood. Now, you probably know a good amount amount poetic devices from school: rhyme, alliteration, metaphor, similes, idioms, personification, assonance, consonance, etc. Because of this, I won't go into detail on each. However, many times, the way poetry is taught in classrooms is through poems with more archaic language, and this results in lots of people believing that poetry is fancy nonsense. 

If you can't tell, I'm somewhat irked with this method of teaching poetry, just because it's because of these misconceptions that were formed and nurtured that prevented me from writing poetry earlier on.

So, if poetry is not a crazy code created simply for the purpose of torturing innocent students, what is it? 

The answer to this question is different for every poet. That is part of the beauty of poetry, I believe. According to the dictionary, it's "a literary piece with a special intensity". In my opinion, poetry is boundless. It can rhyme, it can not rhyme. It can be a sentence long, or a page. A poet can write for others, and they can write for themselves. Poetry is anything you, the poet, call poetry. In short, poetry is freedom.

At its core though, the one thing all good poems have in common is sensory details and emotion. Sensory details is a fancy phrase for tidbits that appeal to either your sight, touch, hearing, smell, or taste. These details are important because they serve as gateways to allowing the reader to experience what you are writing about, which lends itself to conveying emotion. 

With those being the only two "requirements" really, poetry can be intimidating in it's vastness. What I mean by vastness is that there are so many artistic choices you can make, it's hard to know where to start. Thus, I think the first step to begin writing poetry is to sit down and try to write a poem. If you think it should rhyme, make it rhyme! Not sure? Maybe give a prompt a go. Whatever you do, just start writing. After you get down that first poem, you might you think it sucks. And maybe it does. But write another, and another after that. They will be better.

As you continue to write it, you'll find that poetry is not hard, and that anyone can write it. Is just a matter of whether you're willing to put your mind on the page.