Poetry as Self-Expression
Last week we talked about using visual art to tell your story in a new way. This week we are going to talk about how using poetic forms to capture emotions and moments can help you in your creative journey. Maybe you are not a poet by trade or maybe poetry is the first form of art you run to. Today I want to take a moment to talk about poetry and how it can help you capture your emotions even if you aren’t a poet. Hopefully everyone reading this can take something away with them that will help them tell the story they are writing.
Poetry is full of figures of speech and tons of imagery. Like our minds it can be a very complex thing where there isn’t ever a correct way or definition of how it is supposed to work. For all of history it seems that humans have been trying to figure out the human brain and how it works. We may not have all the answers but we know that our minds are a beautiful thing. That is some of the beauty we can find in the poetry our minds create. Before we get too far into this post let’s define what exactly poetry is so we are all on the same page.
po·et·ry
/ˈpōətrē/
literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; poems collectively or as a genre of literature.
po·em
/ˈpō(ə)m/
a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanzaic structure.
So to summarize, poetry is a collection of works of poems which are a form of writing that is structured in a rhythmic way that allows the writer to expand on an idea with the use of metaphorical writing and expressions. You don’t have to stick to straight story telling or even the total truth when writing poems. Are minds naturally like to blow things that happen to us out of proportion so maybe that’s why lyrics writing has become such a healing form of art, because it uses our natural tendency to over emphasis and dramatize events.
It is so important for your mental health to be able to get things out of your mind and into the world. I wrote some more about this in my post “The Effects of Personal Journaling”. So what does this have to do with poetry? If you find yourself struggling to journal and write about your life maybe give poetry a try. Pick a topic that you are facing and come up with unique ways to describe that. This can be the start of a poem about blank. You don’t have to be serious in your writing either. Just have fun and enjoy the outcome of your ridiculous metaphors and hyperboles.
In case you don’t know or need a quick reminder here are some important words when it comes to poetry.
met·a·phor
/ˈmedəˌfôr/
a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
hy·per·bo·le
/hīˈpərbəlē/
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
sim·i·le
/ˈsiməlē/
a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid (e.g., as brave as a lion, crazy like a fox ).
Finding these new outlets and ways of writing can both help your mental health and expand on your creative tool belt of ways you can tell your story. Remember in everything we do we are writing and telling our own stories. They can be as unique as we desire and they are truly ours. Try it out this week. Write something that describes where you are in life right now and share it with us in the comments below! We would love to hear your story.
