Poetry matters. As a matter of fact, in my opinion, poetry is the best form of self-expression. My poetry has gotten me through an entire childhood of heartbreak. Still, poetry doesn’t seem to get the recognition it deserves.
When I hear about writers making money from poetry, very few are able to make a living. This is bullshit, seeing as poetry has laid down a foundation for music itself. Lyrics are nothing more than poetry with rhythm and a beat. The very music we all listen to is nothing more than self-expression from the very soul of someone. The true definition of poetry.
It’s crazy. People would rather sing along to their favorite rap lyrics or their favorite singer, paying for entire albums, but refuse to credit other artists like authors(yes, authors are artist too) by simply spending the same amount of money on a collection of poetry.
Poetry is basically acapella forms of music. Well, at least mine are. My style of writing is so basic, but I feel like it works. I love writing poetry. I love sharing poetry. But just like your favorite musician, I feel that poets should get paid for their life-changing words as well.
Writing, in general, gets a lack of credit, at least compared to other artistic traits, but I feel as if poetry suffers from this the most. I can’t speak for other poets. Though it breaks my heart to put my all into a poem, even if I barely wrote it in response to whatever I was feeling at the time, get so many shares and likes around social media platforms, but when I attempt to put a collection together for sell, very few pick it up. At first, I believed it was a marketing thing, until I researched actual authors and literary agents saying that poetry is EXTREMELY hard to sell, therefore, most publications don’t sell it.
In my own personal experience, I get messages all the time about how relative my poetry was, how excited people were to read my poetry, how heavy-hitting my poetry was just from the subjects I spoke on, and how vivid I made these subjects to my readers. Not too long ago, I got my first review for my poetry collection, 3 AM Thoughts. I reread these kind words from this specific reader every time I sign into my amazon page.
To wrap up what I am trying to say, poetry matters too. Music is only a portion of the self-expressing arts. There’s painting, sculpturing, poetry, hell even fashion can be considered as a form of self-expression. ALL of it matters and deserves to be treated as such.
Want to give one of my poetry collections a try? Link below to my first poetry collection…
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