How Is Poetry Different?

Poetry has long been recognized as a distinctive literature which works in our lives differently than other genres. Our reading can be more useful if we take a moment to consider in which ways that opinion is true. How is poetry different?

1. Poetry provides a way of talking about subjects that we normally avoid.
In most contexts people don't talk about death, though each of us is going to die. We don't talk easily about sex, religion, a failing marriage, difficulties with children, abuse or addiction. With images and the creative use of words, poetry can build bridges to life experiences. It involves us with the subject indirectly with less anxiety and resistance, facilitating reflection, prayer, and conversation.

It's as if the poet knows our lives. Poetry doesn't avoid that which is uncomfortable or painful, nor that which is full of joy and beauty. Perhaps for the first time we are able to speak about our real lives, freely and confidently.

2. Poetry provides a way to express feelings that we tend to repress or deny. 
In many cases, people cannot find the words which describe what they are feeling. They sense that "the right words" are not available to them.

Yet, as poet-author Erica Jong wrote, "poetry is what we turn to in the most emotional moments of our life -- when a beloved friend dies, when a baby is born, or when we fall in love. Poetry is the language we speak in the most terrifying or ecstatic passages of our lives."

Poetry also helps us in the routines of life. Now we can work through the dark emotions and experience feelings of comfort and consolation; or we can claim the positive feelings of happiness, peace, and wholeness. Poetry grounds us in reality, allowing us to articulate our feelings to ourselves, if not yet to others.

3. Poetry teaches us to access wisdom through the imagination instead of habitually seeking a rational understanding of every word and every experience.
A poem is not primarily a product of the poet's rational thinking. It is not an attempt to explain life in a clear, orderly fashion. Understanding the poem is not a result of grasping the literal meaning of words, sentences, and paragraphs.

Poems are full of metaphors, the creative use of words, and unconventional forms. These elements speak to our hearts, not just our minds. They speak to our imagination, offering a multitude of insights, bearing the hope of a reordered life-perspective.

4. Poetry can unveil, express, and connect us to the spiritual dimensions of our lives and experiences.
Poet Jane Hirshfield suggests this exercise: "Open any doorstop-sized anthology at random a dozen times and find in each of the resulting pages its spiritual dimension. If the poems are worth the cost of their ink, it can be done,"

The realm of poetry with a spiritual dimension is not limited to "religious poetry." Religious poetry may seem heavy-handed or opaque, too obvious or superficial. Some religious poetry may lean toward the sentimental or nostalgic. Poems are truly spiritual to the extent that they probe the central questions of human life -- mortality and transience, isolation and alienation, the question of suffering in all its dimensions, or lead us to authentic praise and thanksgiving.

(I encourage you to use the Comments section below to share observations, suggestions and questions.)