Rita ’s Reviews > Peck & Peck > Status Update

Finally, poetry is subjective. Everybody has an opinion, and because of that, nobody’s officially right or wrong.

Second, it’s honest, and honesty is never in vogue. We are all so overly fond of the adage that the truth will set us free, but there’s a reason so many poets end up in jail. The real truth is, each of us lives in a cage, but poetry is a key. It reminds us that unless we unlock our own doors, we’re probably not going anywhere.

Poetry is problematic.
First, it’s not easy. It forces you to think and sometimes thinking hurts. Also, poetry can make you feel stupid, like you don’t get it. And if you do get it, then it’s only because it just revealed something about yourself that you were hoping to keep hidden.

There are more than two sides to every story; it’s never as simple as right or wrong, black or white. We’re all gray, Batter, every last one of us.

Plus, despite what my pre-law classes would call an appalling lack of evidence, their answers always seemed right. Or something even more unlikely. Truthful.

That’s how I used poetry. To understand the world. To decode, analyze, interpret, think. […] The poetry section […] was like that: full of short, distilled explanations of where and why people went wrong—and occasionally right. It didn’t seem to matter what the topic was—love, war, hate, jealousy, crime, retribution, revenge, or reconciliation —the poets had it covered. And they provided actual answers.