The Benefits of Reading Poetry

Sometimes people are interested in poetry and sometimes they’re not. The interest or lack of interest can be found in both the reading and writing aspect.  It’s a shame more people aren’t interested in poetry.  Following are some of the benefits to both reading and writing poems.

Reading poetry allows people to relax and learn new things.  It can help with recognizing emotions within one’s self and make the readers notice emotions in others better.  Sometimes reading poetry makes people feel smarter, allowing them to get correct answers on quiz shows like Jeopardy.  Sometimes new words are found, and that also helps to better the mind.  After looking at some poems, one may find that they describe things better when in normal conversation.  If people want to learn many new things, they may go a step further and read about the author.  This can help with learning some historical facts that were previously unknown to the reader.  Another benefit of reading poetry is that it can be therapeutic since it allows one to concentrate which can be a form of meditation.  With so many benefits of reading poetry, I’m not sure why people don’t necessarily like doing it, I find it wonderful.  I highly recommend reading about different subjects so that at least new things can be learned.

For some people, like me, writing poetry is also relaxing.  For others, it can be stressful.  However, writing poetry has many of the same benefits of reading poetry.  When coming up with ideas, new things often present themselves to writers.  New words are thought up and discovered.  Writing about emotions really helps authors know emotions in others.  Reading about authors can help the creator of a poem not only enhance their learning, but allow the aspiring poet to come up with new inspiration.  There are some other added benefits to writing poetry that people may not necessarily get if they are only reading it. Writing is definitely a creative outlet.  Completing a poem can be an ego boost once the person writing it realizes their creativity has helped them make a new creation.  Creating something worthwhile makes a person feel proud of themselves.  If a poem is written in a certain style, skills other than writing may be used.  The most obvious one is coming up with a rhyme scheme.  Other skills may be used as well though, for example; math skills.  Syllables, lines, and stanza may need to be counted.  Especially if something like a sonnet or haiku is being written.  There are obviously many benefits to writing poetry.

For some, writing comes hard, and it is not relaxing to them.  It causes stress, which is counterproductive.  If this is the case, there is no shame in avoiding writing.  Reading poetry is relatively simple though, so there really is no excuse to avoid reading it.  Both writing and reading poems can allow people to find relaxation and learn many new skills like learning new words and new information.  Poetry is clearly beneficial.