What does it mean to be a poet? What qualifies as poetry? These are just a sample of questions I’m left with after reading Ben Lerner’s essay, The Hatred of Poetry. I have yet to read any of Lerner’s actual poems or his book, 10:04, which several of my friends have read. Still, the essay makes it remarkably clear that Lerner has thought deeply and read widely about the topic of poetry.

He begins with a poem about poetry he had memorized for class that opens with the line: I, too, dislike it. I think every poet will assert that at least part of the reason they write is because poetry simply feels like it is alive in the universe. It is out there, begging to be understood and transformed into speech. Similarly, the hatred of poetry is just as universal. Everyone has had the feeling of a poem nibble on their insides, but more than likely, they’re more aware of their dislike for the genre.

I, too, dislike it.

Only five years ago, in my junior year of high school, we were assigned to read and analyze an American poet of our choosing. I knew nothing of poetry. I thought it was obtuse, vague, simply throwing a sequence of words on a page. Poetry was only a form for metaphors and symbols that I was too stupid to understand. Either that or poetry was intentionally evasive, all about misdirection, the poet purposefully hiding whatever they were trying to say. At the time, I would not have hesitated to say that I preferred the bluntness of prose.

Even now, when I am hesitantly claiming myself to be a poet, there are still highly-acclaimed poems that I just cannot get into. Though I may find myself lingering on an image or drumming a rhythm in my head, there are still so many poems that I read and wonder what part of it has eluded me.

As a poet, I have come across the hatred of poetry with more frequency than the average person. Sometimes it’s more polite, an admission with a shrug that they just don’t usually read poetry. Other times, the accusation is blatant: poetry is easy! So are you trying to just write poems as a job? Most recently, another intern and I were inventorying books at the University of Notre Dame Press. We were allowed to take any book of our choosing, a perk that I verged on abusing, and the other intern would be drawn to a particular cover or title, only to place it back on the shelf upon discovering that it was poetry. I was amused.

Inherently, poetry is a form of self-expression, of the world striking some sort of chord with you, whether that be beauty or anger or love, and it’s calming to feel so part of the universe. We have turned to poetry as a form of art and communication for so long that it almost seems as if the very genre is a part of us.

However, the hatred of poetry is equally as universal, and perhaps even more rampantly expressed and heard. Yet, we’re quick to chalk up every rhyme or unusual phrasing as “poetry.” (ie: I’m a poet, and I didn’t even know it!)

So which is it? Is poetry something that is inherently an aspect of humanity or is it something to be rejected?

I wish I had an answer to this paradox, but I do not. Nor do I feel confident in providing an answer as to what makes a poem a poem or what makes a person a poet.

But I think that may be one of the many thrills of writing poetry. No poem is perfect, but every poet is trying to speak a truth as honestly (though not always as straightforward) as possible. Perhaps we hate poetry, because in a sense, it has already failed us. There is no formula for a perfect poem, and we aren’t trying to figure out the alchemy for the creation of a flawless poem. Would I even like poetry if I feel like I know all of its secrets? Poetry is the symbol we communicate with, but in the end it’s a symbol, not the authentic world around us or the genuine wellspring of emotion we have inside of us. I think I like poetry because for a few brief, electrifying microseconds, the poem glances off the precise sentiment I am trying to express, skipping like an impulse or skimming like wind over the calm surface of a lake, and I feel bare and raw and so here in this world.

But other times, when the jagged lines are trying too hard, the stanzas a half-tone too sharp or flat, limp as an overly ripe fruit: I, too, dislike it.