Why people hate poetry

During my middle school and elementary school years, poetry had always been something of an enigmatic subject for me. The poet, in my mind, was a dead, gray-haired, bearded British or American guy who had nothing better to do than sit around all day BSing around like a philosopher—except they were even worse than philosophers since they were too lazy to even write essays. Instead, they wrote these baffling miniature items called “poems,” which no one—including themselves—could understand.

English class had always been about finding “meaning” and answering that eternal question posed by English teachers everywhere: “What is the author trying to say?” But I used to always wonder, “Is the author ever really trying to say anything?” (Of course, I kept thoughts like these in my head, for I knew that they would certainly not help me to pass 7^th grade English).

The tradition of meaning-searching continued and worsened in high school. Except now we had to write, rather, BS essays on this BS poetry with the new 50-dollar words we had used to describe it. So instead of just analyzing the rhyme scheme, or the alliteration, or the assonance, or the anaphora, or the polysyndeton, we had to write about why the author was using said devices (to those who know what polysyndeton is: you see what I did there?)

Essentially, high school English makes students want to forsake the world of literature if they haven’t already done so in middle school. English teachers and curricula force students into reading works that do not appeal to the average teenage male or female. For instance, it’s understandable that a 15-year-old may fail to see any ado about Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Some things take maturity to appreciate. I used to hate Shakespeare as a kid, but now that.

To a certain extent, students who forsake the pursuit of discovering literature can’t really be blamed. The poor teaching of literature really leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It’s kind of like how some kids avoid eating cheese their entire lives just because their mothers packed them a spoiled ham and cheese sandwich for lunch one time in the second grade; you know they’re missing out on something fantastic, but can you blame them for their decision?