Despite having garnered considerable flack for this unpopular position, I am and plan to remain an ardent poetry appreciator. Classical, modern, lyrical, prose; you name it, I eat it up.

I am not about to feign ignorance. I’m well aware that I belong to a small minority who share this opinion, and I fully understand why the poetry fandom isn’t larger.

The word ‘poetry’, in our education system, is practically synonymous with the word ‘annotation’, and all the bulky and tedious busywork that word implies. Disdain for poetry has been indirectly drilled into the collective mind of our generation.

Yet, as with many underappreciated subjects, all that’s needed is a shift of perspective to fully appreciate our ever-growing stockpile of poetry for what it really is: a treasure trove of startling philosophies and social commentaries, of musical imagery and thought-provoking diction. All that’s needed is the desire and dedication to follow the sometimes dizzying maze of cryptic figurative language to gain access. Pull back the curtain of metaphor and blow away the dust of incomprehension, and there, gleaming and condensed, stands a simple, beautiful thought. In every truly great poem lies the pearl of a brilliant mind, and though that mind will eventually decay, the pearl will remain, gaining the antique luster of mystery with the dawning of each new generation.

With poetry, we have short, sweet access to the minds of countless mental revolutionaries and creative thinkers. We often take for granted the fact that within every poem, every unassuming sheet of paper, there lies an intimate glimpse into the thoughts of a fascinating individual, with whom we will likely never have the chance to converse in person.

So the next time you are given a sheet of Shakespeare or Shelley or Yeats to annotate in English class, I urge you to adopt this freeing mantra: this is no chore, but a unique opportunity to explore the thoughts of the dead.