I was this afternoon, while at a loss with the strange frame of mind in which I found my head, browsing the
User Poetry thread. Some interesting reading in there, and I have by no means read it all.
It reminded me that I used to love poetry - or selected pieces anyway. I used to write some of my own, they're still around somewhere. What ended up putting me off the subject was limited self-education.
I read about the different forms of poetry, and I read about the rules. So much that I had first loved, the rhyme and rhythm of the language, began to be cast in doubt, to be cast as strictly amateur and naive. These were not details that they taught in high school, not mine anyway. I was a science student, so I never advanced to places where such rules are given any context. (I've grown since then, I understand better now that rules do have context.) So I left poetry alone as something obscure, something that I had no right to try and participate in because I didn't understand what was right and what was wrong.
Many years have passed and still an understanding of poetry eludes me. I read the pieces contributed to the thread linked above and some I enjoy and some I quickly skim over. I expect that, the same is true of most prose. But what is poetry? Are there rules? Is poetry something that anyone can attempt without feeling as if they are intruding on hallowed ground?