The Petals Are Not Crying: Poetry is a Scam

I honestly won’t even exaggerate my emotions when I say this. Why does all of a sudden a simple sentence translate into a 5 page “analysis” which explains the “hidden meaning”. We’re just reading a poem that goes like: “The crimson petals weep in the dusk of yesterday’s sorrow.” And the teacher hits us with: “So clearly, this represents mankind’s endless suffering caused by the Industrial Revolution.” LIKE—WHERE?! How did we go from sad petals to the entire economy collapsing?! 

If the author was too lazy to write all those “hidden meanings” and decided to be stingy and just give us one sentence. Why do we do his job, and analyze the purposeless hidden meanings?!

At this point, we’re just being taken advantage of by the writers. We students are unpaid laborers who finish the writer's incomplete work in the name of “paraphrasing” and "finding themes”. Mr. William Shakespeare, I mean no hate, but were your hands cramping, and you couldn’t write anymore when you decided to leave the completion of your poems for us poor students?

Aside from this, even if the writings are complete, it wouldn’t have taken too much effort to write a small note at the end explaining what the light in your poem symbolizes. Our brain can serve much better purposes than decode your gabble on sunrise. 

As you can tell by now, I am not a fan of English poets. They decide to complicate things and write, “I sink deeper into the soil, touching the base of the sea, sniffing the ground before I disappear.” Instead of writing “The sun has set” like a normal person. No, they like adding frustrating, complex jargon and phrases in the name of “beauty of writing”. Like no, I won’t call your poem ugly if you simply write “The soldier died” instead of presenting a smoothie of nouns, adjectives, similes, symbolism, metaphors, and God knows what else. 

I always believe that everyone is pretty no matter what. So, I apply this rule to poetry as well. Dear Poets, I won’t offend your poem; call it hideous if it doesn’t have maddening phrases.

I absolutely despise having to interpret long poems for my English exam. Mr. Poet, you wouldn’t drop dead if you presented your feelings clearly. Why are we made to guess what the “candle melting” symbolizes? Just tell me it’s grief and move on. 

My honest opinion is that poets were just a bunch of loafers who had too much free time. So, poetry is just a fancy name of the result that came after these people dawdled too much and came back like: “I saw rain, I must write about emotion”. They had too much time to “observe nature's glory". Nature will be beautiful regardless of some meddlesome humans. I mean, what normal person would have so much time to write a poem on the depth of rain. Doesn’t seem sane to me. 

Honestly, I now suspect poetry was once some sort of ancient illness that infected people and made them romanticize rocks, clouds, and candle wax. In modern times, we’ve just re-branded it as “expression” and “art.”

But not me. I’ve awakened. I see the light. I’m escaping the metaphor-filled matrix. No more decoding tomato sauce poems. No more weeping petals. I’m free now (until school starts, and I have to re-enter the poetry matrix).

— Hoor, Literature Rebel