i've never understood why people seem to loathe poetry so terribly

in my classes,
both in high school and in college,
whenever we read a poem,
it was like the entire room
drooped with boredom
and all of my peers
seemed to heave a collective sigh,
all their happiness leaving in one, singular, breath

yet,
i, with brightened eyes and lips quick to read
no, not to read,
to gush
gorgeous lines of carefully written art

i blossomed like a sunflower in the morning rays,
eager to consume line after line,
stanza after stanza,
couplets, quartets, prose

for poetry is the beauty of the ages
contained in a single page of slanted text

there is nothing more beautiful than
"shall i compare thee to a summer's day?"

and there is nothing more profound than
"all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream"

is there nothing simpler than
"two roads diverged in a yellow wood"?

and is there nothing more inspiring than
"still, like dust, i'll rise"?

funnily,
we seek in art what simple words cannot express,

we seek feelings that only the brushstrokes of picasso,
the chiseling of michelangelo,
and the notes of mozart can give us

we claim that language is limited
and that our true feelings cannot be defined
by our mere set of human terms

yet,
poetry creates words

poetry creates feeling

poets are the true artists because we can express feelings that you never could through the language you believe is so limited

poets spin words into carefully woven tapestries of emotion and history

poets will live on millions and millions of years forward

each and every time a student is forced to read
"the road not taken"
"the raven"
"caged bird"
"paul revere's ride"
"the tyger"

they extend poets' lives by millennia

humans have forever searched for the secret to immortality
and in their quest they have ignored the simplest cure of all,

the only way to remain alive is to be remembered

and the only way to be remembered is to be a poet