Unlock the Shocking Truth Behind Why Writing Bad Poetry Could Change Your Life Forever

Most of the poetry on Medium is bad. Please, don’t take offense. Most of the poems I write are bad, too. I’m not trying to be mean. I read a lot of bad poetry and enjoy it. It’s not unpleasant like a bad egg. But let’s be honest: it’s not good. You wouldn’t send these poems to your crush to try to melt their heart.

This essay isn’t meant to be critical, it’s meant to be encouraging; see the subtitle. It’s okay to write bad poems, just like it’s okay to tell bad jokes, or sing or dance poorly. It’s a very human thing to do.

As a platform for aspiring writers, there’s an expectation on Medium that we’ll be nice to each other. We’ll click like and pat each other on the back, and say, “nice job”. I like your poems, you like my poems, we’re both good! Encouragement and positive feedback are great. Kids are told that “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”, and we’re all basically kids here. So we should be nice to each other. But it’s important to be honest.

Most of the poetry on Medium, and on most other sites that publish poetry, and most of the poems printed in physical magazines and books are bad. It’s okay. Most of my poems are, too. That’s normal.

You know what would be weird? If the poems were all good. If everyone here was actually writing good poetry. Think about it: how odd would it be if every poem you read was good? How anomalous would that be, how much would that stand out from everything else you’ve ever experienced? Has every hamburger you’ve ever eaten been good? Every tomato? Have you laughed at every joke you’ve ever heard? No. Most of every thing in the world is by definition average.

But I didn’t say most of the poetry on Medium is average, I said bad. Because poetry isn’t like most things. It’s not like hamburgers or tomatoes. If you like hamburgers, you’re probably fine with an average burger. A great one is a pleasant surprise, a bad one a rare disappointment. But average is fine. Poetry isn’t like that.

The field of poetry is a field full of weeds, with the occasional rose and daisy standing out not just for their beauty, but for their rarity.

Poetry isn’t about being average. It’s not about just putting words down on a page with some sense, order and no…