The Beauty Behind the Lack of Beauty

There are too many people in the world who become fooled by the stereotype that all poetry has to be "beautiful" in order for it to be worth reading, or perhaps for it to even be considered poetry at all. The truth behind that is actually that sometimes it is the lack of beauty that actually allows a poem to communicate an even greater emotion within a reader. That in itself is what sets poetry apart from most other forms of literature, whether it's your dystopian novels that provide escapism into a world where a bow, arrows, and a quick reaction time make you a symbol of rebellion and hope, short novels that are riddled with hints that lead to a window into the heart of the author during the time they wrote the novel, or perhaps plays that are occasionally over-dramatized to force the tears out of the corners of people's eyes.

Shakespeare was a man who knew how to communicate the true beauty of "experience" to a reader, even without the beauty that is normally delivered through vivid and emotional adjectives. Of course, that never stopped him from writing Romeo and Juliet, but in the end, it is probably through the variety of methods he used to write literature that he was able to be known as one of the greatest known literary artists in all of history. Through simple concrete details he was able to immerse a reader into the landscape of the English countryside, as known in "Winter," where he is able to communicate a strange sense of pleasantness to the reader in the midst of the harsh cold. The reader is able to feel their warm breath thawing their fingers, smell the roasted apples cooking in the kitchen, and be relieved to know that someone is bringing in wood to make a fire to warm the home.

Given everything, poetry is not always beautiful as readers always expect it to be. However, sometimes it is the lack of beauty that creates an even greater form of beauty that makes poetry so appealing to people, one that gives people a perspective shown through the point of view of someone who actually feels everything currently happening. Through this, readers realize there is more to poetry than roses and pleasant smells described through words. 

Sometimes, it is far better to just feel it for yourself than just trying to read what happens.