It&rsquo;s World Poetry Day and, given how poetry is often taught in schools, with a focus on rote memorization rather than appreciation, you couldn&rsquo;t be faulted for asking, &ldquo;So what?&rdquo;
But here&rsquo;s the thing&mdash;you like poetry; even if you don&rsquo;t know it.
Poetry is not some monolith. It&rsquo;s not all iambic pentameter, or rhyming couplets or dreams of daffodils. It&rsquo;s different things to different people. It&rsquo;s in the songs you sing along to, the tranquility of an afternoon spent under a tree, and even in the films you turn to for comfort.
Think about it: How fast did you run to the internet to find the text of Imran&rsquo;s (Farhan Akhtar&rsquo;s, or rather, Javed Akhtar&rsquo;s) <a href="https://bollyspice.com/imraans-shaaryiipoetry-from-zindagi-na-milegi-dobara/">shayari </a>from <a href="https://youtu.be/jrOMtXMMXQE?si=O8rdI3F_xgr7HdZV">Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara</a>?
Dilon mein tum apni Betaabiyan leke chal rahe ho Toh zinda ho tum Nazar mein khwabon ki Bijliyan leke chal rahe ho Toh zinda ho tum Hawa ke jhokon ke jaise Aazad rehna&nbsp;sikho Tum ek dariya ke jaise Lehron mein behna sikho Har ek lamhe se tum milo Khole apni baahein Har ek pal ek naya sama Dekhen yeh nigahaein Jo apni aankhon mein Hairaniyan leke chal rahe ho Toh zinda ho tum Dilon mein tum apni Betaabiyan leke chal rahe ho Toh zinda ho tum
Then there&rsquo;s the intimacy of spoken word, like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0snNB1yS3IE&amp;t=151s">Sarah Kay&rsquo;s famous famous poem B&nbsp;(&ldquo;If I should have a daughter&hellip;&rdquo;</a>) with these lines
If I should have a daughter, instead of &lsquo;Mom,&rsquo; she&rsquo;s going to call me &lsquo;Point B.&rsquo; Because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me.
and
She&rsquo;s gonna learn that this life will hit you hard in the face, Wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach.
Spoken word poets craft their work with listeners in mind, using repetition, internal rhyme, and dramatic pauses to enhance their impact. The poet does not just present their words&mdash;they embody them.
This is poetry that demands to be heard. One could argue, it&rsquo;s also the oldest kind. And yes, some of it requires rules, like Shakespeare&rsquo;s Sonnet 18, or as we learnt it in school, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer&rsquo;s Day? If you&rsquo;re cringing at the memory of awkward, stilted recitations, this is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luV83q2HYss">how it&rsquo;s meant to sound</a>.
Some poets exist in the space between the private and the public, crafting works that are meant to be read but feel as though they should be spoken. Bob Dylan, for example, blurred the line between lyric and poem, setting his verse to music but ensuring the words held their own weight. When he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, it reignited the debate over what poetry truly is. Are lyrics poetry? Is poetry meant to be sung?
Consider these lines from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5al0HmR4to">A Hard Rain&rsquo;s A-Gonna Fall</a>:
I&rsquo;ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains, I&rsquo;ve walked and I&rsquo;ve crawled on six crooked highways, I&rsquo;ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests, I&rsquo;ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans.
Read them aloud, and they resonate like spoken word. Set them to music, and they become anthemic.
Another great example is rap music: whether it&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Wj6-gPY0g">Tupac Shakur&rsquo;s vivid imagery and introspection to explore themes of societal struggles, personal conflict, and self-worth&nbsp;in Changes</a>&nbsp;(Come on, come on / I see no changes, wake up in the morning and I ask myself / Is life worth livin'? Should I blast myself?), or Jay-Z&rsquo;s reflections on his journey as an artist, the pressures of fame, and the balancing act between staying true to oneself and appeasing critics&nbsp;in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv5b1kaNdtc">Moment of Clarity</a>&nbsp;(I dumbed down for my audience to double my dollars / They criticize me for it, yet they all yell &lsquo;Holla!&rsquo;)
Here, poetry transforms into song, and the personal merges with the collective.&nbsp;
This is also evidenced in Maya Angelou&rsquo;s work. Whether it is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FA-pbzN1VM">Phenomenal Woman</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrjNdYdbiwk">Still I Rise</a>, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HLol9InMlc">We Wear the Mask</a>, her work melds the lyricism, the melody of words with powerful observations of the private and the public.
Not all poetry demands to be heard out loud. Some of it insists on being seen. Brian Bilston, often called the &ldquo;poet laureate of Twitter,&rdquo; uses visual and typographical play to create poems that exist best on a screen. His poem <a href="https://www.up.edu/garaventa/files/fildg%20files/refugees.pdf">Refugees</a>, for example, is a palindrome poem, meant to be read both forward and in reverse to reveal opposing meanings.
With <a href="https://x.com/brian_bilston/status/806765021829033985">Needles </a>and <a href="https://x.com/brian_bilston/status/831580098159599617">The Problem of Writing a Poem in the Shape of a Heart</a>, he plays with the shape and physicality of text, making the poem&rsquo;s form part of its meaning.
This experimental approach is not new&mdash;concrete poetry, where the shape of the words contributes to meaning, has existed for centuries. But in the digital age, poetry finds itself adapting to new formats: Instagram poetry, blackout poetry, even AI-generated verse. The consumption of poetry has changed, but its essence remains the same, an attempt to distill something true into language, whether through rhyme, rhythm, rebellion, or raw emotion.
And then, of course, there&rsquo;s the poetry that never leaves our notebooks, or <a href="http://occasionalpoet.blogspot.in/">some long-ignored blog written under a pseudonym</a>. The angsty&nbsp;teenage verses scrawled in the margins of schoolbooks, the half-finished lines typed into phone notes at 2 am, the words that feel too raw, too personal, too unfinished to be shared. Maybe they rhyme, maybe they don&rsquo;t. Maybe they&rsquo;re good, maybe they&rsquo;re terrible. It doesn&rsquo;t really matter.
Because poetry isn&rsquo;t just about being read, or heard, or even understood. Sometimes, it just needs to exist.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS1esgRV4Rc">John Keating (Robin Williams)&nbsp;said it best in Dead Poets Society </a>(1989):
We don&rsquo;t read and write poetry because it&rsquo;s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering&mdash;these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love&mdash;these are what we stay alive for.

‘Poetry, beauty, romance, love—these are what we stay alive for.’

From songs to spoken word, discover how poetry shapes your world in ways you never expected

World Poetry Day | Celebrate Its Power

From songs to spoken word, discover how poetry shapes your world in ways you never expected

March 21, 2025 | 16:33 IST