Confessions of a Poetry-Hating Romance Writer

The truth is, I read NO poetry. None. Zilch. Zero.

Except for the stuff we were forced to endure in school, poetry and I have maintained a respectful distance from each other.

The only thing I remember from those school poetry units was from junior high, when we had to pick a poem to memorize.

I chose something by Edna St. Vincent Millay — not because I loved the poem (I honestly can’t remember a single line), but because her name was so beautifully poetic all by itself.

“Edna St. Vincent Millay” has its own cadence and rhythm that’s far more appealing to me than whatever verses she actually wrote!

The only time I’m exposed to poetry these days is when it crops up in books I’m reading.

It’s prevalent in Jane Austen — Marmion is heavily quoted in Persuasion, at least in the movie version I adore. (I haven’t read the book in a while, so don’t quiz me!)

But even then, I tend to skim over the poetic interludes and get back to the actual story.

Give me Elizabeth Bennet’s witty dialogue over Byron’s romantic verses any day.

“I don’t care in the least

That the cow jumped over the moon.”

Ask me why I don’t like poetry, and I honestly can’t give you a solid answer. It’s just never clicked with me.

Maybe it’s because I find it boring — when it’s not political drivel designed to incite minds full of mush, it’s endless rhyming about fields and streams.

Look, I love the outdoors. I think God gave us a beautiful world, but I can’t get excited about pages and pages describing how lovely the white froth topping Pacific waves is.

Just tell me what happened to the people on the beach!

If some psychologist were to probe the depths of my mind, they’d probably discover that one reason for my poetry aversion is simple: I absolutely suck at writing it!

Poetry is just too HARD.

Iambic pentameters, forced rhymes, meter, rhythm — it’s written in a way that’s completely unnatural for me.

I can craft a compelling 300+-page romance novel, but ask me to write a decent sonnet? Forget about it.

“I may love roses and violets,

And yes, my favorite colors ARE red and blue,

But how can you like a genre

That describes violets as the wrong hue?”

Here’s where it gets really ironic.

I write romance for a living — stories about love, passion, and emotional connection. You’d think I’d be all over poetry, right? After all, women supposedly go gaga over men who spout romantic verses.

I’m a romantic from WAY back, but I have never understood the romanticism attributed to men who regurgitate poetry. Maybe it’s because I prefer genuine, heartfelt conversation to flowery recitations that someone else wrote centuries ago?

Give me a hero who speaks from his own heart in his own words over one who quotes Shakespeare any day.

That’s probably why you’ll never find my romance heroes spouting sonnets — they’re too busy having real conversations and taking meaningful action.

Now, if you want to count music as poetry, then I’m all in!

Music is the only “poetry” I genuinely love, though I suppose that’s cheating since the melody carries the words and makes them more palatable.

But written poetry that’s meant to be read silently?

No thank you. I’ll stick to my prose, where I can develop characters, build plots, and create entire worlds without worrying about whether everything rhymes.

“They say poetry’s about writing from the heart,

But to me it’s a pointless art.”

I honestly don’t know if I’m the only person who feels this way or if there’s a secret society of poetry-avoiders out there who are afraid to admit their literary heresy.

I sometimes wonder if many people who claim to love poetry actually do or if they think saying so makes them sound erudite and gets them accepted into elitist literary circles.

There’s definitely a certain intellectual snobbery surrounding poetry appreciation.

But here’s the thing: Just because something is considered “high art” doesn’t mean everyone has to love it.

We’re allowed to have preferences! We’re allowed to find certain art forms boring or pretentious or just not our cup of tea.

So if you’re reading this and secretly thinking, “Thank goodness someone finally said it!” — you’re not alone.

You don’t have to pretend to love poetry to be considered literary or intelligent.

You can appreciate other forms of writing. You can find beauty in well-crafted prose, compelling dialogue, or intricate plotting.

Literature is vast and varied, and there’s room for all kinds of preferences.

“Yes, I’m creative, and I love to write,

But in defense of poetry I’ll put up no fight.”

Which brings us to today’s celebration.

National Bad Poetry Day gives us permission to be terrible at something that intimidates so many people.

It’s liberating!

Instead of striving for poetic perfection, we can embrace our limitations and have fun with them. We can write verse that breaks every rule, ignores every convention, and still manages to express exactly what we want to say.

Bad poetry is honest poetry.

It doesn’t hide behind fancy metaphors or obscure references. It says what it means, even if it doesn’t say it particularly well.

There’s something wonderfully freeing about intentionally writing bad poetry.

It removes all the pressure to be profound or meaningful or technically correct.

You can just have fun with words and rhythm and rhyme (or the complete lack thereof).

It’s like giving yourself permission to be imperfect, which is something we all need more of in our lives.

Plus, bad poetry often ends up being far more entertaining than good poetry. At least it makes people laugh instead of putting them to sleep!

So in the spirit of Bad Poetry Day, and to prove my point about the superiority of intentionally terrible verse, I wrote my own contribution to the genre.

Consider it my declaration of war against pretentious poetry everywhere.

Here it is, in all its gloriously awful splendor:

There you have it — my masterpiece of intentionally awful verse!

It breaks probably every rule of good poetry, and I couldn’t be prouder of it.

Now it’s your turn.

This Bad Poetry Day, I challenge you to write your own terrible verse. Don’t worry about meter or meaning or literary merit. Just have fun with it!

Write about whatever bugs you, whatever makes you laugh, or whatever random thoughts pop into your head.

Make it as bad as possible. Break all the rules. Ignore all the conventions.

Need inspiration?

Try these deliberately awful poetry prompts:

Remember, the goal is to be entertainingly terrible, not accidentally good!

Look, I’m not saying poetry is objectively bad or that people who love it are wrong.

Art is subjective, and everyone’s entitled to their preferences. Some people genuinely find deep meaning and beauty in verse, and that’s wonderful for them.

I’m just saying it’s okay not to be one of those people.

It’s okay to prefer prose to poetry, novels to sonnets, and dialogue to monologues in iambic pentameter.

Here’s a fun twist: I recently discovered that my father writes poetry!

So if anyone wants to accuse me of being an anti-poetry snob with no appreciation for the art form, I can always say, “Hey! My dad writes poetry!”

I just happen to have inherited his creative genes without his poetic inclinations.

We can’t all be good at everything, and that’s perfectly fine.

So this Bad Poetry Day, let’s celebrate our imperfections, our limitations, and our complete inability to write meaningful verse.

Let’s embrace the terrible and find joy in the awful.

Because sometimes the best poetry is the worst poetry — and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Now go forth and write something wonderfully, deliberately, hilariously bad. The literary world needs more honest terrible verse and fewer pretentious perfect sonnets.

After all, if a romance novelist can declare war on poetry and fight back with weaponized bad verse, anyone can join the rebellion!