My gut reaction when anyone mentions poetry is “I LOVE POETRY.” Which is true, for the most part. I really love poets, though. Many of the poets I know are sensitive, intuitive, empathic people. They are disappointed hopefuls. They see how good the world could be if we would just [fill in the blank]. They are not necessarily happy but often wish they could be. They really wish the people they love could be happy.
I think you need at least a little bit of all those things to write poetry. Well, to write good poetry.
To be clear, I am not a great judge of good poetry. If someone strings a phrase together in a way I enjoy, I like it and call it good. Some might argue that is the standard, but I’ve been led to believe it’s not.
The poetry I love usually springs out of pain and/or beauty the poet finds in their personal experience. See Donika Kelly’s The Renunciations. Jeanann Verlee’s Racing Hummingbirds. Terrance Hayes’s American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin. Mary Oliver’s Winter Hours.
I like writing poetry, but I feel ill-equipped to write it well. I have taken courses and am working my way through Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook, but I still feel shy about the poems I put out most of the time. I wonder if that’s just part of the process and so maybe I shouldn’t worry so much about it but just keep writing. My worry doesn’t often listen to “should,” though, so here we are.
Do you like poetry? Do you have recommendations? I’d love to hear them!
M. Suzanne Terry 
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