Now, words are amazing creations; no doubt about that particular thing. But they are so very hard to control. The speed of thought and the speed of articulation through words has a huge gap between them, and therefore they are out of phase in most instances; not in sync. Now, this poses a huge problem: how to properly articulate words as soon as the thought arises in your head. Looks like words needs some taming to be done.
But when you study words, you tame the very essence of words, they lose their wildness (pretty self-evident). But, within their wildness resides the essence of the beauty of words. Taming them makes that essence vanish, and what you are left with is a colourless hunk of disgusting stew: A tasteless ocean of monotony and gritty sand.
So I don’t. I just let my broken string of words be. I scribble as my thoughts scramble and eventually whatever formed resembles a poem. I do not pay attention to form, style, grammar, etc. as I don’t have the capacity to think so fast and so far. Hence I consider poetry to be that compromise between the gap I mentioned in the first paragraph.
Now, poetry for me began that way, but as every creation of human beings, it has become its own living creature. I wouldn’t presumptuous enough to try to define what poetry for me is: it is just too a huge a concept, a living breathing changing creature that lives in ambiguity, favours layered meanings, and is never really clear, even to the maker.
All I know is that poetry is one of the most sublime ways that I can articulate myself, and I think it is a part of my own identity. I am satisfied with that. I do not want to know the full truth of poetry; I want to discover it slowly, and experience that inexplicable feeling of anticipation and apprehensiveness while swimming in its mysterious depths.