I still vividly remember my first Bob Dylan encounter, and by encounter, I do not mean I ever had the opportunity to shake Dylan's hand, look into his eyes, or tell him how my teenage years were so profoundly affected by his music.

My actual encounters with Dylan were much more intimate. They entailed me listening to the rough twang of his guitar strings, repeating Highway 61 Revisited over and over again, interrogating the simple yet profoundly emotional lyrics on most of the folk songs Dylan sang.

My first Dylan encounter was as a junior in high school, putting in my headphones during my marketing class and playing "Like A Rolling Stone." What initiated was an undeniable respect for Dylan's vulnerability, not just in his lyrics, but in the tremor of his voice and the harsh sound of his pick assaulting his acoustic guitar.

Over the years, Dylan has fundamentally redefined folk music, not only solidifying its presence and importance into later generations, but turning the tables of what folk music really mean. For Dylan, it did not mean easy strokes of a pick, or mere storytelling. It meant crooning wildly over more complex, eclectic guitar sounds. It meant incorporating his own vulnerability with the intrusive sounds of rock and roll.

But most importantly, Dylan has made clear during his 54-year reign over music that lyricism isliterature. And so it is that most musicians with any historical knowledge over music's transgression were indeed not surprised when Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature last week.

But the award has also caused controversy, with many questioning the decision for a musician to be awarded such a noble achievement, especially since all of the previous winners of the award were authors of written works.

But many, like myself, do not find it hard to see a redefinition of literature. In fact, perhaps Bob Dylan's music and lyricism has always fit the category of conventional literature. It has induced praise by musicians, poets, authors, and fans alike. And the sporadic jump from different controversial and important topics throughout Dylan's music history has made him a strong figure in influencing many listeners of his music.

Take "Hurricane." It was one of the first songs of Dylan I had ever heard. It was one of the songs I listened to in that dreaded marketing class a few years ago. I gasped when I heard Bob Dylan exclaim, "And all the black folks said he was just a crazy N--ger/No one doubted that he pulled the trigger." I was perplexed, offended even, that this white Christian man was using such a word, embodying the hatred that I knew partly defined Dylan's time.

But then I listened again.

And again, and again, and again. And that is the magic of Dylan's fairytales. They are so complex, even in their simplicity, so rough, even in their beauty, that it is often times hard to understand what Dylan is trying to say. And as a 16-year old girl, growing up on simple lyrics (the kind that I first thought Dylan was using), I expected every song to hand me its poetic value on a silver platter, to tell me right away why it was important, and worth listening to.

What Dylan was trying to say in "Hurricane," what it eventually ended up succeeding at doing, was using poetic license to shed light on racial persecution during Dylan's time. Rubin Carter--the main subject of the song--received a new trial as a result of Dylan's song and the praise it received. He shocked us, he shocked me, he made me angry at a world I had not even experienced, he made me feel for a black man that I had never even met.

Isn't that what literature is all about? Empathy? I write this article, all articles, with the hope that readers will empathize with what I am saying. I hope that I can initiate a sort of raw emotion, I hope for readers to read my words and feel what I want them to. And perhaps part of this desire in me is a cause of witnessing Bob Dylan do the same thing, or witnessing myself as a victim to Bob Dylan's fantastic and emotional lyricism, which made me feel inspired by him just like some of the equally inspiring literature I was reading at the time. 16-year old marketing-class-me was reading astounding literature like The Catcher in the Rye and The Grapes of Wrath, but was also listening to "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door."

It is why many artists--seemingly so different from the genre Dylan defined--still attribute Bob Dylan as a major influence in their work. You cannot listen to Dylan say "Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?" and not feel. You cannot hear him proceed to speak of children dying and women burning and not feel. You cannot hear it paired with an emotional voice and a single blazing guitar and not feel.

I am not surprised, in a world where humans are less and less appreciative of the arts, that a man who has nevertheless consistently mobilized youth and adults alike was chosen for this prestigious award. And I am confused, because of this same reason, when people claim that he did not deserve it.

For those saying that music is not literature, or that lyrics are not poetry, think of your favorite song and your favorite book. Do they not both elicit the same comfort, or the same discomfort? Do they not perplex you in similar ways? Do they not both open the door for deeper thinking? Bob Dylan and other musical artists have their poetic licenses just as the various talented authors that have won this award in the past. And even as the world changes in its various definitions of art, of music, of literature, it still knows what it wants. The world has always wanted Bob Dylan, from "The House of the Rising Sun"to "The Death of Emmett Till." And nothing makes Bob Dylan more eligible for the prize than that.