I'm an English major and I hate poetry. Or rather, I hate the way poetry makes me feel; more accurately still: I hate the way it doesn’t make me feel. There have been a few poems read on my own time that I didn't fully despise. However, sitting in a classroom and being told to analyze, review, dissect, and reflect on poems is a sort of torture for me. I didn't choose my major because of some profound love for poetry.

I chose my major because I liked to write stories; in eighth grade, a friend and I began to write the "secret lost eighth Harry Potter book" because we refused to believe the series had ended. Going all the way back to fourth grade, we were given the opportunity to write our own stories to be published in a collection (with each student receiving their own copy). Needless to say, I went to town on that project with a story about some girl and her pet monkey travelling into space and encountering some adorable, but dangerous, aliens. Sure, it doesn't sound like such a great idea now, but back in fourth grade that story was going to be my ticket to fame.

As I got older, my English classes began teaching poetry and how to properly read it. They'd ask, "What does this poem mean?" and I'd feel as if something was wrong with me. To me, the poems were nothing more than some words spanning across a few pages. Some poems are still like that for me. It's extremely rare that I'll finish reading a poem and be left with a feeling of awe or wonder or some grand "Eureka!" moment. I’ll admit it: sitting in my poetry-based class makes me feel like some sort of broken English major. I get asked why I liked a poem, and all I can do is shrug because I have absolutely no clue why Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus is something I wouldn’t mind taking another look at. Meanwhile, everyone else spouts out these eloquent and elaborate reasonings for why a poem resonates with them and ends up kickstarting a massive class discussion on the importance of poetry.

And yes, I get that poetry is important to the world of English and how we apparently have Shakespeare to thank for that (which only adds to my animosity towards the Bard). However, I could happily go through my life never having to interact with poetry ever again; it wouldn't be difficult to ditch the thing causing me so many problems. But I can't ditch it. I plan on graduating with a B.A. in English, even if it means dealing with poetry these last two years at college.