Growing up, every kid had to write poetry in school and hated it with a burning passion. It was me - I was that kid. Fully and one hundred percent me. I especially hated writing poems that had to rhyme; they seemed stupid and pointless to me, and oh, don't get me started on having to analyze and dissect a poem (sorry to all my teachers who made me do this stuff).

A lot of this changed my freshman year of college, though. I decided to take a creative writing class, and our first section was the poetry section. I dreaded the day that I had to sit down and write a cheesy poem that rhymed and was all about love and flowers and sunshine and rainbows but that day didn't come. My professor told us that we didn't need to rhyme, and the poem could be about some of the saddest events. I quickly fell in love with poetry as I started writing about one of my favorite sports (swimming) and what it's like going to swim practice and diving off the blocks at a swim meet. I also started to realize that it helps you get emotions and feelings out of your system, especially after something like a breakup with a significant other. Poetry is a freedom to get out how you feel without causing damage or annoying someone. All you want to do is talk about those emotions, but no one seems to care or wants to listen. But with poetry, you can write how you feel; you can write about memories or events that happen in your life without judgement, which is beautiful to me, and just have all the weight lifted off your shoulder because you expressed it. Poetry is important to helping people cope with different events, feelings, and emotions by letting them have freedom to write what they want to write whenever they wish to write it, and all it took for me to understand and appreciate that was taking a creative writing class.

I've included one of my less emotional pieces about going to swim to show you how easy it is to express an emotion or feeling you may have through poetry:

Morning Serenity

Imagine: The drive is quiet, the only sound is the murmur of the radio and the road beneath the car's tires.

The sun is rising, making the sky vibrant with orange and red,

Quite the enjoyable view for the passengers.

The shotgun rider shoots a picture of the sky, wanting to remember it forever.

Her phone sits as quiet as she does in the car, no notifications are lighting up the screen,

As all of her friends aren't awake because they aren't this dedicated to a sport.

They reach the destination, one gets out of the car and the other drives away.

The deck is barren and quiet,

The pool sits, cold and waiting to be jumped in.

The swimmers jump into the frigid water and start to swim,

As the coach glares at the swimmers while warming up for the main set, he stands quietly

In the frigid air, reading over the main set of the day.

Coach gives a set that is breathtakingly hard,

But the swimmers push through all because of their love of the sport.