Tell me about poetry. I remember as a small kid, fresh to school, it was something exciting. But then I had to memorize them, stand in front of the class, all eyes on me, and recite them without ever making a single mistake. I couldn't do that, it's just too much. After a while I just started to refuse to do it. I wonder if teachers are aware of the lasting psychological damage they are doing their pupils. They probably are, and that is the real reason they are teachers despite the starvation wages they get for endless work.
But then, respectable people speak so highly of poetry, I thought there must be something to it, so once I had school behind me, I started to read some in my free time. First I had to train my mind not to automatically shut down when it comes across a poem. Sometimes it still does. But I tried reading some poetry books and anthologies, and I still don't get it. I found a few poems here and there that I liked, almost all about suicide, but in general, I don't get what's all the fuss about. Why do people like it so much? Why do they consider it the highest form of literature and human expression?