A response to Why Poetry

Craig Morgan Teicher's Why Poetry explores the sort of draw that people feel to the arts. I've, for a while now, have been of the belief that people often have feelings, notions or ideas that cannot be expressed properly by just speaking of them. That's where art comes from and in Why Poetry we see the journey towards realizing poetry, as an art form, as a means of escape. Craig's partial autobiography takes a somewhat off-putting spin on the reason behind taking up poetry. Detailing his own 'monstrousness' in his head, that he doesn't want there and so poetry takes from his mind. No longer does it have to be trapped within him, for he now has an outlet for it. So it's a pretty cool little poem about how poetry made his life better in a way, he says in it
"My dark is rotting harmlessly
 in my poetry.
I've saved myself
and my life and
those I love for light"

Because he found an art form that through which he feels he can express himself, he has improved his life.