Most Poetry in NOT Written in Code

Many of us believe that poetry is some sort of complex code and the job of the reader is to decipher what the poet is trying to say. Most poets DO NOT set out to write obscure poems designed to confuse the reader and keep him/her at a distance.

Many of us were taught in school to translate a poem line by line into our own vernacular as if we were translators instead of readers wanting to engage in the experience of poetry.

While there is certainly a spectrum of complexity among poets and poems, there is much poetry out there that is accessible even to the casual reader; poems whose premise is "easy to understand" but which celebrate the imagery, rhythms, syntax, and nuance that make poetry what it is.