I love writing poetry and as with my art I have my personal favorite style. When I came across this post I thought I share it here: Jane Hirshfield is the author of seven books of poetry, including most recently Come, Thief , and the classic collection of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry . Who better to ask: Why write poetry? Here are her in-depth, thought provoking answers to this two-part question: Jennifer Haupt: Why do you write poems, and why would anyone want to write a poem? Jane Hirshfield: One reason to write a poem is to flush from the deep thickets of the self some thought, feeling, comprehension, question, music, you didn’t know was in you, or in the world. Other forms of writing—scientific papers, political analysis, most journalism—attempt to capture and comprehend something known. Poetry is a release of something previously unknown into the visible. You write to invite that, to make of yourself a gathering of the unexpected and, with luck, o