POE-PHOBIA (THE FEAR OF POETRY)
We all are afraid of poetry one way or the other. Even those who claim to enjoy it, and am not exempted. The word "Poe-phobia" is derivative from the word poem and phobia; the fear of something. And you won't find it in any encyclopedia or dictionary because I am the original originator of the term. Hope it finds its way to the dictionary though.
For ages, Africans have enjoyed their own version of poetry. Till the English language came and corrupted us into adopting the foreign way. Ask a child to recite a Ghanaian local poetry and it will be wahala. But ask this same child for a poem by William Shakespeare and he or she will sing it for you. This has contributed to us as a nation not being interested in poetry because, the ROMANTIC age is long gone and we are nowhere near catching up when it comes to culture and heritage.
Moreover, the first time I read poetry I got a headache. To me it seemed they were just meaningless words mince to,glether and putted into a can of books for us to read. BASICALLY none of them were understandable. And 89% of them are still now. Sometimes you need a dictionary in other to understand some of the terminologies used. This and many more has contributed to people shunning poetry for music which is the brother.
Poetry is for everybody, the rich poor, healthy, sick, child, adult, and back in those days it was only kings and queens who enjoy poetry or on special occasions sung by our ancestors. Even in the land of the foreigners basically the white, Asians, Arabs etc. it was enjoyed by the rich. Now poetry is everywhere, at every street corner, bookstore, internet archives etc. and for the sake of curing this phobia I have included UNDERSTANDING POETRY courtesy LAWRENCE DARMANI in his book THE COMBINED COMMENTARY.