Wait, so that really was useful?

I got a book. -grins evilly-

No, no, 6 months without a book in my hand have not driven me insane. Well. At least not to the point where I can tell.
Happy Day.

Anyhow, after reading a section of poetry, I figured I should say a few words, since -cough- it isn't my type of thing, but did help me. Case in point, I suck at it.

You don't need be a fantastic poet to learn from writing poetry. All you have to do is try and- just like everyone tells new authors- write. What you get from it isn't a mechanical knowledge of plot, but it is a new vocabulary and a new method of thinking.

Take metaphors and similes. While rataplan may not rise to your brain like fruit in a water basin, comparing the sound to falling hail might. And while they can be as overused as "happily ever after" in a fairytale book, they can also add new depth to the setting.

Most of the poetry I do is both terrible (in the rhyming sense) and unfinished. Which is okay, because I'm not aiming to be a poet- it's an exercise, really, to clear the road from writer's block, saving time. But until I learned that forgetting the rules and going in without a purpose was allowed, I didn't lay a finger on poetry.

It takes twenty seconds to write three stanzas, maybe less. So try it, burn the evidence, and see if it helps. :D