In a time when the written word floods our screens and bookshelves, it can be easy to overlook poetry as something reserved for the literary elite or wistful romantics. But for writers of all genres—essayists, memoirists, nature writers, novelists—poetry offers a hidden reservoir of power. Whether you’re shaping narrative nonfiction or crafting personal essays, taking poetry courses can transform the texture, tone, and truth of your writing in profound and lasting ways.

So, why is poetry important for writers who don’t primarily identify as poets? The answer lies in the precision, concision, and perception poetry cultivates.

Poetry Trains the Writer’s Eye and Ear

At its essence, poetry is an art of attention. It asks the writer to slow down, to notice the curve of a leaf, the cadence of a thought, the shape of silence. In doing so, it sharpens the descriptive powers of any writer, regardless of form. Poets learn to choose each word carefully—not just for meaning, but for sound, rhythm, resonance. That discipline naturally carries over into prose. I certainly pay a lot of attention to how sounds in each word are linked, the shape of a line, and the dilation to universals that solid poetry can do.

Writers trained in poetry know when to leave space on the page, how to vary sentence structure to evoke mood, and how to use imagery with restraint and power. By studying poetry, nonfiction writers learn to craft paragraphs that breathe like stanzas, to use metaphor and simile not as flourishes, but as tools for depth.

Explore The Poetry Foundation for poems, readings, interviews, and more. Poetry Foundation

Form, Structure, and Surprise

Poetry is also a laboratory for structure. Whether writing in free verse or sonnet, poets are always negotiating constraint—how much to say, how to say it, and what to leave unsaid. This teaches narrative writers how to hold tension, how to experiment with voice and form, and how to surprise readers.

When you study poetry in online writing courses, you’re exposed to a wide variety of poetic traditions—from classical to contemporary, from the lyric to the experimental. This variety expands your range, inspires new techniques, and reveals alternative paths through a narrative. The best writing doesn’t just convey information—it creates a felt experience. Poetry teaches you how to do that with grace and gravity.

Emotional Precision and Immediacy

Memoirists and personal essayists in particular benefit from poetry’s gift for emotional precision. The best poetry distils vast, often ineffable experiences into vivid moments: a parent’s illness captured in the smell of antiseptic, a childhood remembered through the sound of cicadas. Learning how poets achieve this can help nonfiction writers resist overwriting or sentimentality, and instead root their emotional narratives in sensory detail and layered images.

Poetry also gives writers permission to approach subjects obliquely. This can be especially helpful when writing about difficult or intimate material. A well-crafted image or metaphor can say more than a paragraph of explanation, and often carries greater emotional weight.

Poetry Builds Community

In many online writing courses, poetry fosters a different kind of writerly community—one built on close listening, careful feedback, and shared reverence for language. The practice of reading poems aloud, of discussing line breaks and syntax, opens up unexpected insights not just into craft, but into human experience. Poetic community is often one of curiosity, generosity, and depth—qualities that nourish writers of all kinds.

Join the Conversation in an Online Poetry Course

If you are a prose writer, especially one interested in the natural world or the interior landscape of memory, taking an online or live poetry course can offer new tools, new rhythms, and new ways of seeing. Whether you are new to poetry or returning after time away, engaging with this form can invigorate your writing practice in surprising and necessary ways.

In a world that moves quickly, poetry teaches us to linger. It reminds us to notice. And perhaps most importantly, it reminds us to feel—and to render that feeling with precision and care.

So if you’ve ever wondered why poetry is important, or how it can elevate your prose, the best way to find out is to experience it. There are many exceptional online writing courses that welcome prose writers into the poetic fold. One poem at a time, you may find yourself writing not just more beautifully, but more truthfully.