How good are you at reading poetry?

[Orrex]

I know that this is the Fiction forum, but I'm asking here for a reason.

I have to admit that I totally suck at poetry. Can't write it. Can't read it. At least, not with any sort of effective "ear" for it. And it's not for lack of trying; I took half a dozen Poetry courses in college, and I still own countless anthologies that I peruse from time to time.

I'm better with much older stuff, but for the most part I can't tell good modern poetry from bad.

It's embarrassing, in no small way, because I flatter myself to think that I'm a pretty effective reader of prose, both fiction and non-.


Anyone else have this problem?

[aquart]

1. Why do you still care?

You read the anthologies. WHY? I do not read math books. They mean nothing to me. You DO read poetry anthologies. WHY?

Answer me this, we'll get to the rest.

[Orrex]

3. A fine question!

In part, I read it because I sometimes like the images and turns of phrase. Also, the anthologies contain a lot of the older stuff I mentioned (Renaissance, pre-Ren, etc.)

Another part is because, darn it, I want to "get" poetry, much like the guy who repeatedly takes to the dancefloor despite his utter lack of rhythm.

But enough about me...

[aquart]

4. Nuh uh. This is ALL about you.

You like the "images and turns of phrase." So what, precisely, do you think you're not getting?

A poem is a verbal painting. Either it grabs you or it doesn't. I am the person who wrote "Wordsworth is a solemn bleat" in a Queens College bathroom stall. Can't stand the pretentious twerp. But he was adored by thousands.

As for liking the older stuff better than the new stuff, well, lots of people don't care for Jackson Pollock, either. Ain't nothin' wrong with 'em.

What poems do you find yourself reading again and again? What poets DO get your attention?

[Orrex]

9. Hmm.

Oh, I don't know.

Imagine that you're listening to someone telling a joke. You like his tone of voice, and his body language, and you find the structure of the joke to be appealing, but when the punchline comes, you're the only one not laughing.

That's me--when the poem's over, I'm more often than not left there saying "huh?"

I like Wilfred Owen a great deal, and James Weldon Johnson really moves me (though neither of them are old old). Shakespeare, of course, along with a number of his contemporaries.

But I read a lot of pre-Ren lit in college, and honestly a good deal of Old English stuff truly knocks my socks off.

I think that the structure and word choices (and interplays thereof) are what I really like, when I like a poem. But it always feels like my fondness for (or dislike of) a poem is kind of superficial.

Like only laughing because you heard everyone else laugh...


When I read fiction for critique, I can pretty readily say when something is or isn't effective (Just this or that in the work disgusts me/Here it misses or there exceeds the mark. (Ha ha)). But with poetry, I have no such knack.

[aquart]

12. A poem is what it means to YOU. Period.

Yeah, sometimes it helps to take a class to get the wordplay. But I remember being so unhappy after a lecture on the meaning of some of Yeats' poems. I had known what they meant to me. Learning what they meant to the poet made them belong to him more than they belonged to me. And I didn't want to give them back.

Owen gives me chills but I don't know James Weldon Johnson at all.

If a poem "knocks your socks off," exactly what more can it be expected to do?

And if you're quoting Browning, (My Last Duchess is my mom's favorite poem)for heaven's sake, I DON'T SEE WHAT'S LACKING IN YOUR UNDERSTANDING!!!???

As for feeling competent to critique fiction but not poetry...maybe it's a logic difference? I dunno. I pretty much don't critique fiction. I know drama uses a dramatic logic, a logic of consequences: if you show a gun in the first act, you must fire it in the last act. But poetry is a logic of association (found also in prose fiction, news stories (damn them), and plays (like anything by August Wilson)) which works ...hmmm...by a cumulation of mental links. The best description of poetic logic I ever found was what Elton John did with Candle in the Wind for Princess Diana's funeral. He changed some words in the song to call her "England's rose." By choosing "rose" he selected a word with huge associative power. The rose was the flower of Aphrodite, Goddess of Love. It then was co-opted by Mary, Queen of Heaven (now you know what the rose window is for in all those cathedrals, and the rosary beads). Elizabeth I was referred to as England's rose (which makes the Temple Garden scene Henry VI part...one, I think...absolutely amazingly fraught...seems like a cute throwaway scene... but you can't trust Will with throwaway scenes, not at all) so with two words Elton John called the divorced and rejected Diana the Goddess of Love, the Queen of Heaven, AND the Queen of England. Which, to anyone witnessing the stunning reaction of the people, was right on the money.

THAT's poetic logic. It's what makes it possible for Jesus to be both the shepherd and the lamb. If fiction (which I spend no time analyzing so I don't know) uses a different logic, one which you more readily accept, that may be the problem. I am so making wild leaps here.

For a fictional explanation of poetic logic, I just remembered an old story of Charlotte Armstrong's called "The Weight of the Word."

(BTW, this is also why it's impossible for Oxford to have written Shakespeare's works. His "poetry" doesn't get that. It's technically competent stuff, but the words are all WYSIWYG, no extra weight.)

[smoogatz]

23. Isn't the poet's intention important?

I agree that sometimes we go overboard in reading strictly for meaning, as though the poem was one of those sad, embalmed frogs from biology class and we were supposed to dissect it. But as a working poet and college prof I think that understanding the poet's intent, to the extent that it can be understood, can certainly inform our own connection with the poem. Since when is knowledge a bad thing, right? I try to teach what the poem does and how it feels along with what it means and where it comes from.

[Orrex]

24. I think that it's a separate question

In most cases, my view is that a poet's intention is irrelevant if it's not on the page. Once the work is committed to publication, then subsequent clarification by the poet is interesting but not paramount when it comes to interpretation. All that is gained in trying to guess the poet's intention is the satisfaction of a successful scavanger hunt, and this can be a distraction from appreciating a work on its own terms.


My $0.02.

[Fed_Up_Grammy]

2. I'm terrible with poetry. The Virgo in me tends to be very literal.

[aquart]

5. Shakespeare must make you crazy, then.

He means what he says, but he also means...well, if a word has ten meanings, he's using them all. Kind of like looking thru a kaleidoscope. Shake it one way, it's one thing, shake it another, you see a whole other pattern, still beautiful.

[RavensChick]

7. I used to love reading his plays

until college (King Lear was hard as hell to follow, but I did my best). As for the other works of the Bard, I wasn't that interested.

[RavensChick]

6. I haven't read poetry in years!

In fact, I think the last time I read anything poetic was in my senior year in college in 1990. I used to love reading poetry but I grew out of it. I'm just getting back to reading fiction (and non-fiction in some cases) recently, so I can suggest that you start small and gradually you'll get adjusted to it.

[Warpy]

8. You probably love poetry

but need it set to music to hear it properly.

[patrice]

10. Find one poet that more or less "works" for you.

Get away from anthologies and pick one poet to become familiar with.

Turn loose of your rational responses to the work. Just let it be whatever it is. Read out loud. Experiment with its sounds. Share him/her with others. Pick something to memorize (I look for a piece that has at least one line in it that has a deep impact upon me, whether I understand it or not.) Repeat your memorized piece(s) either in your mind or out loud when doing something/anything that you enjoy. If your poet were a painter who would s/he be (i.e. get a book of art history and look at the works of various artists). Similarily, if your poet were a musician, who would s/he be?

P.S. I'm not real big on my contemporary poets either, no one much later than Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas, or T.S. Eliot.

[Fovea]

11. Modern Poetry is high protein, low fat prose.

And sometimes sharp and pointy-like.

But I think formal poetry is good too. More like an antique sword, or matchlock pistol.

http://thechainbreaker.net/poetry/pages/BushVilanelle.htm

[aquart]

13. I would have said high fat, myself.

[Fovea]

16. perhaps i should have said

good modern poetry.

Not much fat in Wilfred Owen, or Henry Treece.

[smoogatz]

19. Good free verse is not prose.

Bad free verse often is.

[enlightenment]

14. It really is about you - what you like, what resonates for you.

I love older poetry and rhyming prose - probably because regular cadence resonates with me. I also prefer Baroque music to modern jazz; again, it goes back to the regularity of the rhythms. I consider myself fortunate, but I don't think it makes me a better person!

Your "ear" isn't about understanding poetry; nor is it that important for you to be able to tell "good" from "bad" (despite what you were taught) unless you're planning on teaching the subject.

If you like the older poetry, recite the older poetry. You're not under any obligation to appreciate modern poets, you know!

My only suggestion is to read it out loud. Recite it. Poetry is a verbal art - a performance.

(This is going to get me beat up, I know ;) . . .) I love the Romantics. I truly enjoy reciting Wordsworth - "We are Seven" and "The Idiot Boy" are two of my favourite poems. I love Shakespeare. And Yeats. And Auden. My most cherished book is my ancient (the 1907 version) of the "Oxford Book of English Verse." I'm unrepentant.

Shakespeare wrote " . . . and so lives this, and this gives life to thee." He was right - every time someone recites that sonnet, the person about whom he wrote lives again, for that moment. It's a powerful thing.

And if it doesn't work for you, if you just can't enjoy it - move on. You don't HAVE to like poetry to be a "complete" person.

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. Poetry must be read aloud. Even if you are at home, reading to

yourself, try it. Let the words roll around in your mouth, like a fine chocolate, revealing textures and flavors that you will never get by simply scanning it. By making the brain slow to the speed of the tongue, you can certainly improve the experience of the poem.

[aquart]

17. So some say.

It works, of course, for plays. But I tend to be irritated when people read poetry out loud. It never sounds like what I'm hearing in my head. Even when I do it. One of the reasons is that the out loud reader has to make choices but the silent reader doesn't. Similar to the way a translator must pick one word to translate a word that may have many meanings, many synonyms. It cuts off other meanings that rightfully belong there. In the cooperative world of a play, seeing one particular interpretation at a time works. But a poem is a more intimate relationship.

[NuttyFluffers]

18. what are you looking to do? find that "inner rhythm"?

art in many ways is a multi-layered experience. but the most potent aspect, which what you might be looking for, is its reverie/transcendence capacity. that's not something you "learn" in a book sense, it's innate. the trick is finding stuff that resonates to your frequency. we all have different capacities of sympathetic vibration -- our essences being like instruments and their corresponding tonalities, ranges, etc -- but it is an experimental thing until we find the true breadth of our range.

the best description i've found to "find" this register was from, oddly enough, 'Strictly Ballroom'. there's a scene with the aged Spanish woman instructor teaching the young man to find the passion of the Paso Doble. before his technique was clinically correct, but soulless. she interrupts him and tells him to close his eyes, pay attention to his breathing, listen to the beat of his heart, listen to the throb of passion in his gut; let them form a point-counterpoint rhythm. stop thinking, start feeling.

so that's pretty much it in a nutshell. let yourself vibrate to the experience. resonate to it. amplify it through your capacity and echo it back, washing through you. when you are overwhelmed, succumbed, whatever, that is when you are in "it." there is nothing more than the passion and your correspondance. that is the reverie/transcendence.

what you need to do is find your "feeling place" and get more intimate with it, simple as that. let it become its own voice equal to the intellect, y'know, the logic and reason. find words that immediately EVOKE/INVOKE feeling in you. find cadence and meter that hypnotize/entrance you. once you find your favorites in these things, go find works available w/in or around these parameters. see if you can "lose yourself" or "get into the zone" with any of those works. practice the dissolution of you into a passionate 'exist.'

when you can finally exercise the technique of pulling emotion through you then you can graduate into putting emotion into the world. this is often called "inspired creation." if you can mix it with correct learned technique in a natural and unforced way then you'll be able to do things like dance, write poetry, etc. without looking like 'that guy,' John Q. Poser or Flailing Freak. that's all there is to it.

sometimes context does help people find greater enjoyment in a work. sometimes it doesn't. it's all a balancing act, but mainly an exploration of what moves you. if you can articulate in a "grunt - me want!" level of desire, then you can find that elusive 'got it' level of understanding any art.

now if you want to talk about technical details and lyrical pyrotechnics that's another discussion entirely. that's connected to intellect. for that you'll need several classes, a good memory for style recall, and plenty of hours of practice. but there's a strong chance it'll still sound soulless. that elusive 'it' quality is the distillation of essence imbued into another thing. that cannot be taught through the intellect. it can only be self-taught through listening to yourself.

[Tesha]

20. I have to work hard to read poety...

I can't do it at all unless I read it aloud,
and can't ever read it right the first time through.

Soooo, I have a podcast delivered to my computer every day and let a master introduce me to a different poet every day.

Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac

I feel so pampered, to have that great voice filling my ears and the well-trained reading bring instant understanding of the poem...

[Orrex]

22. The best thing (maybe the only good thing) about my commute

Is that I catch The Writer's Almanac each morning @ 8:30.

Even those mornings when they mysteriously repeat the prior day's airing, as they did last Tuesday...


I took a while to warm up to Keillor's voice, and I still can't stand A Prairie Home Companion, but I'm a big fan of the Almanac.

[superconnected]

21. It's usually easy for me to read.

- providing it's not really boring where my mind starts to wonder.

Most acclaimed poets don't bore me though. It's the general people who write about death and depression where it has little artistic merit that put me to sleep.

[otherlander]

25. I don't "get" a lot of poetry.

Tried reading Neruda recently... damn if I knew what half of it was about. The only poem I really understood in Fin de Mundo was El Siglo Muere. Reading T.S. Elliot in school is like handing me a rock with some lichen on it, and saying, "See that lichen? Good. Now what's x^2?" I like reading Kerouac in the way a Greek person might like hearing someone speak Japanese: You have no idea what they're talking about, but it sounds good. I usually read the Lounge poem threads... usually don't understand them.

Some poets whose poems I actually kind of understand:
Walt Whitman
Diane di Prima
Martin Espada