When I was in school, I had an assignment to read and do a report on a poem. I hated it because I just could not make sense of it. The poem was Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats.
When I got home from school, I expressed my frustration to Mother. She went to the bookshelf and got a book called Out of the Best Books. She sat down and she invited me to join her. We read the poem together and she helped me form an image in my mind of what the Urn must have looked like. Even more important for me, she helped me to understand what the poet might have been trying to convey with the poem. She helped me see the two lovers on the side of the urn and the story of their unrequited love. Though their arms were extended to each other, they would never touch, never kiss, never be together.
After reading this poem, I read others like The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, and The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clark Moore. I read the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe, Shel Silverstein, William Shakespeare, Carolyn Pierce and other famous poets. I learned to enjoy the rhyme and rhythm. I enjoyed the meter and imagery. I enjoyed the challenge of trying to see what the poets must have seen or felt when they wrote the poems.
Since then, as I taught for a few years, I learned about haiku, limericks, couplets, and on and on.
I enjoy poetry for a lot of reasons. I believe the things I love the most about poetry are ambiguity and layered meanings. What one person gets out of a poem may not be what another gets. What I get from a poem today may not be what I get the next time I read it. I get a real kick out of cowboy poetry. It's humorous and has a definite beat to it. Reading poetry of someone you know can be a window into their soul, and writing poetry is an outlet for feelings that are hard to share any other way. I carry a copy of Bonnie's poem, In Tune with the Master in my wallet. I find it inspiring. Poetry will always be a part of my life.
3 comments:
I have never had a class in poetry. I have never learned all the nuances of poetry. I have just jumped in with both feet at times and pasted onto some wood fiber laminate with carbon filaments encrusted and encased in wood. I have pecked on the plastic keys a bit too. But I am a poet and I know it.
How did you do that? how do you put in the reference pages where you can go to read it. Oh there is so much I don't know. If you like cowboy poets, there is a competition here in Kanab each year the end of August, this year was 21-23, with Kanab Western Legends Days.
I have enjoyed the poetry that has been put on the blog. All of you do so well. I have learned a lot from the things that both you and Larry have posted. Bonnie has a talent for poetry tool. Keep it up. It helps
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