How to Appreciate Poetry in a Right and Proper Way
Bullwinkle, appreciating the hell out some poetry.
Every now and again, when I’m feeling intellectually illiterate or a bit lowbrow, (anyone who has read this blog to any extent can understand how frequently that may be) I will resolve the feeling by appreciating poetry.
I just head to my closet, yank out my poetry sack, pull out a big fistful of poetry, and appreciate the hell out of it.
Note: my poetry sack also serves as a repository for random unmatched socks.
When appreciating poetry in a right and proper way, there are a few things that are key:
Comprehension
If you can even remotely understand the meaning of a poem, it isn’t a proper poem. Poems tend to be vague or nebulous. Poets like to throw around a dizzying menagerie of random imagery, designed to confuse and disorient. If you’ve just finished reading a poem and you haven’t vomited in your mouth a bit, it isn’t proper poetry.
Symbolism
When a poet writes a poem about a leaf being blown from a tree, falling to the ground, and being trampled underfoot, he’s not actually writing about a leaf being blown from a tree, falling to the ground, and being trampled underfoot.
The leaf represents hopelessness, and the futility of a life marred by a series of tragic events. The leaf being blown from the tree represents a life spiraling into an alcohol-fueled abyss of despair. The leaf being trampled underfoot represents the crushing weight of an uncaring world and the inevitable grip of death.
A morbid bunch–poets.
Emotional Response
Poems are written to evoke an emotional response from their readers. Once after reading a collection of poems by Sylvia Plath, I spent hours curled up on the floor in the fetal position as I sobbed uncontrollably.
An excerpt from Daddy, one of Sylvia Plath’s best-known poems:
If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two——The vampire who said he was youAnd drank my blood for a year,Seven years, if you want to know.Daddy, you can lie back now.There’s a stake in your fat black heartAnd the villagers never liked you.They are dancing and stamping on you.They always knew it was you.Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.
Holy Crap! Right?
Note: I don’t want to paint the picture that all poets are emotionally distressed alcoholics with father issues– but the really good ones are.
Be sure that you know the difference. You don’t want to be chatting up a girl who is gushing over her love of Emily Dickinson when you say, “I know, she was smoking hot in Big Bad Mama.” Seriously– it ends badly.
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and now i know
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I’m here to help.
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Reblogged this on Paiges of My Diary and commented:
This is hysterical! I love it! (And honestly, I agree with way too much to call myself a true poet!)
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I have the luxury of knowing I’m not a poet.
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That is quiet a luxury!
I write poetry, but I don’t call myself a poet. Don’t you have to wear a beret and have a vocabulary to rival a thesaurus in order to be one?
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You need a beret to be mime, but no vocabulary at all.
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Dang… I can’t fit in there, either!
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I write poetry (once in a while) it’s always about Midnight and Thorns???? ya, I don’t know either…An alcoholic, depressed Daddy Issue I guess!! I’ll stick to Limericks… One White One, One Black One, and one with a little shite on and the hair on her Dickie Diddle hung down to her knee’s “!! 🙂
Your right Haiku’s suck!
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That was appropriately weird.
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Thank you! 🙂
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“I don’t want to paint the picture that all poets are emotionally distressed alcoholics with father issues– but the really good ones are.”
Ha!
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It’s funny because it’s true.
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I expressed some of these ideas to an English professor back in college. I asked why this alleged great literature we had to read was considered great as I though it sucked. He gave me automatic F’s next three courses. Had to change major to religious studies/history. That’s better because nobody can say what is a correct answer. Well some do say the have the correct answer and only acceptable answer but there are so many that say the answers given by such elitist snots are wrong you can find a slot into which you fit. In my church we know that Jesus was actually an Italian Presbyterian like me so my answers are truly correct.
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I can say with great pride, I am virtually never right about anything.
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So if a poem is about depression and falling into the alcoholic abyss, it is actually about a leave falling from a tree?
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More or less.
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I took a poetry class in high school that directly led me to avoid taking one in college, but I do remember being asked “what is this about?” and guessing “suicide” over and over. I was wrong only once: that time, the poem was actually about abortion. My bad.
… It occurs to me (seriously, just now) that a teenager guessing “suicide” over and over might have been a red flag. At the very least, she might have hesitated to tell me I was wrong…. Nah. Poetry’s mostly about suicide.
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You should stick to limericks; they’re almost never about suicide.
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The poems I studied in Uni last year were all about the second most popular poetry theme.
Sex.
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So mostly dirty limericks.
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I do not even like Haiku, but Haiku fulfills your conditions, doesn*t it? About being vague and full of symbolism …
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Most certainly no
It absolutely does not
I can’t be more clear
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Is that a Haiku (told you, I do not even like them) – but a real Haiku is dealing with an image from nature and a deeper meaning of that.
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A real Haiku? how dare you?
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Sue me
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Wait! That’s poetry? I thought it was an acid trip. Poetry is cheaper. I’m in! 😉 xoM
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It could be both.
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