As the Coordinator of City Lit’s Literature programme and a poetry lecturer for over twenty-five years, I have heard repeated comments that poetry is “difficult”, “I don’t like it” or “I don’t know where to start”. So, how do we rethink our approach to an art form that can sum up our emotions so succinctly, comforting us in sorrowful times and helping us to mark or celebrate the joyful moments in our lives?
Poetry is interpretive: there are no right or wrong answers
Poetry appreciation is not an academic exercise or a puzzle to be solved, but a creative offering, thoughtful observations that will call on one’s own life experience and that of others. True appreciation of poetry involves the active participation of the reader - there are no right or wrong answers when interpreting a poem, though there are accepted critical readings of poems - yet even these can be challenged.
There is some merit to be found in most poems and we can learn to appreciate them even if we don’t like them. We can begin to understand what might be meaningful, if not for ourselves then exploring and understanding its value to others.
Most poetry really benefits from being read aloud as the reader can then hear the movement and music of the verse.
Gateways into poetry
Learn with others
Poetry courses offer an opportunity for debate and discussion and can help us to open up to new ways of interpreting what we read and how we read. There is no doubt that poetry can be demanding in its intense concentration of detail and effect - the impact of a poem’s language, its imagery and rhythms, might have an immediate effect on you but sometimes the sense of a poem only emerges after several readings.
Most poetry really benefits from being read aloud as the reader can then hear the movement and music of the verse. Some of the most powerful poetry deals with conventional themes and ideas in an unconventional or unusual way and expresses observations in a way that isn’t quite possible in standard prose.
Start with any poem
Abram Van Engen, Humanities Professor at Washington University in St. Louis and co-host of the podcast “Poetry for All” comments that:
“When I ask folks whether they read poetry, most say no. When I ask them why, they typically say “because poetry is not written for me” or “I don’t understand it.” I think there is an underlying assumption that poetry is for professionals or you have to have a Ph.D or be a poet to read it. If people gave themselves a chance to read poetry, they would find poems that really speak to them, that really change and transform them.”
When asked how we can begin to read more poetry he says, “…start with any poem, because what matters about poetry is not what other people think of it or think of you reading these particular poems. What matters about poetry is which poems work for you…. Poetry is often about moving at a different speed, about slowing down and lingering with lines, phrases and stanzas.”
Beginnings
In thinking about how we approach poetry, beginning to understand how it developed and exploring how different poetic forms emerged enables us to tackle and even enjoy what at first seems difficult.
Poetic forms and oral poetry
There are many poetic forms, from odes to ballads, epics to elegies and sonnets to blank verse. Early poetry was conveyed from person to person, the oral form creating a vivid oral history that has been passed down over time.
Beowulf
Let’s consider Beowulf, an Old English epic poem that has been identified as written sometime between 700-1000 AD. There is an ongoing debate about the first version being in the oral tradition, reflecting pagan times, or if additions were added in writing later, indicating a Christian influence. Beowulf was translated into modern English in a very successful edition by the poet Seamus Heaney, entitled Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Faber & Faber: 2000) proving its ongoing popularity amongst the reading public.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Another well-known poem that may seem daunting is the 14th-century Medieval poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written by an unidentified author. The poem tells us about aspects of medieval life and culture, including knighthood, romance and courtly and religious values of the time. The fascinating historical context of the poem has given it lasting value and translations from Middle English into modern English by contemporary poets, including the current Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, have made the work accessible to anyone interested in what the poem has to say about human nature.
The translation of these ancient poems by modern poets has made them available through audio versions as well as the printed word - today many people find listening to poetry on podcasts or other radio shows a helpful way of getting into many kinds of poems. In his short essay, ‘Re-Writing the Good Book’, Simon Armitage says,
‘Books, let us remind ourselves, are not the true and everlasting home of poetry. Literature and books are inseparable, but poetry pre-dates the book, pre-dates the alphabet even, and should not be content with its current format. …Only the most bespectacled antiquarian could seriously envisage a book-reading culture still going strong in 500 years’ time, but poetry, in some other guise, will surely persist.’
(‘Re-Writing the Good Book’ in Strong Words: modern Poets on modern poetry, Bloodaxe Books, 2000)
Poets on Poetry
How do poets themselves approach the reading of poetry and why is this literary form the one that moves them to create?
Dylan Thomas
The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), author of many well-loved poems including ‘Fern Hill’ and ‘Do No Go Gentle into That Good Night’ was asked about his definition of poetry:
“I myself, do not read poetry for anything but pleasure. I read only the poems I like. This means, of course, that I have to read a lot of poems I don’t like before I find the ones I do, but, when I do find the ones I do, then all I can say is ‘Here they are’, and read them to myself for pleasure.
If you want a definition of poetry, say ‘Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing’, and let it go at that. All that matters about poetry is the enjoyment of it, however tragic it may be. … The best craftmanship always leaves holes and gaps in the works of the poem so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash, or thunder in.”
(“Notes on the Art of Poetry”, Texas Quarterly, 4/4, Winter 1961; reprinted in Strong Words: modern Poets on modern poetry, Bloodaxe Books, 2000)
Audre Lorde
The African-American poet Audre Lorde (1934-1992) fused biography, fiction and myth into what she called ‘biomythography’.
“For women…poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. …Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”
(Poetry is not a Luxury, 1977; reprinted in Strong Words: modern Poets on modern poetry, Bloodaxe Books, 2000)
Sylvia Plath
The American poet Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) said:
“A poem…is a moment that changes the place of things. Like a snow-scene paperweight turned upside down and back: everything is suddenly different, never to be the same. A poem is that glimpse between the opening and closing of a door, in which we see something new about the world, something sudden but lasting: ‘a garden, a person, a rainstorm, a dragonfly, a heart, a city.”
(‘A Comparison’ in Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: and Other Prose Writings, 2nd Ed, London: Faber & Faber, 1979; reprinted in Strong Words: modern Poets on modern poetry, Bloodaxe Books, 2000)
What we know and how we share it!
D.H. Lawrence’s lyrical poem ‘Piano’ (1918) explores the nature of memory:
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
In considering this wonderful poem in a class session, I was struck not only by the vivid imagery that conjures up the distance between memories of childhood as remembered by the adult narrator, but even more so by the comments of students whose own memories were stirred and shared by the reading and discussing of the poem.
Poetry can be the gateway to emotions, memories, realisations, or simply an appreciation of the beauty of words.
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