Recently I was tagged to answer Cam's Poetry Meme (sorry for my tardiness in posting this....I didn't get in much blog reading over the long weekend!), so here goes. I have to admit that I am not much of a poetry reader. It isn't because I don't like poetry, but that I am not entirely sure how to approach it. I always feel like there is some dark hidden meaning that I am not going "to get". Sometimes the words of poems seem so laden with meaning, that poems need to be digested and not just read, and you need so much other knowledge to understand what the poet is referring to. When I was reading the Mary Shelley biography, there were lots of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron that the authors referred to in the text. What was nice was the authors gave the background story to the poems, which gave them so much meaning for me. It is going to be one of my reading goals next year to read more poetry. By chance this book by Terry Eagleton came across my desk today at work (it's a sign). As soon as it has been processed I will be checking it out. It sounds like a "beginner's guide" to reading poetry--just up my alley!
The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was--Actually I am going to answer this with an anthology of poems. I don't remember exactly which poems it included, but I have a vivid memory of reading from Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle. Isn't this a great title? I was in grade school when I read from it.
I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and........I bet there was a poem I was meant to memorize, but it is lost to me now. I wonder if kids are asked to learn poems these days? I wish I had--I am always so impressed when people can quote literature from memory!
I read/don't read poetry because....I don't read poetry for the reasons I mentioned above. I am so used to a regular narrative--beginning, middle and end, and some poems are so short, I am not sure what I am meant to get out of them. An image? A story? A feeling? With a book of poems, do you read them straight through? I suppose there are no hard and fast rules--you can just dip in when you feel like it? How much time do you spend on a poem--I think when I do read them (for instance when they are in a novel), I rush through them without appreciating what I am reading.
A poem or poet I'm likely to think about when asked about a favorite is ......I remember some lines from Tennyson, "the splendor falls from castle walls..." and Emily Dickinson, "because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me...", so I would say Tennyson or Dickinson, though I also have books by Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, and Edna St. Vincent Millay among others. Since I couldn't quote anything, I better stick with the few poems I remember.
I write/don't write poetry, but..............I don't write poetry, but I know people who do (how's that for getting around the question!). A coworker writes poetry and has had them published. He reads lots of poetry and if I am ever curious who I should read, I know I can ask him and he won't steer me wrong! I am sort of up on who's publishing a new novel, or what I should look out for in terms of fiction, but he is really up in terms of poetry. Imagine poetry being the main source of your reading selections?!
My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature.....I am used to devouring a book, and I get the feeling that this is not the way to read poetry. I think I need to re-learn (or start completely anew) how to read poetry.
I find poetry.....Confusing? Sort of anyway, but only because I am so out of pratice reading poetry. I think it can be quite beautiful given time and thought when reading it (I am thinking about older poetry like Tennyson, which seems so lyrical--I haven't read much modern poetry).
The last time I heard poetry....I can't even remember the last time I heard a poem read aloud except in school (and that has been a few years ago...).
I think poetry is like....This is going to sound silly, but it seems like it is a nut, and you have to crack it open and find out what is inside. Am I making it harder than it is supposed to be?
Here is my paltry little poetry shelf. It is rather in dire need of beefing up, isn't it? Any favorites or recommendations?
If you haven't already answered these questions, consider yourself tagged! Please let me know, so I can read your answers, too!