Dopers - I want to know about your individual reaction to poetry. There are no wrong answers to this question, and there are at least as many right answers as there are people. Is there a particular type that moves you? A particular type that annoys you? Are you enthusiastic? Indifferent? How do you judge for yourself what is a ‘good’ poem?
Some background to the question - I’ve had an on and off relationship with poetry for as long as I can remember. As a singer/actor for many years, it has been at least half my job to work with poetry and verse. At times I have written my own poetry, sung other people’s poetry, and read other people’s poetry publicly.
Most recently, I’ve begun a project that has involved me with poetry to a greater extent than ever before, seeking out and working on pieces of music that integrate poetry, storytelling, instrumental music and song, looking beyond what we’d think of as a traditional classical recital.
As a result, I’ve been rediscovering my love of poetry and working on expanding both my tastes and my understanding. And working on my writing.
All of which gets me thinking, it would be interesting to start a thread discussing everyone’s opinions and approaches to both writing and reading poetry.
Just to start, and speaking only for myself, the question I now ask when I read is ‘Why is this a poem? Why wouldn’t this work as a paragraph in a short story, or a dialogue in a novel?’ If the answer comes out “Well, it wouldn’t work in any other form - it can’t be paraphrased without changing or losing its meaning.”, then I know it’s a poem I’m going to enjoy working with.
I don’t like most poetry, as most of it is simply too precious for words. I do like some. The only poet that I like, that I can tell you off the top of my head, is Swinburne, and even he sometimes is entirely too twee for my tastes.
One of my aunts fancies herself a poet, and is well-known for her tendency to corner anyone available at a family gathering to recite her latest work. And then she wants to DISCUSS it. So I was traumatized by poetry at an early age. Maybe without that aunt, I would like poetry better. But maybe not.
You can have mine, if you want. No, no, I insist. The very least you can do is listen to her collection of poems to her broken doll, and her promises to this doll to get her fixed.
A good poem is like a complex wooden box - it seems like normal woodwork/words, but in truth is far more layered and complex - and if you work with it and allow it to give up its secrets, there can be a treasure inside…
As a writer of poetry, I’ve always preferred more traditional styles, using rhyme and meter and strict rules of construction - I find the challenge of writing within the restraints to be pleasurable, and it makes my mind work hard to express my feelings. I’ve never been able to really write good free form verse, however.
As a reader, I enjoy poetry of all forms, but I do often read the more free flow style stuff and wonder why they didn’t just write a short story. Still, I have found some that really just blow me away with their depth of imagery and passion, regardless of their form.
I think of ‘poetry’ as a little magic sprite or ghost. It is just a magic little piece of…feeling? that exists in certain texts.
I love all kinds of poetry from the Harlem Reniassance (omg, spelling!) to the Romantic movement, to the modern stuff. I really don’t like that slam poetry stuff, (hate it with a passion, actually) but all the rest of poetry I like. However, I have to slog through an awful lot of it to find that elusive magic little sprite that haunts some of the most beautifully written verses.
To my mind, there are many things to get out of poetry. At its most basic there is the pure love of the flow and pattern of language, like music frozen into words.
Then, there is the economy of a seemingly simple turn of phrase, that captures an image with almost painful simplicity, like a butterfly pinned in a collection.
Finally, there are some words that simply sum up the human condition and cannot be forgotten. A personal favorite of mine is the first verse of the Second Comming:
How many times have I read the news headlines and thought of this verse?
I like poetry that gives me a new perspective. I’ve never forgotten this one that I read on the side of a bus once: (not graffitti, but a poster)
"When I press this button
A man comes out
assiduous and sharp, like one of us
and brings me cheese.
How did he fall
under my power?"
If you want to find some more cutting edge stuff, google “Poetry Chapbooks”. You will find a lot for cheap, the ones I’ve sort of randomly ordered have been about 55% crap and 10% utter freakin’ genius. The in betweens are mostly just beautiful, which I also enjoy, but it’s not mind-altering.
ETA: Interestingly, some of the ones that I recognize as genius, are also the ones that I don’t really like.
Not really a big poetry fan, but the best thing I got out of it was the realization: One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Never knew why, but it was oddly comforting to me as a teenager. I prefer Epic Poetry now to modern poetry.
:Shrug: But it’s not something that i hate with a passion or anything. It just is.
I am really puzzled by the obscure hostility many show towards poetry. Most people don’t like poetry at all, but most people don’t like classical music at all either, and I don’t hear people dissing classical music. Most people don’t like Mathematics, but people don’t generally insult Mathematics as though it were some blight upon humanity.
But lots of people really seem to hate poetry. Are they just trying to show their toughness or something? ie “I’m not the kind of guy that enjoys reading words that are supposed to evoke emotions.”
Classical music and poetry are both widely thought of by way too many people as high-brow, stuffy, boring, sickly-sweet and flowery, cultural (as opposed to entertaining), and Good For You (as opposed to enjoyable). Furthermore, anything written before the 1900’s is old-fashioned and passe—a dead art form—while anything written since that time is difficult, bizarre (dispensing as it does with rhyme and meter in the case of poetry, or traditional harmony and melody in the case of music), and written to impress other poets/composers/critics/academics (if not just self-indulgent intellectual masturbation), and the general public be damned.
As for mathematics, there are plenty of people who consider it a blight upon humanity, alas.
