The way that Will described poetry was great. He pointed out the fact that poetry takes a lot of work from the poet/"artist" and is so much more than just words like prose. Thanks to the way poets make their art, poetry moves readers in ways that prose just can't. For example, poetry evokes emotional response through it's rhythm and flow. If we were to take poetry out of its context and form, we would not be able to understand all that poet was attempting to get across.
The point is, poets use many techniques besides just their writing skills to pass their ideas, and even though I personally may not be able to see everything that is being shown, the poet has put in a ton of work to find the right way to express themselves.
PS. I posted on Susan's Language of the Gods.
I used to always say that I hated poetry - that I didn't understand it and that there were a million ways to interpret it, so it didn't matter what my opinion was anyway. But then one day someone said something to me about how music was poetry. Then I began to realize the great power that poetry could have. Kind of like your realization in class. I'm sure it does take a lot of work for the poet to find just the right word choice to evoke the proper response in his audience. I still do have trouble with it at times though, probably just because there are always so many allusions in poetry to things that we are not familiar with. However, I will always respect it greatly.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest problem with poetry is that I look so hard for symbolism that I start to see things that aren't actually there. Then I have the issue of discerning what is my own creation and what was the original intention of the poem. I make things so complicated sometimes...
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