Suggestions for Reading Poetry

  For many, poetry has a bad name. “I hate poetry!” is a phrase I often hear from students. While poetry—so concise and rich in its use of language and imagery—usually demands more of us as readers than does fiction, it also yield much if we have the patience to go slowly, to let the poetry work on us. If you think about it, most of us do enjoy some form of poetry in our lives—songs or hymns, for example, might be considered poems set to music. Think about your favorite songs and what power they have to express a mood or emotion. I hope that after the next two weeks reading poetry in this class you’ll have a sense of what beauty and meaning poetry can bring to your life. Here’s my pitch for poetry: it need not be relegated just to weddings but can be tucked in a backpack and brought out on a picnic, read aloud with a lover or child, or looked to in times of change or difficulty. Skim anthologies of poetry to discover what styles or authors you’re drawn to. Try reading poetry in your native tongue. Pull out the dusty volumes of children’s poetry—like Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses—to recall the pleasures of rhythm and rhyme in poetry you may have listened to as a child. Give poetry a bit of your time and attention, and you will be rewarded. On our discussion board, share names of poets whose work you’ve enjoyed; for me, those name would include (just a very partial list here) Pablo Neruda, Mary Oliver, Sharon Olds, Adrienne Rich, and William Shakespeare. Whether you’re a novice or seasoned reader of poetry, perhaps following some of the suggestions below (adapted from Jim Burke’s Reading Reminders) might increase your appreciation of poetry.

First, look at the poem’s title for some clue as to what it might tell you.

Read the poem straight through, without stopping to analyze it. Such a reading is crucial if we are to read the poem for what it is: a performance, an event, an experience at once personal and musical, private and public.

Start with what you know. Find a familiar phrase or image that can help you move toward an understanding of the poem.

Look for patterns. These patterns might be grammatical, sensory (combinations of sounds, colors, or scents), or object related, evolving and changing from the beginning to the end of the poem. Other patterns reveal themselves in the structure of the poem. Your charge is to understand the relationship between the different pieces of the pattern.

Identify the narrator (or speaker). Too often we assume that the poem is narrated by the poet.

Use writing to help you think. Periodically, stop and write in your reading journal to help you digest your thoughts or responses. This reflective writing helps you make greater sense of disparate insights, taking you deeper into the poetry.

Read the poem again. If you haven’t read it aloud yet, do that now.

Find the crucial moments. Often a poem, like a story, has moments when the action shifts, the direction changes, the meaning alters.

Consider form and function. At certain points, some features of the poetry become more apparent than they did at first. This is the point at which a knowledge of certain poetic elements is helpful (see literary terms useful in reading poetry).  Form and function shape meaning in most poems. Two other elements that often contribute to the meaning of a poem are repetition and compression. Compression refers to the way words and images get juxtapose or woven together, often through the economical use of language. Repetition implies both rhythm and emphasis. The space between stanzas can suggest  time passing, scenes changing, and so on.

Look at the language of the poem. Language is everything in a poem. Words are the poet’s medium, their paint, and what they do with them merits serious scrutiny if you are going to understand the poem. Punctuation and typography both demand consideration when reading a poem.

Return to the title to see what additional information it might offer.

Discuss, ask questions, reflect, as you would with any piece of literature, in order to deepen your understanding and appreciation of the work.