Everyone seems to enjoy this little pie (a metaphorical one) called poetry. I can't. I can intellectually understand it, of course, and often in a level much higher than those around me. I can come up with convincing analyzations of intent and meaning.
What I can't do is get it. I don't know why. Poetry just doesn't seem to jive with me. I wish it did. Same applies to Classical music.
Question: do you have the same problem with non-classical music? Many songs are, on at least some level, poetry. Is it just certain types of poetry? Rhyming? Non-rhyming? The abstract throw-a-bunch-of-words-on-a-page kind? Haiku?
posted
I don't enjoy poetry either. Its just not my style of language.
I did like it more after we did a unit on it in a Creative Writing class. Besides exposing me to styles and methods that I had never seen in any of my other literature classes, it was fun writing poetry how I think it should be.
I even won 1st place in poetry in my university literary magazine. They gave $100 to a self-proclaimed hater of poetry.
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Well, in terms of poetry that I feel should move me...
Dunno. I've read about 100 poems by Emily Dickinson. I've read a lot of Shakspeare's plays, and have memorized soliloquies such as "To Be or Not to Be." I've read contemperary poetry, such as Plath, Eliot, and Ginsberg. I've read romantic poetry in mass, such as Whitman, Blake, Bryon, Shelly, Wordsworth...
Non-classical music I "get," love, and listen to almost constantly. ^^
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Emily Dickinson is one of those ones I loathe.
For more modern ones, I prefer Ann Sexton.
Shakespeare is tough the first few times through, I think. And his plays weren't really meant to be read, I'm told. Better to see them performed.
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I disagree about Shakepeare. Every time I re-read one of the plays, I find new treasures. In general, though, I am not a huge fan of poetry. I am not sure why. I do not think it is boring, and I "get" it, I just don't love it.
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Well, let's try the other direction, then: which elements of poetry stick with you? Are there any lines and images which have clung to your consciousness?
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Phanto, I'm with you. I did enjoy studying poetry in school, but it will never be my preferred form of expression, and it's not generally what I pick up to read, either. I have a good friend who's a very talented poet (so I hear), but I just feel like this big "I don't get it" clod around her when the subject of poetry comes up. The funny thing is, one of the reasons we became friends is because she had me pegged as a sort of literary soulmate when we first started working together, someone that she could relate to on a different level than she could with many of her other friends. It's true--but I don't "get" most of her poetry, although I do think it's lovely. And I don't think the lack is in her writing, based on the accolades she's received. I really do think it's something I'm missing. Oh well!
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Dude, Kipling. "The Large Birds of Prey, they will carry us away, and you'll never see your soldiers anymore!"
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I like poetry because it sounds pretty, not because it ever means anything. Sometimes it does mean something, but it never explains it well enough, because the medium is too restricting. (I realize that's an awful generalization, but so is everything else on this thread, so.)
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If you like music, you can like poetry, for the appreciation of the two is very similar. Poetry is the music of words. The meanings and the sounds together form a piece, like a concerto or just a sweet little guitar riff. Hear it with your music ears, and see if that helps.
My favorite poet, whom I think is very accessible, is A.E. Housman. He crafted many short, perfect, jewels out of words.
When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say "Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away."
"Give pearls away, and rubies, But keep your fancy free." But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again "The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain."
"'Tis paid with sighs aplenty And sold for endless rue." And I am two-and-twenty, And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
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I love how in the last line you can hear him moaning with the pain, lol.
And "crowns and pounds and guineas" is just fun to say. They are all types of british money, and Housman is British, in case you didn't catch that. "your fancy" means like your heart, I guess, again, in case you didn't catch that. Rue is like bitterness, as in "rue the day..." Part of getting how cool poetry is, is understanding the ways in which they use the words, and enjoying the interplay of words and meaning.
He was about the same age as Tolkien, and I think of them as though they were lads together, traipsing around the countryside.
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I like poetry but prefer prose. I like to read it out loud.
I know many people who do not like poetry it all and many who love it.
I think classical music is a accostomed thing. If you always listen to one type of music, another is always going to be a bit different and not so comfortable, perhaps?
I grew up with very little exposure to 'pop music'. I have had to train myself up from the little that I did listen to- mostly quite 'old'- in order to appreciate contemporary music.
How do you feel about modern orchestral music, Phanto?
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A lot of the reason I got into poetry was I stopped trying to read it. I know that sounds odd, but it is true.
I listened to it.
I had a few freinds who wrote poetry. Mostly bad poetry, it's true, but poetry none the less. I went to a few poetry club meetings and listened to them read their own poems, and I went on a walk with a friend who had written some of the better stuff I had heard. He said that most of his stuff had a definate rythem to it, and as we walked he recited some of his stuff to me.
I was highly impressed. Not with his poetry, although a lot of it was very , very good, but with the sense of purpose he gave it.
I play several insturments, and use to sing quite well, so music has always been a huge force in my life. Once I hear poetry read out loud....even bad poetry read somewhat pretentiously....I began hearing it when I read it. The sounds started to make sense, adn fit together in ways that I had rarely realized that they could.
I have since progressed (or is that digressed ) to writing my own pretentious, inferior poems.
That walk with Tom back in college woke in me a love of poetry that will remain for the rest of my life.
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Oh, when I was in love with you Then I was clean and brave, And miles around the wonder grew How well did I behave.
And now the fancy passes by And nothing will remain, And miles around they'll say that I Am quite myself again.
Realize that for Housman, again and remain do rhyme. I love how the "miles around" sounds -- it slows the line way down as though the people are just marveling -- and rings well on repitition in the second stanza. "fancy passes" has great alliteration on the S sounds. It almost like flounces away. And isn't it just so true what when you're in love you're someone far better than your usual derelict self? He's so funny. Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Shakespeare can be read, but should be read out loud, or at least with moving lips. May I recommend Dylan Thomas, a particularly accessible poet. Nobody starts out with Eliot, which would be like starting math with trig.
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Shakespeare is much more accessible when seen on stage than when read. Some people have the gift of "seeing" the action from the dialogue -- they enjoy reading plays and they make good directors.
I find reading many of Dylan Thomas' poems slightly less enjoyable than poking myself repeatedly in the back of the hand with a spork.
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Ah, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" is one of my favorites. I like it so much that I am going to post it here even though it will doubtless add little to the discussion (which is what you get for being a philistine )
quote: Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
While not strictly a poem, "A Child's Christmas in Wales" is another masterpiece, which brings back memories of my father reading it to me when I was very small and staging a dramatic reading with a school theatre troupe.
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posted
W.H. Auden is also a genius, but is, perhaps, less accessible than Thomas. The same goes for Keats, but Tennyson is another good bet for one beginning to read poetry.
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Oh, and the War Poets, and Naomi Nye and Richard Lovelace's "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars." I'll stop now.
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I'm a Frost fan myself. I love how he can take the ordinary scenes we walk through every day and find the philosophical quality in them. Two of my favorites:
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Dunno. Frost is pretty talk, but I don't feel like his stuff is that deep, fresh, or original.
As for classical, I wish it were that exposure increases enjoyment. I have listened to hours of Chopin, Beethoven, Lizt, Holst, and many others. I've listened to "Classical Thunder" a lot. I know Vivaldi's major works.
But I have not ever, except for Beethoven's 5th, been able to sit down and really enjoy a classical work.
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For Poetry which might be truely off-putting to a new reader, you can't do better than Tchicaya U Tam'si, a better writer of prose, IMO, than poetry but interesting in both.
Forest, Part III (of V)
- Where are the flowers that smell of the warm flesh under the armpits? - In paradise on the victim's burial mound Those that as a child I lapped closed my burning eyes the sun itself on my cropped head through it was all red lead ah! I still danced though I had no woman hilarious toads and astounding pythons as if my dead returned through them
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If you're really serious about at least learning to enjoy a couple classical works, watching Fantasia is a good place to start.
Or, if you have a very broad definition of the term "classical", wait until you're home alone, turn out the lights, and watch Koyaanisqatsi. It's basically a 90-minute music video for a Philip Glass piece (which was written for the movie), and it's one of the trippiest experiences ever.
Speaking of which, you can get a similar experience with some Strauss, Khachaturian and Ligeti (and a little bit of plot) by watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, although be warned, it's kind of a love-it-or-hate-it experience.
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posted
I've actually seen Fantasia, and I found it delightful in areas, espeically the Jazz part, where you had these black lines and nifty music.
Dunno.
I just feel like I'm missing out on something, and the mystical atmosphere surrounding the arts compounds my desire to get it, to be part of the club of those in the know.
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posted
That's actually Fantasia 2000, which I liked alot too. Fantasia is very different in feel and in choice of classical works. (Well, they did carry over "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" from the original Fantasia, so it appears in both. This was in homage to Walt Disney who originally envisioned Fantasia as a constantly changing concert, re-released every couple of years with a new mix of pieces, some old and some new.)
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