Monday, 2 February 2009
Why can't I understand POETRY??
I have just finished reading the Poems that were assigned to us in class and I am having bad flashbacks to high school. I took honors english classes all of high school up to my senior year and did great in them. I then decided to take AP English. The first day of class I sat down and started listening to the AP teacher. She began telling us of all the things we could expect out of the class that year and poetry was going to be a big part of it. She handed out our first assignment telling us to read through these poems and write the meaning of them down to turn in at the end of class. This packet was 20 pages long, FULL of poems! I started reading the first poem, then the second, the third, and I couldn't tell you what one word of those poems meant! I started looking all around the class and everyone else seemed to understand just fine. They had even begun to write their summaries. Apparently my teacher saw me looking around the classroom and back to my sheet of poems and the look of horror on my face. She came over to my desk, knelt in front of me, grabbed my hands, and whispered, "this assignment is due at the end of class, but I'll give you until tomorrow to finish." ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! I felt so stupid. I kindly thanked her and waited for the bell to ring, while pretending to read through those poems. As soon as class was over I ran down the hall to my mom's office (she worked at the school as the Principal's secretary) and asked her to tell me what the poems meant. She, being an amazing writer and English major, couldn't define them either. So I told her of my troubles and told her I wouldn't be returning to class the next day. Let's just say I finished the year in regular English, watching the movie "The Princess Bride". Now this is a long story of my struggles with poetry, but to this day I have the hardest time understanding it. I read and re-read it, but to no avail. It might be the way the lines are written that throw me off. Also most poems aren't the Mother Goose type poems, or haiku's (I'm great at those). It is my weakness!! So I'm throwing this story and life lesson of mine out there to you all with the hope that you can help me get through some poetry this semester. Any suggestions?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wow, what an experience! I'm proud of you for dropping the class. I would've been too much of a pansie to drop it. I'm not the greatest with poetry, but I have a suggestion. Perhaps you can read the poem and find out where you think the sentences end. Or where you think the author ended each sentence. They may not end at the same place punctuated in the actual poem. Then write it out into a paragraph, reading it like it were the most important paragraph in a story. Figure out sentence by sentence and idea by idea. Also, it may be helpful to try and pick out the imagery the author is aiming to portray. Often it is hard to find in such short poems because perhaps the author felt he or she had to fit it into such a small amount of text. And lastly, try to imagine yourself writing this poem, why would you and what would it mean? Good luck!
ReplyDelete