My Original Poetry Continues

How to Read a Poem

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In his early 20s, he smokes some dope and grows quickly impatient. He refuses to use a mobile phone. Some of them here get up and read their poetry right off their gadgets. He is equally harsh on those who blame their circumstances for their troubles, a philosophy Bin Hassan shares. So when I saw the film, I felt like it was my life story, too. Rain Maker, a year veteran of the workshop, runs through poems for a gig in Albany the next night.

At about 8pm, Oyewole shuts everyone up. Immediately, a chorus of 15 or so voices — young and old, all persons of colour — recites in bright, powerful unison: A guy in his 20s rises, mumbles his name inaudibly. A discussion about artistic theft ensues. The revolution came and they were all partying and bullshitting. Vanessa, a New York-raised teacher in her early 40s with family back in Haiti, waits through a few protracted rounds of talk before the room shushes again.

At midnight, the open house is closed. At seven the next morning, like every morning till Rap Hip-hop Poetry Race features. Order by newest oldest recommendations. Show 25 25 50 All.

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Threads collapsed expanded unthreaded. Loading comments… Trouble loading? Responses that move away from what is written into personal anecdotes or tangential leaps should be gently urged back into analyzing the text. The basis for shared inquiry is close reading. Good readers "dirty the text" with notes in the margins. They make the inquiry their own.

It would be convenient if there were a short list of universal questions, ones that could be used anytime with any poem. In the absence of such a list, here are a few general questions that you might ask when approaching a poem for the first time:. You can fall back on these questions as needed, but experience suggests that since each poem is unique, such questions will not go the necessary distance. In many instances, knowing who the speaker is may not yield any useful information.

Poem Structure - Lines and Stanzas

There may be no identifiable occasion that inspired the poem. But poems do offer clues about where to start. Asking questions about the observable features of a poem will help you find a way in.

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Some people say that a poem is always an independent work of art and that readers can make full sense of it without having to use any source outside the poem itself. Others say that no text exists in a vacuum. However, the truth lies somewhere in between. The amount of information needed to clearly understand depends on you and your encounter with the poem.

This is because poems are made of words that accumulate new meanings over time. Consider this situation, a true story, of a poet who found a "text" at the San Mateo coast in northern California. As she scrambled over rocks behind the beach, near the artichoke fields that separate the shore from the coast highway, she found a large smear of graffiti painted on the rocks, proclaiming " La Raza ," a Chicano political slogan meaning "the struggle.

I understand, she wrote, why someone would write La Raza on the side of a building, or on public transport. There it would be seen and would shout its protest from the very foundations of the oppressive system. But why here, in nature, in beauty, so far from that political arena.

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Then, one evening while reading the poem in Berkeley she got her answer. A man came up to her and asked her, "Do you want to know? The text was not out of place. But such a task is to some degree impossible, and most people want clarity. At the end of class, at the end of the day, we want revelation, a glimpse of the skyline through the lifting fog.

Aesthetically, this is understandable. Some magic, some satisfaction, some "Ahhh!

Anaphora: Poetic Term

But a poem that reveals itself completely in one or two readings will, over time, seem less of a poem than one that constantly reveals subtle recesses and previously unrecognized meanings. A life partner, a husband, a wife—these are people with whom we hope to constantly renew our love. The same is true of poems. The most magical and wonderful poems are ever renewing themselves, which is to say they remain ever mysterious.

Too often we resist ambiguity. Perhaps our lives are changing so fast that we long for stability somewhere, and because most of the reading we do is for instruction or information, we prefer it without shades of gray. We want it to be predictable and easy to digest. And so difficult poetry is the ultimate torment.

Some literary critics would link this as well to the power of seeing, to the relationship between subject and object. We wish the poem to be object so we can possess it through our "seeing" its internal workings. Torment, powerlessness—these are the desired ends? The issue is our reaction, how we shape our thoughts through words. We have to give up our material attitude, which makes us want to possess the poem. We have to cultivate a new mindset, a new practice of enjoying the inconclusive. Embracing ambiguity is a much harder task for some than for others.

Nothing scares some people like the idea even the idea of improvisation as a writing or analytical tool. Some actors hate being without a script; the same is true of some musicians. Ask even some excellent players to improvise and they start to sweat. Of course, actors and musicians will say that there is mystery in what they do with a script or a score, and it would be pointless to disagree. The point, after all, is that text is mysterious. Playing the same character night after night, an actor discovers something in the lines, some empathy for the character, that he or she had never felt before.

Playing or listening to a song for the hundredth time—if it is a great song—will yield new interpretation and discovery. So it is with great poetry.

More Texts by Edward Hirsch: From A Poet's Glossary. Philip Levine, On the Job. Shot Through with Brightness: The Poems of H. Prior Assumptions Most readers make three false assumptions when addressing an unfamiliar poem. William Carlos Williams wrote a verse addressed to his wife in the poem "January Morning,": Reading a Poem Aloud Before you get very far with a poem, you have to read it.

The Line What determines where a line stops in poetry? Starting the Conversation We mentioned earlier that encountering a difficult poem is like a game or sport, say rock climbing, that makes you work a bit. Talking Back to a Poem It would be convenient if there were a short list of universal questions, ones that could be used anytime with any poem. In the absence of such a list, here are a few general questions that you might ask when approaching a poem for the first time: Who is the speaker?

What circumstances gave rise to the poem? What situation is presented? Who or what is the audience? What is the tone? What form, if any, does the poem take?

How to Read a Poem | Academy of American Poets

How is form related to content? Is sound an important, active element of the poem? Does the poem spring from an identifiable historical moment? Does the poem speak from a specific culture? Does the poem have its own vernacular? Does the poem use imagery to achieve a particular effect? What kind of figurative language, if any, does the poem use? If the poem is a question, what is the answer?

If the poem is an answer, what is the question? What does the title suggest? Does the poem use unusual words or use words in an unusual way? Published in partnership with the Great Books Foundation.

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