Blog #2 A Reflection on the Poetics of Poetry

 

Poetry. I love poetry. I love the appreciation of poetry. Reading, analyzing and writing poetry are three different things that somehow all play into each other. A poem can be read and simply appreciated. The reader can love the way the words made them feel, the words used, or the structure. Analyzing poetry is a bit more involved. There’s a whole language about poetry that needs to be learned before any analysis can take place. There’s counting and math attached to this learning process. This is the time when true understanding of artistry takes place. Poems are not cutesy, rhyming little ditties. They are serious work. Words like stanza, assonance, tetrameter, and quatrain become imperative to learn. It becomes apparent just how much work it takes when it’s time to write about poetry. Explication can only take place after a deep analytical process. Everything that is discovered in the analyzation then begins to help form an understanding of what was read. Writing about poetry is sometimes difficult because you’re trying to write about a feeling. Sometimes there are no proper words to describe how something makes you feel. When writing an explication, the structure is broken apart, the words analyzed. The poem can mean one thing to the author and two hundred years later something completely different to the reader.

Applying these elements in writing my own poetry was difficult to say the least. Trying to find a subject to write about made me hesitant. I have plenty of things to write about, but trying to choose words to express what I was trying to convey was more difficult than I had planned. The poetry had to flow. I found an awkwardness in words and how they played together. Then there was structure and rhyme. The timeframe to create the poems was small. It required a great deal of thought on my part, and yet, I was unable to follow through on my ideas. I feel like I ended up with the basest rhymes and a lackluster result. I think I need a great deal of practice to achieve a poem that I would be proud to present to the public. I am a better reader of poetry for fun than a reader for intention to interpret or create.

I learned that poetry is difficult to write. I am not fully sure I understand all it takes to write the simplest appearing verse. Poetry is definitely more difficult that it appears and does not get the respect that it deserves. If I were to teach poetry, I’d make sure I’d start with vocabulary and the exploration of words. A foundation of words and their synonyms and antonyms is an advantage. I think the next important element, the element that gets the least attention is the syllabics. What is stressed and unstressed. Practicing the application and usage of stressed and unstressed syllables would help to play with meter and offer the ability to play with sound. I think poetic vocabulary can come later when both of those elements are understood. I suppose the foundation of teaching poetry to any grade is comfort with writing, even if no one else sees it. Regular journaling is a good way to get in touch with oneself to learn how to express feeling and also learning how to bend the written word.