But she rarely reads poetry.
Another longtime friend runs through suspense thrillers like the “Jack Reacher” books, enjoys Civil War history, and consumes up to a dozen online essays and articles daily but, once again, never cracks open a book of verse. His avoidance of poetry seems due less to aversion than to apathy. He simply never considers taking a look at Shakespeare, Kipling, Emily Dickinson, or Edna St. Vincent Millay, poets whose work can move and entertain me.
Others I’ve known—students and acquaintances—would no more think of opening a book of poetry than they would of diving into a waterless swimming pool. Others openly dislike poetry, a hangover of animosity from their schooldays when poring over Shakespeare’s blank verse or deciphering Wallace Stevens’s “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” was akin to death by a thousand cuts.
Why Poetry?
This antipathy baffles those of us who find so many treasures—entertainment, hope, wisdom, and more—in the vast storehouse of poetry. Christina Rossetti’s elegiac “Remember” comforted us when we lost a loved one to death. Henley’s “Invictus” put steel in our spine when we needed endurance and courage. We looked to Kipling’s “If-” for guidance when young and to Tennyson’s “Ulysses” when old. We shared Cummings’s “somewhere i have never travelled” with a beloved who became our spouse, and Ogden Nash’s “Common Cold” can still fetch a laugh.In our age of texts and memes, some find poetry’s compression of thought and feeling attractive when compared with prose.
Many poems, from the well-known to the obscure, deposit words and lines, fragments of thought and emotion, in our minds. These are noble sentiments that reflect truth, beauty, and goodness. These stick with us and may even influence our view of life and the world.
Digital Resources
Search online for “How to read a poem,” and you’ll find an abundance of resources at your fingertips. Some of these articles are aimed at the general reader, while others offer assistance to students seeking help in digging out the meaning of a certain poem or learning more about poetry techniques, like rhyme scheme or blank verse. I like the Society of Classical Poets site, and I frequently visit the Poetry Foundation with its enormous collection of poems and essays.One easy way to begin reading poetry is to sign up with a poem-a-day provider. Every day, a poem will appear in your mailbox. Many of these feature new poets.
Anthologies
Your public library should offer a number of verse collections. They are ideal for browsing poems and poets, and seeing what catches your eye. The “Norton Anthology of Poetry, 6th Edition,” for example, contains more than 1,800 poems and is a teaching tool often used in universities. More specialized works run the gamut from Dover’s “Great Love Poems” to “The New Oxford Book of War Poetry.”
Small Is a Smart Start
Just as you start trying to shape up with a walk around the block, you’ll do best by starting with short pieces of verse when beginning your exploration. They’re easier on the attention span, are usually simple in their meaning, and let you run a sprint rather than a poetical marathon.For all your days prepare, And meet them ever alike; When you are the anvil, bear— When you are the hammer, strike.
Search online for “famous short poems,” and you’ll find plenty of choices. Emma Baldwin’s bouquet of “25 Short Famous Classic Poems” will get you off to a great start.Follow Your Heart
Look for poems and poets whose interests match your own. In my younger days, some of my go-to poets were Kipling, A.E. Housman, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.Read Aloud
Poems were made for reading aloud. The rhythms and rhymes are for the ear as much as for the eye. Not so long ago, before electronic entertainment like radio, television, and computers came along, our ancestors often gathered in a parlor and read poems and stories as a family. We can easily do the same, or even read aloud when solitary.This read-aloud strategy is a great way to make a poem your own and to take the greatest pleasure in doing so.
Open Brain, Insert Poem
Another way to make the poem a part of yourself is to memorize it. The words and, even more importantly, the inspiration are then available if and when you need them.Explore, Explore, and Have Some Fun
This last suggestion is for all those readers who came away from some high school or university literature class vowing never to read another poem. Dissection killed any love they might have felt for verse. That critical approach belongs to serious students of literature, but the rest of us should heed the cautionary “Introduction to Poetry” by former poet laureate of the United States Billy Collins. Here is how not to read a poem:I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.
April brings us National Poetry Month. With schools, libraries, and bookstores all joining in this celebration, now’s the perfect time to take the leap and give yourself over to the joys and pleasures of poetry.
