Poetry is not Prose, and Thus Should Not be Devoured as Such

[ScribbleScribe]

The title for this thread, is my premise. I think i've discovered that I am unable to read poetry like I do prose, either for lack of reading it often, or the denser nature of it.

I read a poetry book once. It took me months. I'd keep it in my back-pack and drew it out every day, trying to decipher the meanings of individual poems one by one. There were 80 poems in that little book, but, you see, I was determined to read it because the father of my best friend who had passed away, gave it to me after my friend died. So, I took this poetry book quite seriously.

The name of it was Elegy by Mary Jo Bang if anyone is curious as to which poetry book I'm referring to.

Now I am slogging my way through a bit of Emily Dickinson, and I'm trying to read it like I would a prose book, one straight shot, right through. I'm finding it difficult to do, if not impossible. I'm going to have to read the wikipedia article on Emily to try and understand her poetry better. And, poke around the Dickinson section here on the forum.

But anyways, does anyone else find poetry harder to digest than prose? Am I the only one? If you, like me, find it difficult do you think it is because we arent exposed to poetry as much as prose?

[Patrick_Bateman]

Anyone who doesn't agree with you or who can relate to your problems to some extent is a filthy liar.
Poetry is difficult. But usually the hardest nuts to crack are usually the sweetest.

It always helps to have a context for a poem, know about who has written it and during what epoch. That is if you want to seriously analyse a work.

[ScribbleScribe]

It always helps to have a context for a poem, know about who has written it and during what epoch. That is if you want to seriously analyse a work.

I do this with prose (research it I mean, to get a deeper understanding of where it's coming from), and I knew what the poems in Elegy were about (grief, mourning and the aftermath of a suicide), so I guess that was easier than Emily seems to be.

Geh Guess there's no time like the present to research her. Here I go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson

Anyone who doesn't agree with you or who can relate to your problems to some extent is a filthy liar.

Oh and I found this hilarious (the filthy liar part)! Thanks for the laugh.

[Patrick_Bateman]

I do the same with everything i read also.

If wikipedia or some other website has chapter by chapter analyses, then I usually review chapters I've just read on there (like with the master and margarita) for fear I have missed anything.

I hate the idea of having read something and possibly overlooked anything remotely important.

[ScribbleScribe]

I do the same with everything i read also.

If wikipedia or some other website has chapter by chapter analyses, then I usually review chapters I've just read on there (like with the master and margarita) for fear I have missed anything.

I hate the idea of having read something and possibly overlooked anything remotely important.

Some people would point out that wikipedia isnt reliable to research with but...it's a start, no?

Personally, I just hate the idea of having read something and not giving it the wholeness and roundness it deserves. You can read the words which the author has written, but until you understand things like history, literary movements and the author's own personal history, the words remain just that, words. Although words can touch you on their own, they can make you think, change your perspective on things, and make you feel validated if you come across a character who reminds you of yourself.

*shrug*

[JCamilo]

No, its a matter of trainning. Modern readers are exposed to simple forms of prose since day one. The same cannt be said about poetry.
There is no reason to believe Proust, Kafka, Joyce, Kant, etc are not difficult, demanding,etc than a couple of sonnets.

[Alexander III]

Yes poetry is harder, but for the mere reason that for the last thousand years it was the highest form of literature, all else was weaker and simply not as strong. prose being vulgar and common, any barbarian being able to speak or write it. In the 20th century prose was elevated to a new level were it was finally a worth rival to verse. Nonetheless most 20th century writers should be read such as verse, Proust and Fitzgerald off the top of my head, if you read them as prose not poesy most of it is lost.

[stlukesguild]

Poetry is not Prose, and Thus Should Not be Devoured as Such

The title for this thread, is my premise. I think i've discovered that I am unable to read poetry like I do prose, either for lack of reading it often, or the denser nature of it.

I read a poetry book once. It took me months. I'd keep it in my back-pack and drew it out every day, trying to decipher the meanings of individual poems one by one...

Now I am slogging my way through a bit of Emily Dickinson, and I'm trying to read it like I would a prose book, one straight shot, right through. I'm finding it difficult to do, if not impossible.

All art involves a vocabulary that must be learned. The idea of the play... humans pretending to be another character... baffled many (including entire cultures) long after the Greeks "invented" theater. The novel involved a degree of a suspension of disbelief that many found challenging at first. Poetry involves the use of language that is quite often far more dense... far more complex and carefully thought out than prose. Poets choose words not only for a very specific meaning, but also to fit the rhythm and the rhyme and simply for the sound. Poetry has an internal "music".

Reading poetry, like reading any other genre, involves experience with the forms and the vocabulary. One might also do well to recognize that the goal of poetry is not to say something in a difficult manner (as if it were but a riddle). In other words, getting the "meaning" is not necessarily the goal of reading poetry. Quite often there is not a single "meaning", and even more frequently, one may discern multiple "meanings". Just as knowing the ingredients in a meal is not the same as appreciating the experience of eating that meal, "getting" what you suppose to be the "meaning" is not the same as truly appreciating the poem as a poem.

But anyways, does anyone else find poetry harder to digest than prose? Am I the only one? If you, like me, find it difficult do you think it is because we arent exposed to poetry as much as prose?

This is quite likely. As children we are exposed frequently to poetry through childrens' books: Dr Seuss, Lewis Carroll, etc... Sadly, as we grow older, the emphasis is placed upon a pragmatic approach to literacy as practical form of communication. Poetry, which stresses language as art is of far less concern. This combined with the dominance of the novel in our culture has resulted in very few who are literate when it comes to reading poetry (which is painfully all too obvious in threads such as the ones concerning the "poetry" of pop song lyrics).

Anyone who doesn't agree with you or who can relate to your problems to some extent is a filthy liar.

Not necessarily. I find that I am just as fluent in reading poetry as I am in reading prose... for the simple reason that my reading largely centers upon poetic writings. On my desk beside me I have three volumes of Dante's Comedia, The Gospels of Thomas, The Poems of Ryokan, the Tao te Ching, J.L. Borges' Dreamtigers, T.S. Eliot's Selected Poems, Richard Howard's Inner Voices: Selected Poems, The Poems of Robert Herrick, and Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka from Akiko Yosano. Almost all of these books are collections of poetry... or poetic writings. Again, it is like learning any language. Reading French or reading music is difficult when you are inexperienced... yet you become increasingly fluent with time and experience.

[ScribbleScribe]

Yes poetry is harder, but for the mere reason that for the last thousand years it was the highest form of literature, all else was weaker and simply not as strong. prose being vulgar and common

Was there a bestseller list for poetry? o.o

This reminds me of when I was forced to read epic poetry in english lit classes (Beowulf, The Odessy [sp?] )

Did literature start to change once Shakespeare began to write plays in prose you think?

[JCamilo]

Shakespeare did not wrote plays in prose. He wrote as dramatic poetry. And no. The change starts with Cervantes, technology and journalism that was the first form to satisfy the flux of new readers not coming from noble or clerical class.

[ScribbleScribe]

Shakespeare did not wrote plays in prose. He wrote as dramatic poetry. And no. The change starts with Cervantes, technology and journalism that was the first form to satisfy the flux of new readers not coming from noble or clerical class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes

Oh so that's who wrote Don Quixote.

I had to look up who Cervantes was.

[stlukesguild]

I must agree. The change really starts with Cervantes and the birth of the novel in Europe. Into the 18th and 19th century poetry still dominates. Samuel Johnson, Swift (in spite of Gulliver's Travels), Pope, and others looked down upon the novel as the bastard child... perhaps not unlike the theater of Shakespeare's time, and TV in our own era. The novel doesn't begin to challenge poetry until the mid/late 19th century and the great novelists: Hugo, Tolstoy, Dickens, James, Melville, Flaubert, etc... and in some instances one recognizes that the greatest prose takes on elements of poetic language (Melville, Flaubert, Joyce, Faulkner, Proust, etc...)

[stlukesguild]

I had to look up who Cervantes was.

That reminds me of my first year in art school. I was sitting behind a couple of less studious guys in the 8:00 AM art history class. One turned to the other and asked, "Did you read the chapter in the textbook?" The other replied, "Yeah, It was all about that Raphael guy. I don't know who he was, but he must be kinda important; he's got like 20 or so pages in the book."

[JCamilo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes

Oh so that's who wrote Don Quixote.

I had to look up who Cervantes was.

OK, Godbless wikipedia. Without it nobody would know who Cervantes was.

[stlukesguild]

Makes for a great new thread: "How did you first discover Cervantes?"