how can I understand poems?

[truth_forest]

I just start reading poems but I don't understand something.
what do I have to look for in poems, ex.point of view, theme or anything else?
plz help me... :confused:

[adilyoussef]

By reding about poetry stuffs: how poems are made and the way they are dealt with. And also by reading about the different schools, that will help you understand poetry better.

[tn2743]

I would also recommend following the 'Poem of the week' thread on this forum. It would help a great deal too. You can even post the poem that you don't understand; there are lots of experts here to help you (not me :) ).

[Petrarch's Love]

I just start reading poems but I don't understand something.
what do I have to look for in poems, ex.point of view, theme or anything else?
plz help me...

The short answer is that you don't absolutely have to look for anything in poems. Find what speaks to you in a poem and then worry about analysis if it appeals to you as a way to better understand things. If you're having trouble with poetry it might be helpful to pick a short poem and read it more than once. Read it through the first time and just listen to the way the words go together, note whatever impressions it gives you, emotions it stirs up, images that come to mind etc. without worrying about getting anything "right" (or even about fully understanding the poem's meaning). Think about what words or lines stand out without worrying too much about why. The second time you read it think about what the central meaning of the poem is. If you were going to set this poem down as straightforward prose, what would the meaning of it look like? The third time you read it think about how this literal meaning and the emotions and impressions you had are connected. How is it that the author has arranged his/her words both to get her/his message across and to affect the reader on an emotional level? Were the lines that stood out to you on your first reading also central to the meaning you articulated in your second reading? Is this because of a particularly interesting metaphor or image? Is it because of the specific words chosen (the author's diction)? These are just a few suggestions.

TN2743 has a good point about possibly looking in on the "Poem of the Week" thread. I'm sure everyone would be happy to welcome you if you wanted to come in and look around and maybe post a poem and your thoughts on it to see how other people react to the same poem (a new poem is traditionally posted each Monday). :) Best of luck with your reading of poetry.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I'll echo Petrarch's Love's (that looks really awkward, putting a double "apostrophe s" in like that!) comments above. Although I wouldn't worry too much about precisely what you look for on which reading of the poem. The important thing is that poems need to be read and reread; very few worthwhile poems give up their secrets on the first pass. You should look for all of the things mentioned above but don't worry if it takes 5 or 6 readings to come up with anything.

Leaving the poem alone for a while and coming back to it helps me a lot too; giving the subconscious a while to digest things.

I would also choose your poets carefully if you are new to poetry. Leave Yeats, Eliot and Pound alone for the time being. Try some of the more accessible writers. I find the likes of Tennyson, Wilfred Owen, Keats and D H Lawrence to be reasonably straightforward, while still requiring some work from the reader.

Also, invest in a poetry compendium with commentries on the poems included. But do read each poem through a few times first to try and stir your own ideas before looking at the accepted explanations. This will help you to know the kinds of things to look for when you embark on your own.

Above all, reading poetry takes almost as much skill and effort as writing the stuff. Don't get disheartened if you don't 'get it' all in one go. There are poems I've been reading for years that I suddenly find something new in on a fresh read; what you bring to them can be as important as what you take from them sometimes.

And last but by no means least - Enjoy it! :nod:

[free]

I just start reading poems but I don't understand something.
what do I have to look for in poems, ex.point of view, theme or anything else?
plz help me... :confused:


In poems you can find whatever you want. They are written in such a way that you, as in music or in paintings, can find 'the beyond'. They are like life - have many sides, many faces, many meanings... Their style, form, tools are used to be expressive, too. For instance, rhythm is in the service of what the poet wants to express: joy or sadness or thoughtfulness...

[MorpheusSandman]

You learn poetry like you learn any discipline: study and experience. There are plenty of "Introduction to Poetry" textbooks out there. Buy one and work your way through it, and continue to read and think about what you read.

[sandy14]

It will get easier as you go along. The trick is to enjoy the journey, there are a lot of destinations. You don't have to like every poem you read and you don't have to understand everyone either - you can always come back to it later, and sometimes it takes time.

Don't dwell too much on poems you "don't get". It will come with time, and if it doesn't it is no great loss - there's thousands of them out there, and like music, and flavours of ice-cream, they are not to everyone's taste. I tend to binge on a particular style and then move onto another. I started with the romantics, moved to the Beats, then to Larkin, then the New British Poetry revival with some Australian and Imagist stuff on the way.

[Frostball]

Talk about a necro! One thing mentioned a couple of times in the 7 years old posts is a poem of the week thread. We don't seem to have that going on anymore. Why not? While I might not have much to add to a discussion on a poem of the week thread, I'd love to read one. It'd be very cool if somebody could bring it back.

[virtuoso]

You need to do a close reading of the poems you read. Go line by line, and extrapolate clauses and phrases. Analyze them in isolation to get a deeper meaning, significance, then read the stanza to broaden the picture, context. After parsing the individual stanzas, then read the whole poem a number of times to sync the ideas together. If a word is not in your vocabulary, then look it up!

[youngsquire]

In my opinion there are two sides of poetry: psychological and emotional. Both are very subjective and both can be interpreted entirely differently from person to person. When it comes to the psychological side, most poetry is very esoteric and hard to interpret (ex. Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams) but others are very easy to understand (ex. Bukowski, Creeley) But poetry isn't JUST about communicating ideas. They aren't stories or essays. Think of them as pieces of music made to convey different feelings and emotions. For example: I like poems that I don't understand fully, but maybe I'm not supposed to, maybe all the writer wanted to do was to make the reader feel (BTW you don't understand all of the lyrics in the songs you like do you? But you like them anyway because they make you feel a certain way). Anyway, my point is that: yes, it might be fun to pick apart poetry to death until you begin to understand the meaning of every line, but is that really what poetry is all about? I like to think of poetry as interpretations of emotions -- which we can not convey to others in any other way.

[WoodMarc]

I think there are three main reasons why poems might be difficult to understand:

Probably the most common one is that they may refer to people, things, politics etc that you are not familiar with, so you don't understand the allusions and references. In this case it helps to read about the history of the time the poet was living, and to read biographies of the poet.

Secondly, the poet may be using language in a way that is unfamiliar to you. This may be because of distance in time, or else they may be doing it wilfully, for effect. It may also happen as result of the need to fit in with metrical patterns. Getting to grips with this seems to get easier naturally the more you read. After a year or two of reading poetry, this difficulty will be much diminished.

Thirdly, the poet may be writing about genuinely complicated and difficult metaphysical, philosophical or psychological ideas. If this is the case then you will probably need to get hold of some good critical writing about the poets work.

Poets differ widely in the extent to which each of these different areas may present a problem for you. I would suggest that you start with poets that you find easier to understand, read a lot about poetry, and let your interest develop and take you were it will.