Don't think I can hack contemporary poetry...

[mousefeather]

I have a hard time with contemporary poetry. The lack of a definite rhythm sort of messes up my internal metronome, I guess. I'm not trying to debate which kind of poetry is greater, I just want to know if anyone else has this problem.
Don't get me wrong, contemporary poems can probably be beautiful in their own light, but I feel like I need rhyming words to enter into a trance-like state and actually feel the poem.
Again, I'm just curious to see if anyone else feels this way. Thanks! :)

[quasimodo1]

To mousefeather: Lots of people feel that way. There's no obligation to get it or try to get it, even if you are a Lit. major (well maybe a little bit if you are a lit major). q1

[JBI]

Try New Formalist poetry. Even then, there are still many form writers writing today. Vikram Seth is the first one that comes to mind.

[JBI]

Here is a sample, will also post this on contemporary thread:

Heart's Needle
by W. D. Snodgrass

For Cynthia

When Suibhe would not return to fine garments and good food, to his houses and his people, Loingseachan told him, "Your father is dead." "I'm sorry to hear it," he said. "Your mother is dead," said the lad. "All pity for me has gone out of the world." "Your sister, too, is dead." "The mild sun rests on every ditch," he said; "a sister loves even though not loved." "Suibhne, your daughter is dead." "And an only daughter is the needle of the heart." "And Suibhne, your little boy, who used to call you 'Daddy' he is dead." "Aye," said Suibhne, "that's the drop that brings a man to the ground."
He fell out of the yew tree; Loingseachan closed his arms around him and placed him in manacles.

—after The Middle-Irish Romance
The Madness of Suibhne

1

Child of my winter, born
When the new fallen soldiers froze
In Asia's steep ravines and fouled the snows,
When I was torn

By love I could not still,
By fear that silenced my cramped mind
To that cold war where, lost, I could not find
My peace in my will,

All those days we could keep
Your mind a landscape of new snow
Where the chilled tenant-farmer finds, below,
His fields asleep

In their smooth covering, white
As quilts to warm the resting bed
Of birth or pain, spotless as paper spread
For me to write,

continued here: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15302

[mousefeather]

Thanks for the nice samples! :)

[mousefeather]

And just a side note: I think I almost cried the day that our student teacher basically pushed contemporary poetry on us, as if no other form existed.

[sprinks]

I agree, I struggle a bit more to really grasp the point of the poem and really get into it if it doesn't have much rhyme and rhythm. But I think maybe that is because for about 9 years of schooling thats the ONLY type of poetry we really learnt about, then last year we looked at contemporary poetry a bit, and a LOT of it this year.

[JBI]

Heh, only way to get better at reading poetry is to read it, and lots of criticism of it. After reading Northrop Frye I think I grasp poetry better than ever.