Culture Lost
Posted in Academic Pursuits and tagged with Poetry on August 3, 2009
I feel like a fairly literary, cultured person. Sure I may watch a bit too much reality television and listen to too much Black Eyed Peas, but I get a regular intake of literature as old as our country and music from the Renaissance. But there is one part of “culture” and literature that I just. don’t. get. (And no, I’m not talking about opera, though I suppose I could be.)
Ready?
I don’t like poetry.
Maybe it’s more that I don’t get poetry. I like symbolism and imagery and the like, so I guess I like poetic language, but not actual poetry. Sometimes I want to ask, “Just exactly what are you trying to say, and can you please just say it?” Perhaps it’s the rationalist in me that doesn’t like the fluff.
Can you help me out? If you enjoy poetry, what’s your favorite poem/poet? What do you like about it?
Photo by MShades
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:01 am
I’m not a huge poetry person either. But I do like songs, which is basically poetry put to music.
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:28 am
I LOVE Browning, Milay, and Dickinson. Odd I know.
One of my most favorite poems though is Annabel Lee by Poe. I had to memorize it for 7th grade English and I can still recite it to this day. Perfect meter, perfect prose, just perfect. I’m a little morbid like that though.
Bet all that just gave you pause about me huh? The things I don’t share. ;)
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:01 am
You won’t find me reading poetry, but it’s not to say that I don’t like it. I like a couple ones. One that I recently heard, and really liked (and there are MANY variations of it,no idea who the writer is or where it came from) is this one:
Ladies and Gentlemen, skinny and stout,
I’ll tell you a tale I know nothing about;
The Admission is free, so pay at the door,
Now pull up a chair and sit on the floor.
One fine day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight;
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.
A blind man came to watch fair play,
A mute man came to shout “Horray!”
A deaf policeman heard the noise and
Came to stop those two dead boys.
He lived on the corner in the middle of the block,
In a two-story house on a vacant lot;
A man with no legs came walking by,
and kicked the lawman in his thigh.
He crashed through a wall without making a sound,
into a dry creek bed and suddenly drowned;
The long black hearse came to cart him away,
But he ran for his life and is still gone today.
I watched from the corner of the big round table,
The only eyewitness to facts of my fable;
But if you doubt my lies are true,
Just ask the blind man, he saw it too
I know it’s probably not the kind of poetry you’re talking about but I just had to share it. It’s kind of morbid but I really like it. :)
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:52 am
wow. the comments so far are interesting! I like poetry…not enough to quote or recite or memorize them and not enough to have a favorite, but I could read it. I’m wondering if your simply not impatient. I tend to have that same feeling when people “beat around the bush”. I just want to say, “whatever it is you want to say, spit it out!” I’ve found that in that way I’m impatient and not respectful of how the other person expresses him/herself. Just a though :-)
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:53 am
i just realized i misspelled twice in that comment. It’s the cloudy beach weather that’s doing it….
Twitter: caitysparkles
Says:
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:34 am
Hey, nothing wrong with that. Everyone has something that they don’t like. I tend to like corny poetry that basically tells a story. That’s the kind of poetry I always find myself writing. Once in a while I enjoy imagery and metaphors but I have to be in the right mood otherwise I get frustrated. I was a math major, not an english major. :P
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:35 am
I can take poetry in doses :)
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:44 am
I was actually surprised to hear you say this. I just assumed you would like poetry.
That aside, I don’t like poetry and I don’t get poetry. At all! I bought Children’s Shakespeare where they have the stories in novel-type form as much for myself as for my children, because I just don’t get them.
I also read Job and Psalms in the Bible from The Message, because otherwise, I get nothing out of them. People love the Psalms. For the most part, I never have. I just couldn’t make anything out of the mush that I was reading. After I started reading them in The Message they made more sense.
I think I’m just too left-brain for poetry. At least that’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:11 am
@Kristina: I like songs as well. I guess I can get into the lyrics because I hear them over and over again. I guess I’d get more poetry if I committed to reading it multiple times and really pondering it. But that somehow feels like keeping a bite of food in your mouth too long to get all the flavor out…yuck!
@Smoochiefrog: I’m going to check out Annabel Lee. I’ve read some of Poe’s stuff before, and I kinda like his cadence.
@SleepyJane: That IS the type of poetry I can handle…I love all the plays on words!
@Elizabeth: Just go ahead and blame your spelling on vacation. Still won’t make me feel sorry for you! Perhaps it’s impatience, but I think it’s just being analytical. I’m going to follow Kayren and say that I’m too left-brained. Don’t even mention that I’m a lefty and therefore should be right-brained…I’m definitely a conflicting mix of both!
@Caity: I can handle poetry that tells a story. I’ve written poetry like that in the past.
@Jennifer: It’s kinda like medicine, isn’t it?
@Kayren: I do enjoy reading the Psalms. The imagery helps. But Hebrew poetry is so much different than our poetry, AND it’s been translated.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:32 am
I read a few blogs that the writers are poets. Some times I get them other times I’m just left wondering. Especially since we don’t know each other personally, I always wonder what what the hidden meaning is.
♥
Joy
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:42 am
Poetry speaks to our souls – our spirits. It is the language of emotion.
You could try Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, ee cummings, Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Pablo Neruda, Christina Rossetti ….
So many wonderful poets!
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I enjoy poetry, but can’t think of any favorites off-hand. I find that I need to read poetry aloud or have it read to me. I need the sound of it to fully appreciate it.
Twitter: mayangelstar
Says:
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:49 pm
I’m not a big poetry reader. I tend to agree with you, just spit it out. I’m not a fan of trying to dissect something to figure out the meaning. That being said, there is some stuff out there that I like, can’t think of it off the top of my head, but it’s out there.
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I love poetry, though I can get why some people just aren’t into it. Poetry tends be one those things that either you love, are indifferent to, or hate.
Emily Dickinson is one of my favorite poets. One of my favorite poems by her goes:
“Bless God, he went as soldiers,
His musket on his breast;
Grant, God, he charge the bravest
Of all the martial blest.
Please God, might I behold him
In epauletted white,
I should not fear the foe then,
I should not fear the fight.”
I’ve loved this one since high school.
August 3rd, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Poetry is one of those things you either get or don’t get. I don’t think anyone’s convincing you one way or another is going to help. Sorry. :(
August 3rd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Oh my goodness! I could have written this post. I just don’t GET poetry either. I’ve always thought it was because I’m not smart (or perhaps literary) enough. But I think you might be on to something with your “rational” comment. I am a very rational, scientific, realistic person. Poetry is probably just not compatible with my personality. I feel smarter already!
August 3rd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
I like some poetry, but I too want it to be something I can understand and also relate to!
August 3rd, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Oh darling I was an English major and I still do not like most of it. It is an are for made to be inacessable.
August 3rd, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Not a poetry fan either. Once in a while, something will strike a chord, but I don’t buy the sheet music… so to speak :)
August 3rd, 2009 at 6:57 pm
@Joy: Exactly. I’m trying to figure out what the hidden meaning is, and likely reading way more into it than really exists.
@Lady Fi: Perhaps, but I think prose can, too. Prose moves me frequently, poetry moves me sometimes.
@Yolanda: See, I don’t know what that means. I guess poetry is like art, much more appreciated when someone explains it to you. I mean that seriously. I disliked art museums until a teacher walked me through the Prado explaining the history behind the paintings. I totally loved that!
@Kim: No, but maybe if I had a tutor of sorts to hold me by the hand and walk through it. Perhaps an eligible, godly man would be best? ;)
@Pam: That’s the best explanation that I can come up with. I can appreciate many a novel, but poetry is beyond me.
@Michelle: That makes me feel better!
@Lynda: Love the analogy!
August 3rd, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Oh, and ironically I thought of a line of poetry as I drove home from work today.
Twitter: One_Mom
Says:
August 3rd, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Very little poetry I care for. I like Robert Frost, but his poems seemed more like stories to me.
“Whose woods these are I think I know,
his house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here
to watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
-Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, 1923.
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Try Maya Angelou. The best way to get into poetry is to read her first memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Literature as fluid as poetry, because Angelou is a poet, after all. After you’ve finished the book, try Angelou’s poetry. I can’t guarantee, but you might come close to “getting” it!
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I can see what you mean, but poetry is an art form, like Impressionism or Surrealism, where the meaning may only mean something to the author. That’s the dangerous ground for me. If you’re going to create something, for public consumption, that only you understand it really shouldn’t be published. That’s like taking a Kindergartner’s work and putting it on display as art. There’s little meaning, only static. So, I guess I like poetry if there’s a discernable meaning to it. Kinda like Shell Silverstein. I remember reading his poetry as a kid and being proud of myself for getting it, even though I knew it was written for kids (and the young at heart, I can’t wait to read it with Reagan).
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I do not understand poetry. I have generally attributed this fact to the fact that I have the brain of an engineer and cannot read abstractly. I can appreciate the surface poetry, but do not understand the deeper meaning.
August 4th, 2009 at 12:33 am
Well, here’s the thing…..(laughing)…..since I quoted some of George MacDonald’s poetry in my blog yesterday I’d have to say I DO like poetry. Not all of it, not just anything. It has to speak to me. But when it speaks it can often say something that can’t be said in any other way. I keep a Robert Frost quote on my desk and it always carries me away to a beautiful place, and creates this full feeling in my chest:
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I,
I took the one less traveled by
and that has made all the difference.”
Plus, I recently entered a poetry contest so we’ll see if most of the people who read my entry feel like you. I’ll be sunk! :)
August 4th, 2009 at 2:48 am
this is a real shocker, and i’m being completely serious but.. i don’t like poetry either.
August 4th, 2009 at 8:17 am
One of the most boring classes I took in college was a literature class where we had to study poetry for about half a semester. Funny enough, I was the only person to pass the quizzes and exams with an A. While I enjoy reading a good poem, I am not the least bit interested in analyzing it and trying to figure out what the poet was trying to say.
That said, two of my favorite poets are Emily Dickinsen and Maya Angelou.
August 4th, 2009 at 9:29 am
OneMom: I do like Robert Frost. But like you said, they’re story-like. I can get them.
@Melissa: I’ve never read any Maya Angelou. She’s going on my list!
@Robynn: I hope that judges in a poetry contest would LIKE poetry!
August 4th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I love poetry, but perhaps because I often consider myself somewhat of a poet. It obviously takes more thought than just reading a novel or short story, but it’s so beautiful and can take on so many meanings. But poetry is seriously not for everyone, and that’s perfectly fine.
Robert Frost certainly tops my list though, with Emily Dickinson coming in a close second. Very different, yet both convey so much meaning. I could list so many more, but they are great ones to start with as well.
August 9th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Here are two of my favorites. The first is kind of a poem, but really more of a prayer. It was in the Bible that I received for my fifth birthday – I think it separated the Old Testament from the New.
I thank you Lord for all the good that comes each happy day
For pleasant homes and gentle friends, for restful sleep and play.
I thank you for the birds and trees that make the summer fair,
for shining stars and rippling streams, for winter’s tingling air
If I forget to name one thing You give to me, why then,
With my whole heart, I thank you, Lord, for that thing too. Amen.
(Imelda Shanklin)
My second is “i thank you God for this most amazing” by e.e. cummings. The fact that he uses neither capitalization nor appropriate punctuation makes me uncomfortable, but I think that is a lot of why I like his poetry as well.