On Speaking Terms
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012 by
Permalink for this paragraph 2 Reading the chapter about new criticism along with the William Blake poems was interesting for me because I have always preferred novels, short stories, or almost anything else over poetry. This was mostly due to the fact that I could never really find any meaning. I mean I was able to identify a few symbols or the main idea, but on the whole poetry baffled me. This was mostly due to the fact that while I could analyze longer works because I could afford to ignore a phrase now and again. When reading poetry, however, every word counts and I have always felt as though I miss something important when I read a poem.
Permalink for this paragraph 1 When I read a poem I used to read the entire thing and try to decipher it, or occasionally I would pick out a line which particularly struck me. However, the new critical way of looking at poetry has helped me to start to get a feel for poetry. Looking at the poem in smaller chunks such as stanzas, lines or even picking out individual words makes meaning much easier to find for me. This new way of looking at poetry may be the start of a relationship, if not beautiful, is at least on speaking terms, between poetry and myself.
sevescott
I would have to agree with you about preference of reading material. I always find it difficult to get excited about reading poetry. There always seems to be an underlying meaning, which meant much more intense reading and, most likely, re-reading. Poetry also seems to insinuate multiple meanings and it’s hard to get my head around all of those different meanings for one simple word or phrase. Although, it’s hard to understand which words are important in poetry, especially if the reader is supposed to look at each word is important.
For me, poetry is my favorite thing to analyze because I can reread it one hundred times and decide what each word means to me. When I read literature I feel it becomes a part of my thoughts and my identity (not to be overly dramatic). But when one reads longer prose, words and sentences are bound to be overlooked and that is what dislike about it. I like absorbing a poem and letting it speak to me with each word.