After reading Renaissance poetry over the weekend, I definitely can relate to the feeling that poetry is difficult to understand. I spent half the time I was reading thinking: what is this about? What am I supposed to get from this author? For instance, I thought The Flea was an interesting commentary on taking something small and unimportant and investing it with grand powers of connection between people, but apparently, that was not the interpretation I was supposed to have. Which is depressing because I had actually gotten something out of it, but not the right something.
On the other hand, I have read poetry that I find really meaningful. Sometimes poetry can get the emotion of an idea across in a few words much better than an entire paragraph of text. Langston Hughes's "Dream Deffered" poem is only 51 words long. But it conveys the pain and suffering and disappointment caused by American racism. When the last line asks, "Or does it explode?" the reader sees Hughes's perspective on the possible result of oppression: rebellion.
But poems are only meaningful if you understand them and can relate to what they are saying. Part of the reason that the Renaissance poetry may seem difficult is because of the language and metaphors and outdated phrasing.
So I think we read poetry as a way to connect with other people, to see their experiences expressed in personal ways. But if we can't make those connections, it is hard to find the meaning in the poetry.
I liked your commentary and honesty about the effectiveness of poetry. You said some things that I really agreed with, especially when you said that its easier to understand if you can relate. I agree that meaning is key, and if we can't find meaning, then there is no point in reading a poem.
ReplyDeleteCasey, I definitely understand what you mean when you were talking about how you misunderstood the meaning of the poem even thought you thought you had found the meaning. Poetry tends to be difficult to understand, but I also think there's usually no "right" answer. One of the things I really like about poetry is that you can kind of take whatever meaning you find since there is no explicitly stated meaning within the poem. Everyone is just guessing what the poet was trying to convey, so there's no reason your interpretation has the potential to be any less right than another person's. I do agree, however, that there is poetry that is more meaningful to us than others. I find Renaissance poetry to be a bit distant and hard to connect to as well.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you talked about what you initially got out of reading the Flea and then how that was not what you were meant to get out of reading that poem. I know that when a poet writes a poem they are intending for it to mean one specific thing and that is what a class also wants you to get out of the poem, but I think that the magic of poetry is that different people get different things out of the same poem. Conversely, if you are just randomly pulling things out of poems that really aren't connected at all, I guess that's also bad. Who knows?
ReplyDeleteps. I also really like the "Dream Deferred" poem. I think I put it in my portfolio freshman or sophomore year, I can' t remember which one.