intro to poetry

In our introduction to the poetry unit we read two different poems to get a taste of the of what the next couple weeks will be like. It is going to take some getting used to. While I never fully understand a lot of the literature we read I find it to be much worse when working with poetry. It may be because of the structure; a lot of the time poems aren’t in full sentences and lack punctuation. This makes it difficult for me to capture the tone and attitude of the poet. We annotated and dissected both poems as a class which helps however I feel that when I did it on my own for our timed writing my analysis is not as deep. I also find that sometimes poems are centralized around one idea or theme, the moment of life the poem focuses on, and If I don’t understand this then I will struggle understanding the poem.

For example “in Just—“ by ee cummings takes place in the spring time. This is very important to the poem, it lays the setting and introduces the idea of youth and renewal. He reiterates that it is spring time multiple times through out the poem evidencing its importance. Cummings repetition of “spring” is critical to the poem and if this is overlooked or misinterpreted then the full meaning of the poem can be lost. This why I feel that I struggle with poetry because one word, like spring can make all of the difference, changing the entire tone of the poem. This close reading is something that we have worked on and hopefully in the future by noting the repetition of “spring” I will understand its importance and not miss any of the important meaning that the poet intended.

However what I did enjoy about the poetry is that to me, it is kind of like a puzzle. You have to search for meaning. All the literature we have read is like this however poetry seems like more of a mystery to me. It can be interpreted so many different ways that it is fun to try and discover all of the hidden meaning. I feel that with poetry it is more open to interpretation and unlike in other types of genres there is more freedom to interpret because there are not as many conflicting ideas or contradictory themes. Its almost like how deep can you go? How many connections can you make? It’s fun. It’s a challenge. Over all even though I am a little weary of poetry because it is intimidating I am excited because I know that the more exposure I get to it the better I will become at analyzing and the better I will become at solving the mystery behind each poem.