In honor of National Poetry Month, our Executive Director, Christine Wilson, is excited to help you get started on your journey of reading poetry!
When you get together with a friend, you don’t lay out an agenda and follow a formula. You experience each other. You dialogue. What’s happening with you will impact how you hear your friend, which in turn sparks your friend to respond. Poetry is your friend.
With that in mind, there is no right or wrong way to read a poem. If you are just getting started or want to connect with it more, these are some hints from someone who avidly reads poetry, talks to poets, and reads essays about poetry and reading poetry. Yes, I’m a poetry dork.
- Speaker vs. Poet. When discussing poetry, name the voice as the speaker. Never assume that the “I” in a poem is the poet. Just like fiction, poets can put themselves in someone else’s shoes like a mask or make up a character from whose perspective they write.
- Like a song, not an essay. Some parts might not make sense at first read or ever. A song can make you feel a way without you actually knowing the lyrics. A big part of poetry is its musicality. The sound and rhythm of the words. Ask yourself how the poem makes you feel, not just what it makes you think.
- Notice the Details Most poets spend more time editing than they do writing. Choices to end a line, indent a line, remove whole lines, and word choices are very intentional. There are no strict rules for writing a poem, but every poem does follow its own rules. Look for the logic of the poem or ask why the poet made the choices they did.
- Read it more than once. First, read for how it feels, flows, or makes you feel. Second, read for understanding. What is it saying? This might take a slow read. Then, read the poem one last time straight through for the full effect. Or 10 more times. I return to poems to find things I missed all the time. Like discovering something new about a very old friend.
- Read it out loud. Poems are meant to be heard. Reading it in your mind, you miss out on the sound. Whenever possible, speak it!
- No one poem will change your life. Poetry has slowly done a deep and contemplative work in me. Give reading it often a chance. Best to bring expectancy, not expectations. Slow down and be with each poem. The only way one poem can change your life is if you return to it over and over.
- Let it expand you. If you only read a poem for what it says to you, you are missing out. A poem usually has hidden nuggets that you only receive by looking for what the poet is saying. Listen to the poet, don’t ignore parts you don’t like, question it. Only then, can you expand into a new understanding.
- There is one absolute rule. If you don’t know a word, look it up! Poets use obscure words on purpose, and they are often the key to understanding the poem. Really, look it up.
- Guess. Don’t “get” the poem? Ask yourself is there a part of me that does “get” it? Poems, unlike essays, are provocative in more ways than you would expect. Unexpected word combos have a vibe even when they don’t make sense logically. Use that right side of the brain, not just the left, like looking at abstract art.
- Write on it. The biggest compliment you can give a poet is to underline and make comments on the page. I find patterns this way that often reveal something more. Poets love patterns.
- Reading poetry makes you sexier. I wish. But it does make the world sexier. Meaning that the work it takes to sit with a poem and what it observes in the world will begin to affect how you see art, novels, words, and even an ad. Be sexy, read poetry.
- Enjoy. These are just tips. You don’t have to like or connect with an entire poem. Just delight in a phrase or a word. And honestly, that’s enough. Just enjoy.