I’ve been reading a little bit of poetry lately: Adrienne Rich, Dorothy Porter, Elizabeth Bishop, Mary Oliver. Also that Czeslaw Milosz anthology A Book of Luminous Things. And a few other anthologies scattered around the place for picking up here and there.
Poetry is one aspect of literature I am really quite ignorant about. Not sure how this happened, but I seem to have missed, in the school segment of my education, any input from teachers on poetry. If I did receive any, I don’t remember it. Certainly I never had to memorise, recite, or write any poetry while in school. (I wouldn’t even really know how to begin to write a poem.)
I’ve tried to read poetry on and off for years, but have always had trouble getting into it. Until now, at any rate. Something seems to have clicked, all of a sudden.
I think it’s because I’m finally just letting myself read and ruminate over words, phrases, sentences, images. I think the mistake I’ve made all this time is trying to read poetry the same way I read for work or for escapism.
When I read for work I want to get to the point, find the information or facts I need, understand and analyse the concepts or ideas, as quickly as possible.
Ditto when I read for pleasure – novels, that is. I want to know the story. What happened, whodunnit, why, how, where. The plot is it. (The annual Reading Challenges I’ve been setting myself contribute to this urge for speed too, I suppose.)
I have really trained myself to read quickly. With poetry this quickly, quickly, does not work at all.
Just started reading Fiona Capp’s My Blood’s Country which is, from its blurb: “An intensely personal exploration and celebration of the life and work of one of Australia’s premier poets, Judith Wright, through the landscape and country she loved so much.”
So far I’m enjoying the writing, and the story. (I’m also very aware that I know nothing about Judith Wright’s poetry, despite having done the last two years of my high school education in Australia – see what I mean about this lack? I could feel hard done by, if I let myself. But that’s another issue, and no doubt I can easily rectify the lack.)
This bit from My Blood’s Country:
Poetry was all about being ‘in the moment’. It distilled life to its essence, stripped away all inessentials, all pettiness and distraction, and concentrated the reader’s mind in such a way that, for the time you dwelt in a poem, you were more alive and alert to life’s beauty, intensity and fragility than at almost any other moment. Poems were like dreams where truths were spoken that could not be uttered in ordinary language.
From the ebook version, 2010, pages 21-22.
Possibly if I had been given some introduction to poetry in school, this need to slow down would have been known to me already.
Also, this:
Ask anyone who likes poetry: When you find a poem you like, you keep reading it your whole life. As you change, it changes. And that changes you some more.
So whenever you read a poem aloud, read it aloud several times. Each time, you’ll probably see something different. (Try using pauses differently each time, vary your tone of voice, add more or less drama to your reading.) You wouldn’t date someone you like only once, would you? One poetry reading deserves another.
From Poetry for Dummies by The Poetry Centre and John Timpane with Maureen Watts, 2001, page 60 (ebook).
Well, duh.Anyway.
At the moment, am enjoying Robert Hass’ Late Spring which is in A Book of Luminous Things. How does one know it is finally spring time? … because the light will enlarge your days.