When it comes to the art of poetry there are many ways to look at it. In the past I have spoken with people, usually the more STEM minded, who have said they don't understand why they would want their thoughts interpreted in the way it was intended. However, I believe this is one of the great things about poetry that I hope to instill in my students when I become a teacher. Poetry can be interpreted in multiple different ways, with a lot of it stemming from a person's own life experiences. No analysis of a poem is wrong in my opinion, because like with food or colors, the way I see a poem may be vastly different than the way someone else sees the same poem.
This also going into the differences between writing and reading poetry. When you write poetry you allow your feelings to spread out onto a page, and open yourself up to analysis. Because poetry can be interpreted in different ways, it makes it a little scary to write your feelings out, because you don't know how someone else is going to react to it.
In the same regard, reading poetry is a very intimate thing, because you are reading something that someone else has written as a way to express themselves and open up. In a way, reading poetry almost feels like an invasion of privacy, and you need to treat carefully as you analyze in order to understand why and what the motives could be for it.
These are feeling I felt myself feeling when we were writing the poems and doing the slam for this week. I gave myself a hard time as I was listening to others read their poems, because I felt that they had such beautiful words and interpretations that mine felt stale in comparison. However, it was when I read my poem out loud and got the feedback that I realized that everyone else was probably feeling the same way I did. Writing about poetry made me discover that everyone is self conscious about throwing their feelings onto a paper, especially if they themselves feel self conscious about opening up and interpreting.
Overall as I mentioned in my first paragraph, all of this is what I will be conveying to my students when I become a teacher. The ideas that everyone has a hard time writing but at the same time, interpreting can be just as scary because you don't know what to expect.
Sierra,
ReplyDeleteYes, both writing poetry and conveying any sort of analysis of it can be intimidating, especially for young readers. I always find it curious, and at times sad, the idea that poetry is very underrated and intimidating to students in the classroom. There is a fear of being wrong that shuts many students away from touching upon the idea of reading, let alone writing, poetry. I know you expressed that there is no wrong analysis of a poem, but I must say I disagree a little with that comment. I think that students and all readers at times need guidance as to how to analyze a poem because there are times where a reader with draw an analysis without strong evidence from the poem. I have seen readers find images that don’t exist in the poem because they fixate or stop reading at a certain moment. So, I think that there can be wrong analysis done on poetry. However, I do understand what you are saying. Everyone is free to make an interpretation or connection with a poem as they wish, that is the beauty of a reader response. And it is a wonderful thing for art in the form of poetry to be able to be interpreted in many ways by different people. So long as the work is being read with the attention it deserves. In the end, I agree with the difficulty of knowing which experience, writing or analyzing poetry, is most difficult or as you put it "scary."