In the Footsteps of the Greats
I much prefer writing poetry to writing about it. When writing about someone else’s poetry, say Emily Dickinson, you have to make inferences. Unfortunately, I do not have Dickinson’s brain so analyzing the choices she makes in diction and structure is difficult. She had her reasons for writing he way she did, I’m sure, but she did not explicitly state it so it is up to me and other scholars to take our best guesses. That is how it usually goes when analyzing most poet’s work. They do not explain their choices because that would rob the reader of the experience of actually reading the poem. Reading a poem can be personal and it is up to the reader to find out the meanings, either intended or unintended, for themselves. When it comes to actually writing poetry, you are in charge. You get to decide what techniques to use and what to write about. The flow is easier to get into when you’re writing about something that is you. Even if the poem is personal and raw, it’s much easier to draw the emotions out when it’s your narrative than when it is someone else’s. Writing about poetry and writing poetry are two different beasts but have their similarities. One similarity that cannot be ignored when writing poetry and writing about it is the structure and the poetic devices used. Those two factors are a big part of what makes poetry an art form. It’s important to take into consideration why an author uses encampment or why you’re using a list poem. There’s a reason to everything in poetry and methodically put together.
After writing my own explication on Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death,” and reading others explication on other poets and poems, I had to attempt my own. Was writing a poem really as complicated and sophisticated as I’ve heard? I have to give credit to all the poets out there, it’s not easy. Settling on the topic I wanted to write was easy enough, but putting pen to paper was harder. I found myself constantly writing and erasing and starting over again. I wanted my language to be flowery and elegant but it just came out a mess. I wanted to summon the spirit of Wordsworth and Keats to do the writing for me. That didn’t work. I thought back to Dickinson and tried to trace her thought process. There was some formula to follow. If I were to rewrite or do another explication after writing my own poem. I would follow that formula: theme, structure, devices.
I think in my future classes we would do imitations before we did explications and our own poems. I think the students need to copy the form and style of the poet to really understand what they are saying. If they rewrite a poem following the same structure and syllable count and poetic devices used, they get a glimpse into the mind of the greats.
I agree with you that writing poetry is so much easier and more fun than writing about poetry. As a student in middle and high school, I always wondered why we needed to read poetry and talk about it. As you said its nearly impossible to get into a poets head and figure out exactly why they wrote what they wrote. What poetry teaches us, as you stated above, is to read a work very closely. Poetry is so packed with deeper meaning that it helps push us to learn critical reading techniques. I like your idea of starting students off with imitating different forms of poetry before we get to the harder task of trying to parse its meaning. I think showing how fun poetry can be could increase attention retention in our future classrooms. Overall, I think assignments like this will help engage our students. I really liked that wrecking the first person assignment. Do you think you’d use something like that for your students? Great post!
ReplyDeleteHi Natalie, first of all i love the imagrey and format of your blog, its perfection!
ReplyDeleteYes, writing poetry is a lot more satisfying than explicating or analyzing one. The reason being i think is its more pleasing and fun to write rather than to explicate poems is because it provides us a lot more room to be creative and form our own deep thoughts. when analyzing poetry, like you said, its a lot harder to maybe understand the full meaning behind the piece of work and its almost impossible to get the right interpretation of the poets intentions or message in the poem. Although its quite difficult, it forces the reader to think critically and process every line or stanza etc...Poetry helps with stronger reading and writing skills as it forces us to pay attention to every detail.