I am so appreciative of your comments on poetry. I love poetry, but I have an ambivalent relationship to it. I often fear I won't understand a poem, and that makes me reluctant to seek them out. So I rely on recommendations from you and others to guide me toward what may appeal. I don't know much about what makes me receptive, but accessibility of the poem matters. I like poems that appear simple but plunge me deep. I'll have to think more about the fear -- fear of feeling stupid, or unlettered. But why do I care? Who's making that judgment? I still find the Judges swirling around me, despite years of pulling them out by their roots. They're pernicious, sneaky, sly. I think THEY make me non-receptive, but that begs the question of why they surface when they do. All mysterious. And important. Thanks for bringing these conundrums to my attention -- I truly appreciate it.
Hi, Lois, I really appreciate your sharing your feelings about poetry, which I think are shared by so many, especially if their school experiences taught them--I believe wrongly--that readers of poems are supposed develop theories of what they mean, supported by how they go about meaning it. This approach to poetry seems to set the stage for a debate between the possessors of different theories of meaning, potentially yielding winners and losers.These kinds of debates, and their potential aftermaths, close people down, I believe.
But had we characterized certain poems as "enigmatic," we wouldn't have satisfied a lot of our teachers, who believed their job was to develop our analytical skills--and who, accordingly, would have expected us to unravel the enigma, even in several possible ways.
For now, though, I hope you read Alvarez's book; for one thing, Alvarez is just a little older than we are, and what she's thinking about and writing about definitely contributes to our receptivity to her poems. Plus the structure of the collection in its own way makes the poems accessible.
Those "pernicious, sneaky, sly" Judges--I think they may deserve their own Substack. Maybe that's the only way to seize their power. Thank you again, Lois, for reading and responding.
I am so appreciative of your comments on poetry. I love poetry, but I have an ambivalent relationship to it. I often fear I won't understand a poem, and that makes me reluctant to seek them out. So I rely on recommendations from you and others to guide me toward what may appeal. I don't know much about what makes me receptive, but accessibility of the poem matters. I like poems that appear simple but plunge me deep. I'll have to think more about the fear -- fear of feeling stupid, or unlettered. But why do I care? Who's making that judgment? I still find the Judges swirling around me, despite years of pulling them out by their roots. They're pernicious, sneaky, sly. I think THEY make me non-receptive, but that begs the question of why they surface when they do. All mysterious. And important. Thanks for bringing these conundrums to my attention -- I truly appreciate it.
Hi, Lois, I really appreciate your sharing your feelings about poetry, which I think are shared by so many, especially if their school experiences taught them--I believe wrongly--that readers of poems are supposed develop theories of what they mean, supported by how they go about meaning it. This approach to poetry seems to set the stage for a debate between the possessors of different theories of meaning, potentially yielding winners and losers.These kinds of debates, and their potential aftermaths, close people down, I believe.
But had we characterized certain poems as "enigmatic," we wouldn't have satisfied a lot of our teachers, who believed their job was to develop our analytical skills--and who, accordingly, would have expected us to unravel the enigma, even in several possible ways.
For now, though, I hope you read Alvarez's book; for one thing, Alvarez is just a little older than we are, and what she's thinking about and writing about definitely contributes to our receptivity to her poems. Plus the structure of the collection in its own way makes the poems accessible.
Those "pernicious, sneaky, sly" Judges--I think they may deserve their own Substack. Maybe that's the only way to seize their power. Thank you again, Lois, for reading and responding.