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A Word About Reading
Poetry 1)
First of all, RELAX. If you
don't understand a line or a passage, so what. Just keep reading. 2)
Second of all, freaking SLOW
DOWN. Poems aren't TV commercials. They don't come at you in millisecond-long
blips. They're meant to be savored, enjoyed, re-read, thought about, felt. TV
advertisements rarely ask you to actively engage your mind and heart.
Poems ask this of your constantly. They're needy little things. They want to
be cared about. 3)
Read for voice, texture, sound.
Just enjoy language like you did when you were a kid, learning to talk.
Yeah, you need a good grade in this class, but, believe it not, you have to sort of suspend that fact for a bit and just DIG what you're encountering. Enjoy whatever odd, new, twisted, or beautiful
thing the poet is doing with words, even it you don't completely get it. 4)
Don't read the poem the way you
read a newspaper. You're not reading for INFORMATION. You're reading for the
experience of the poem itself. Its main "meaning" or meanings are
generally conveyed through nuance, suggestion, intuitive
association—not in-your-face-VCR repair manual-1-2-3-frontal lobe-quiz
tomorrow-utilitarian-completely conscious REASON. 5)
Read the poem aloud, SLOWLY. 6) Copy the whole poem. Just type the thing exactly, word for word. 7) Print the poem out and hang it on your refrigerator. 8)
If, when reading a particular
poem, you're utterly lost, don't understand a thing, and aren't getting
anything whatsoever out of it, do the following: a. Relax. b. Go back over the piece, line by line, and mark the FIRST place where you get confused. c. Ask yourself at least 3 questions about that precise point in the poem. d. Imagine possible answers to your questions. e. Look up answers to those questions on the Web, use a freaking dictionary, call a classmate, or email your instructor. f. Re-read or skim any relevant Norton introductory material about the period in question or the poet in question. Look for clues and information that will help you know how to APPROACH the poem in question. g. Put the poem away and read it again tomorrow. h. Read it again the next day. i. Read it again the day after that. j.
Come to class the next day with
specific questions. 9) Relax, drink 3 beers, and read the poem again.
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