March 2, 2007

  • No longer a scaredy Kat

    I recently read a wonderful article in Utne, titled "Who's Afraid of Poetry?". Basically it was about how we, citizens of the US, are poemophobic. Poems are either old, long and boring and stuffed with words like "o'er, thee, whilst" and other words that while we know what they mean, they are far removed from every day language and present a barrier to our relationship with poetry; or they are modern, with phrases that don't make any logical sense or even (gasp) rhyme! It is as if these poems are written for people of long ago or for a secret "poetic society" that holds the key to deciphering their meanings. But this just isn't so.

    The magic of poetry is that it doesn't have to follow the rules. If it did, it would be prose. Instead, poetry gets to play around with words and punctuation; sometimes the words don't mean anything, it's just the sound of the words that is important. It may be the hard crack of several K's, or the slippery feel of multiple S's. Sometimes it is the flow of the syllables, their unique rhythm, that the author wants you to feel on your tongue. Read it out loud. Play around with it.

    In the spirit of poetic understanding, I have decided to start sharing some of my favorite poems. (This is also due to the fact that my life is pretty boring and I have not much else to post.) The poem below is nothing tricky. Just a clever little poem that was at the back of one of my magazines. I encourage everyone to take some time work some poetry into your literary diet.