READING POETRY
Thinking like a reader can make us better poets.
Elsewhere I have defined poetry as “using the sense and sound words to convey experience " . This is in contrast to normal pros e that uses words in their and technical meaning describe a process or and he event . These are a writer's definition and it is clear , at least to this writer , that the two creative processes are vastly different . But what about the process of reading these to different uses of words .
To read pros e requires the logical and sequential decoding of the words used . In prose words mean what they mean or , if they're being used in a technical sense , the definitions are first established . Much of pros e writing is a matter of saying the obvious -- of laboriously tracing the process step by step so the reader is not lost . The reader follows a trail that there writer lays out .
Reading poetry is not quite so direct . There is , of course , the sequence of words to be followed , with the words are used in such a way that mores conveyed then just their dictionary definition . Often the two or more of dictionary definitions apply to the word in the context of the poem . Then there is the juxtaposition of words , their rhythm , patterns of internal and external rhyme . All these things affect the experience of reading a poem .
There's that word experience again : The multilevel sharing of reality . A reader of prose might criticize a piece of writing for having lost them , that is for having not clearly marked that trail that the writer wished them to follow . A reader of poetry probably would not criticize a poem for losing the " thread” of argument. A reader of poetry might criticize a poem for being too obvious : That is for not providing a rich experience of the poet's vision . A good poem allows you to in that moment, through those words, I wars therer. I saw, heard, felt. tasted, and smelt all that pertained to that experience...
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