Blog #14

This poetry segment that we have been doing in class has really opened my eyes to the inner workings of a poem. I never before have been exposed to the inner gears and springs that make a poem effective or even popular. Prior to this class and this poetry segment, I regarded poems as merely a bunch of words thrown on a page, while I still find this true for some poems, I realize now that there is truly a “rhyme and reason” to the poems.

 One of the elements of poetry that fascinates me the most is how the simple structure of a poem can affect the entire meaning of it. What I thought to be a random combination of spaces, line breaks, or even capital letters is actually a delicate combination that results in the frame of the poem. What I mean by frame is that when you are deciding what kind of frame to put a piece of art work in, you are essentially deciding the subtle accent or message you want to give the observer. I feel that it is the same way for a poet.

 When John Hollander decided to use concrete poetry and make a physical image of a swan and its reflection when writing the poem “Swan and Shadow” he used his artistic license to make a decision regarding the way in which he wanted his words to be perceived. He did so by conveying the literal concept with his words through the figurative concept of the picture his words made.

 Not all poems are as blatant in the “picture” their words make. As we were researching poems that we were to use in our upcoming poetry project, I came across another type of poem structure that I found particularly interesting. These poems are called acrostics, where the first word of each line, or the capitalized word of each line comes together to spell out a hidden message or an underlying theme to the poem. While these kinds of poems may not seem as “professional” as some others we have looked at, I find them particularly intriguing.

While I still come across some poems and think to myself “How can these possibly be famous?” I do have a new found appreciation for the secret world of poetry. I still would pick a science fiction novel over a poem any day, but from what I have learned recently about the techniques behind the poetry and how to dig deeper into them, I can honestly say that I do not hate poetry. It is just not one of my favorite things.