ENGLISH LITERATURE II

Professor Jeov R. Mendona

WHAT IS POETRY?

It is hard to say what a typical poem is. Poetry has many subjects, many themes,
many tones, and it uses a great variety of devices and strategies to affect us in a great
variety of ways. Here are some things that all poems are often said to do:
Rhyme.
Have a regular rhythm.
Describe something beautiful.
State a universal truth.
Elevate our thoughts.
Make us feel better.
Teach us something.
Give us a broader perspective on ourselves and our world.
Give us aesthetic pleasure.
Some poems do quite a few of these things, and most of them are decent
enough things to do, but if we think of poems having to do these things we are in
trouble. Its a bad list: forget it. Poems do share some common concerns: a sense of
wordplay, a sharp consciousness of some particular feeling or emotion, tremendous
concision of expression, whether the poem is long or short, the conscious use of sound
effects, a constant concern with telling us what it is like to be in a particular situation, or
feel a particular way. But even these persistent habits of poetry might be dangerous to
codify as musts1. Poems go better if you scrap preconceived notions about all poetry
and are prepared to respond instead to the varieties of possibility that individual poems
provide. Every poem is, like every person, individual, different, unique not just a
representative of a group.
Still, knowing how to read one poem can help you with other poems, and you
can accumulate some skills that will help with difficulties that are likely to occur.
()
Usually a reader can experience a poem in a satisfactory way without a lot of
special knowledge, but additional knowledge and developed skill can heighten the
experience of almost any poem. Poems do not chide 2 their meanings, and good poets
usually communicate rather quickly in some basic way. Rereadings, reconsiderations,
and the application of additional knowledge allow us to hear resonances built into the

1
Important and necessary.
2
Reprimand.

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ENGLISH LITERATURE II
Professor Jeov R. Mendona

poem, qualities that make it enjoyable to experience again and again. The route of
meaning is often clear on first reading a poem, but the full possibilities of experience
may require more time, energy, and knowledge of the right questions to ask.
()
The more you know, the better reader of poems you are likely to be; the more
practice you have had in reading other poems, the more likely you are to be able to
experience a poem new to you. But knowing facts is not by itself enough; willingness to
discover something new is a crucial quality of mind for reading poems well, and being
willing to let the poem itself dictate which questions to ask is important to locating the
right facts and discovering the right way of putting them together. Most readers can find
out what they need to know for most poems if they figure out what questions to ask.
Poetry reading has many hazards1, and almost as many of them result from
overeagerness as from apathy; many people who read poetry enthusiastically do not
read it well, just as many poems that mean well do not mean much. The questions you
ask of poetry should channel your enthusiasm and direct it toward meaningful
experience, but they should not destroy it. Some people are rather protective about
poetry, and think it shouldnt be analyzed lest it shrivel 2 or collapse. But such an attitude
to the poor little poem is finally rather patronizing 3; good poems are hardy, and they
wont disintegrate when confronted with difficult questions. The techniques of analysis
mean to make you both tougher-minded 4 (less subject to gimmicks5 and quackery6) and
more sensitive (to the nuances and depths of good poems), and they also aim to allow
the poem to open itself to you.
No one can give you a method that will offer you total experience of all poems.
But because many characteristics of an individual poem are characteristics that one
poem shares with other poems, there are guidelines which can prompt 7 you to ask the
right questions. () here is a checklist of some things to remember:
1. Identify the poems situation. What is said is often conditioned by
where it is said and by whom. Identifying the speaker and his or her
place in the situation puts what he or she says in perspective.
2. Read the syntax literally. What the words say literally in normal
sentences is only a starting point, but it is the place to start. Not all
1
Risks, perils.
2
Dry up, shrink.
3
Be condescending.
4
Obstinate
5
Devices, tricks.
6
Puzzles.
7
Bring about.

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Professor Jeov R. Mendona

poems use normal prose syntax, but most of them do, and you can
save yourself embarrassment by paraphrasing accurately (that is,
rephrasing what the poem literally says, in plain prose) and not simply
free-associating from an isolated word or phrase.
3. Articulate for yourself what the title, subject, and situation make
you expect. Poets often use false leads and try to surprise you by
doing shocking things, but defining expectation lets you be conscious of
where you are when you begin.
4. Be willing to be surprised. Things often happen in poems that turn
them around. A poem may seem to suggest one thing at first, then
persuade you to its opposite, or at least to a significant qualification or
variation.
5. Find out what is implied by the traditions behind the poem. Verse
forms, poetic kinds, and metrical patterns all have a frame of reference,
traditions of the way they are usually used and for what. For example,
the anapest1 is usually used for comic poems, and if a poet uses it
straight he is aware of his departure and is probably making a point
by doing it.
6. Remember that poems exist in time, and times change. Not only the
meanings of words, but whole ways of looking at the universe and
mans role vary in different ages. Consciousness of time works two
ways: your knowledge of history provides a context for reading the
poem, and the poems use of a word or idea may modify your notion of
a particular age.
7. Bother the reference librarian. Look up anything you dont
understand: an unfamiliar word (or an ordinary word used in an
unfamiliar way), a place, a person, a myth, an idea anything the
poems uses. When you cant find what you need or dont know where
to look, ask for help.
8. Take a poem in its own terms. Adjust to the poem, dont make the
poem adjust to you. Be prepared to hear things you do not want to
hear. Not all poems are about your ideas, nor will they always present
emotions you want to feel. But be tolerant and listen to the poems
ideas, not only to your desire to revise them for yourself.

1
A measure of poetry consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by a
stresses syllable, as in Camerroon.

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Professor Jeov R. Mendona

9. Argue. Discussion usually results in clarification and keeps you from

being too dependent on personal biases 1 and preoccupations which
sometimes mislead even the best readers. Talking a poem over with
someone else (especially someone very different) can expand the limits
of a too narrow perspective.
10. Assume there is a reason for everything. Poets do make mistakes,
but in poems that show some degree of verb control it is usually safest
to assume that the poet chose each word carefully; if the choice seems
peculiar to us, it is usually we who are missing something.
Craftsmanship2 obliges us to try to account for the specific choices and
only settle for conclusions of ineptitude if no hypothetical explanation
will make sense.

What is poetry? Let your definition be cumulative as you read poems. No

dictionary definition will cover all that you find, and it is better to discover for yourself
poetrys many ingredients, its many effects, its many ways of acting. What can it do for
you? Wait and see. Begin to add up its effects after you have carefully after you have
studied and reread a hundred or so poems; that will be a beginning, and will be able
to add to that total as long as you continue to read new poems or reread old ones.

From: BAIN, Carl et al. The

Norton Introduction to
Literature. New York: Norton,
1981. pp. 532 6.

1
Bias = prejudice
2
Art

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