/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20619745]

I grew up poor in an... Urban environment, and as such reading wasn't really something I had a lot of time for growing up, but I've picked myself up and am finding free time and want to understand more, but a lot of it is running circles around my brain, specifically poetry. Where am I supposed to learn to read and actually comprehend some of this stuff. Allow me to provide an excerpt:
>O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
>Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
>When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
>Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
>Yet even in these days so far retir’d
>From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
>Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
>I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspir’d.

Are there "beginner poets" or recommend resources for learning how to derive meaning from this kind of work?

[Anonymous No.20619765]

>using urban as a dog whistle

[Anonymous No.20619784]

>>20619765
Im sure I don't know what you're talking about

[Anonymous No.20619797]

>>20619784
he thinks you mean "urban" as a synonym for "black"

[Anonymous No.20619813]

>>20619797
I guess it was both. I lived in a pretty crappy city in a public school that was just designated by a number, dunno if that's the norm for many cities, but I remember a couple of my friends getting dogged on for "acting white"

[Anonymous No.20619839]

>>20619745
He looks like Judge Holden in this

[Anonymous No.20619847]

The best and quite possible the only way to wrap your head around poetry is history. A good poet, like a good jazz musician, slips into the breaks in the rhythm of the beat/world-historical events and looks around. The excerpt you posted is from Keats' take in the 19th century on the story of Psyche, a goddess from ancient greece.

You don't need to have some deep theory of history to appreciate it, but knowing about the circumstances of Keats and his subject will make this poem much more rewarding.