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/lit/ - Literature

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535439 No.535439 [Reply] [Original]

>my face when i realized that schooling has made me hate poetry

>> No.535445

Poetry made me hate poetry.

The vast majority of it is pure garbage that tries too hard to convey a point.

>> No.535449

There is some good poetry out there, but all my fucking teachers have drove it into the ground with METAPHORS, SYMBOLS, ALLITERATION... FIND THEM YOU FUCKS

>> No.535459

>>535449

You just described 99% of all poetry

>> No.535463

Poetry - Stating simple things in an incomprehensible way.

>> No.535464

The key to enjoying poetry is to not worry about symbolism and whatnot. Just find poems that you think sound good and enjoy them.

I, for one, enjoy T.S Eliot without giving two shits about his allusions and whatever. The man was a master of the English language.

>> No.535473

Just go read poetry that doesn't require some grand meaning to appreciate, like WWI poetry.

>> No.535474

Look up Allen Ginsberg, OP. It's poetry, but it's also fucking amazing.

>> No.535476
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535476

>my face when I can write pure garbage like " Williams’ use of picturesque imagery and powerful themes, combined with his own personal background experience as a teacher and a doctor, all contribute to the sheer effect of this poem, ultimately forming a very poignant work of poetry" as a thesis sentence and my teachers will eat it up

>> No.535486

>>535476

:(

>> No.535488

>>535476
Welcome to critical analysis, bro; it's all BS.

>> No.535506

>my face when i wish i was still in high school and learn about poetry

>> No.535509

Anyway, this is the poem I'm writing about, and I actually enjoyed it, so I thought I'd might as well share it.

WHEN I was younger
it was plain to me
I must make something of myself.
Older now
I walk back streets
admiring the houses
of the very poor:
roof out of line with sides
the yards cluttered
with old chicken wire, ashes,
furniture gone wrong;
the fences and outhouses
built of barrel staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green
that properly weathered
pleases me best of all colors.
No one
will believe this
of vast import to the nation.

>> No.535527

They sent me a salwar kameez
peacock-blue,
and another
glistening like an orange split open,
embossed slippers, gold and black
points curling.
Candy-striped glass bangles
snapped, drew blood.
Like at school, fashions changed
in Pakistan -
the salwar bottoms were broad and stiff,
then narrow.
My aunts chose an apple-green sari,
silver-bordered
for my teens.

I tried each satin-silken top -
was alien in the sitting-room.
I could never be as lovely
as those clothes -
I longed
for denim and corduroy.
My costume clung to me
and I was aflame,
I couldn't rise up out of its fire,
half-English,
unlike Aunt Jamila.

I wanted my parents' camel-skin lamp -
switching it on in my bedroom,
to consider the cruelty
and the transformation
from camel to shade,
marvel at the colours
like stained glass.

>> No.535530

What helped me learn to like poetry (I thought it was a bunch of fake bullshit in highschool) was reading a book in verse. For me, it was Ted Hughes' Tales of Ovid (an adaptation of Ovid's Metamorphoses). Because there's a story and you spend a lot of time with the material, you learn to appreciate more than just the story. The language starts to jump out at you and make a strong impression.

What was tough about poetry for me in highschool was that you'd get a short poem, a few stanzas at most, and then you analyze for imagery and meter. These few lines are supposed to be oh-so-deep. With a long, book-length work, you get to appreciate the story first, and also appreciate how that story is best told in verse.

>> No.535848

>>535530
The true value of learning to recite by heart lies in spending so much time scanning each syllable that the imagery, meaning and sound fuse together in your mind, even for short poems.

That said, analysis too easily becomes hackwork.

But read >>535509 aloud and you can hear the errors in scansion and when lines (last 3, e.g.?) are superfluous.

Poem has a nice kernel though and a clear ring.