How to Read and Fall in Love with Poetry
I want to relive you of the pressures teachers put on you and still give you guidance for when to go deeper.
Reading poetry might evoke memories of sweaty summer days, with a teacher asking us about blue curtains. Why are they blue? Maybe the author didn’t care? Maybe they were depressed — or maybe they desperately needed a word that fits into the structure of the poem?
This approach has a huge problem: it creates an analytical relationship with poetry before we learned to enjoy it. It frames poetry as something only “annoying, smart people” read to have discussions about it. Although I love poetry and write it now for over twenty years in two languages I never found any spark when we worked with poetry in school. It’s a meme for a reason though, while it is true that a focus on analysis can harm us, there is still much value in it.
If you want to skip the article and just get the TL;DR version, here it is:
Read with an open heart to enjoy and connect with a poem first.
The author’s intent doesn’t limit how a poem can live in your mind.
Explore the deeper meaning if you have an urge to do so.
Explore the construction of the poem if you want to improve your writing.
How Poems Should Get You
The first job a poem has is to be beautiful in execution—clear in the picture it paints and the emotion it carries. Then, after it has captured your soul, you can open it up and dig into its “intestines” for deeper meaning and further interpretation.
If this feels familiar, it’s because it mirrors how we make friends or fall in love. At first, superficial qualities of a person catch our attention. Over time, we learn more about them and fall into real love, whether romantic or platonic.
In my opinion, that’s also how you should fall in love with a poem.
It’s a Tool for Self-Expression on Both Sides
Poetry is about expression; this is obvious for the author. She wants to tell us something—about herself, the world, or us—but reading a poem is also an act of self-expression!
Not only does your choice of what to read reflect who you are, but your emotional response to a poem is expressive as well. A poem can be a tool for self-discovery, divorced from the author’s intent, taking on a life of its own in your mind.
A book must be an ice axe to break the sea frozen inside us.
-Franz Kafka
The same is true for poems: use them as a tool for your own ends.
I’m not saying that a poem cannot have a canonical meaning, nor do I believe in the “Death of the Author.” It’s more that you can use a hammer to pound a nail into a wall or to open a bottle of beer. The author’s intent, however clear it may be, does not restrict you from reading the poem differently for your own purposes.
The Explanation Holds No Value
I want to stress the previous point even more. We often feel that explanations are important. When we’re accused of something, explanations become our defense. When we want someone to do us a favour, we explain why it’s in their interest.
All this is fair and human, but the value is in the doing, not in the explanation. Your liver doesn’t care why it heals when you stop drinking—it just does. The same is true for sports: you’ll feel better, be healthier, and live longer even if you don’t understand why - as long as you do it. For most of human history, we didn’t have sensible explanations for almost anything.
If you like a poem, if it makes you happy, or if it helps you to see the world differently, that in itself is valuable. Analysing a poem to get an explanation of why it works has no inherent value beyond the intellectual pursuit. (And we might already have too much intellectualisation in our times.)
You Never Step in the Same River Twice
I don’t know how old you are, but I do know you’ll grow older and gather more experiences. This, in turn, gives you greater perspective and context on the world. Over time, the personal meaning of a poem has for you can change, so you should revisit it periodically. Not only will this deepen your insight, but it will also help to structure your life. Reading something you’re familiar with and seeing it in a new light gives you a sense of growing up and of time passing — something that is usually hard to grasp. It becomes a door to your younger self.
”A man cannot step into the same river twice, because it is not the same river, and he is not same man." - Heraclitus
Why does this work? Let’s stick to our universal example of love. A poem about the beauty of love will affect you differently the first time you fall in love. After your fifth breakup in two years, however, it might strike you as slightly cynical, opening you to new thoughts and allowing for reflection.
Read It Out Loud
Our brains are curious organs, and we don’t always engage the entire brain with every activity. You may have heard the advice to write things down by hand to help you learn and remember; writing engages more parts of your brain. The same is true for reading out loud. When you vocalise the words, different parts of your brain become involved, and your ears also hear what you’re saying. (When I write poetry, I constantly read it out loud during editing, because it’s a great tool for writing as well.)
Why and When to Analyse
The point of this article isn’t to suggest that you should only feel poetry and ignore thinking about it. Thinking can be hard sometimes, but it does have benefits. First, it allows us to discuss poetry and compare how we interpret a work. Analysing why it resonates with us can help to explain to others what we feel or how a poem changed us—which might inspire them to read as well.
Another important reason to analyse poetry is to learn how to construct it better. If a poem worked for you, you might want to understand why. This will allow you to emulate certain elements and gradually develop your own style. At least it will help you to seek out similars works.
Last but not least, you may want to understand the author. Sometimes the author isn’t just some old geezer from the Dark Ages but be a person very much like you — a friend, even.
Now its your turn
I will provide you with a poem by Langston Hughes, that I find quite beautiful. Just read it (out loud?), don’t think too much about it. Accept it, for what it is after ready it once and put it away.
If you feel you need more from it, read it again tomorrow and think as much as you want about it. For example, search for who Helen Keller was and compare is to what Langston Hughes wrote about her.
Helen Keller
by Langston Hughes
She, In the dark, Found light Brighter than many ever see. She, Within herself, Found loveliness, Through the soul's own mastery. And now the world receives From her dower: The message of the strength Of inner power.
I want to leave you with this, thank you for reading my article,
All the Best,
Tim