Like many men, I’m also more “practical” than my wife. It took me years to understand why a woman would want to get flowers. After all, they just die in a few days. Wouldn’t a blender be a better Valentine’s Day gift? Like flowers, poetry isn’t always meant to be practical, and this is sometimes hard for me to “get.” Sometimes there isn’t even a “point” to a poem other than it being an expression of emotion. I’m always looking for “meaning,” rather than taking the emotion in. The words, the image provoked or the music of the poem should be just enough to make a piece of writing special.
I’m learning to appreciate poetry more by reading poems, including many of the poems I see here on Poetry Thursday. It is good to be reminded that not all poems are about flowers or “girly” things, or topics that make you go out and buy a black beret. You can write poems about baseball games and pissing in the forest, and it can still be considered a poem.
–Neil Kramer, Confessions of a Poemphobe: Poetry for Men
A Mindful Life / Kathryn Harper
express : discover : renew : create
I’ll take the blender over the flowers, unless it’s a living plant I can actually plant. I told my hubby years ago to stop buying me flowers – I was tired of watching them die.
I must admit that poetry makes me feel dumb. So often I just don’t “get it.” When I was in college I went through a Yes-I-read-a-lot-of-poetry phase, but I’ve given up the practice because I generally feel like a dolt when faced what I know to be “good” poetry by a talented poet (like my award-winning father-in-law poet who has ten published volumes) and I still don’t get it. Sigh. Still – I’m glad to know that there are people out there who actively read and write poetry. Even if poetry makes me feel dumb – it’s a wonderful art form that should be supported and enjoyed.
I came to poetry late. I was in my 40’s before it began to interest me. Yet, nowadays, I only wish I had more time for it.
Jennifer:
Sorry the “good” poetry helped lose you as a reader. That which is deliberately opaque and full of references you’re “supposed to know as an educated person” is often just obscure, pedantic and published for that small academic “elite.”
Good poetry is also comprehensible. Take a look at Jack Gilbert’s stuff (my favorite living poet). He’s 82 and has published only four books since winning the Yale Younger Poets prize in 1962. He spent a lot of time living the life and collecting the insights he writes about, rather than “publishing or perishing” every couple of years or so.
I doubt you’re dumb. But there’s a whole poetry/academy industry dedicated to making you THINK you are.