to not really get poetry

[Bennifer]

This is related to the Opera thread. I love reading fiction and non-fiction and I love it. I want to love poetry, but I just don't seem to in the same way. I start with good intentions, start reading a poem "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day...", and it sounds great, but in my head it fades away.

I think it may be because I don't know how to read poetry. Anyone else not get it?

Mary had a little lamb
She tied it to a pylon
10,000 volts shot up its bum
and turned its wool to nylon

Try Wendy Cope. I like this one

One of my friends writes poetry. I keep meaning to ask him when does a poem become prose (and vice versa)? I'm a bear of little brain and don't understand how some of the free-flowing, no-rhyming stuff gets to be called a poem.
I do love Dylan Thomas.

Awww, I love a bit of poetry. Always wish I could write it too but I can't.

Despite having to teach the AQA GCSE syllabus more times than I would have liked to, I'm still very fond of Carol Ann Duffy and I love, love, LOVE Simon Armitage. I have a bit of a weird crush on him ever since I sat behind him at a poetry reading in Brighton.

A couple of my favourites:

Mother

November

Ok I will attempt to recreate a poem I heard once that moved me. Can't remember it so I have rewritten it.

You promised to mend the car
You Didn't

You swore you would mend the leaking roof
You didn't

You swore you would mend the lawn
You didn't

You swore that you would train the bloody dog
You didn't

You swore that you would mend that leaking tap
You didn't

You swore you would mend that creaking stair
You didn't

You swore you would never leave your whiskers in the sink
You didn't

You swore you would come back from the war
You didn't

I think it has been changed to fit for every widow from 1914 or even before.

I love poems. They can say so much in so few words. My favourite ever is

There was a bee on a wall

It said buzz buzz and that was all

I like poetry, but haven't read it for ages.

I liked Robert Frost , out out
and mending wall mending wall

And Philip Larkin, an arundel Tomb
and this be the verse

I love a lot of the WW1 poetry too. I love pictures created with words.

I need to start lookin for modern poetry really

Oh my goodness, I love poetry. i read anthologies like other people read novels. Too many favourite poems and poets to mention. We should start a poetry thread of favourite poems.

I write poetry. I love expressing myself that way.

I think there is something about poetry, the flow of it, the feel of it, that moves you in a way that no other type of writing can.

[great big ponce emoticon]

I love poetry. Even an English degree and years of teaching didn't kill it!

Really good to see that people here love poetry - I need to work on it I think, take more time to read it, and there must be some good poems out there.

perhaps I don't have the concentration for it

Bennifer - it might just be a question of finding who you like. - I have definite favourites, and there are some poets I can't stand - An anthology with a good mix of old and modern poetry might be a good introduction, or one of those collections of 'The Nations Favourite Poems' - raid the library

I love poetry - I dislike ploughing through a novel, but can read a novel-length poem or collection of poetry like a flash.

Poetry just 'speaks' in a way that prose doesn't, in my opinion. Ted Hughes, Mario Petrucci, Anna Akhmatova, T.S. Eliot ... beautiful.

But I do see how poetry can be confusing and difficult to get into ... my mum was a librarian so that was me condemned to poetry for life

i loved Colonel Fazackerley Butterworth-Toast and The Walrus and The Carpenter

that's about it. not a big lover of poetry but love finding the true meaning of lyrics in songs and who the song has been written about. i guess that is poetry.

and this is very simple and moving too

You were my little baby girl,
And I shared all your fears.
Such joy to hold you in my arms
and kiss away your tears.
But now you're gone, there's only pain
and nothing I can do.
And I don't want to live this life,
If I can't live for you.
To my beautiful baby girl.
Our love will never die...

written by sid vicious for nancy spungen before he killed himself

You don't need concentration when its just a few lines. Here is my favourite poem:

The Orange, Wendy Cope.

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange ?
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled and shared it with Robert and Dave ?
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It?s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I?m glad I exist.

I write fiction and poetry for a living, so I'm clearly a fan, but I do understand that some people find it harder than others to connect with it. May I make a suggestion? I think poetry is fundamentally about voice - both the writer and the reader's. Don't just read poetry; read it aloud. It might change your perception of it.

I'd also recommend Ginsberg's wonderful "Howl" here. It's a very modern, relevant and cinematic poem that's easy to read and stunningly brilliant.

Perhaps if you read what the poem is about first, then read it, you will get it?

Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"
If breakdowns bore you, skip to the video.

www.enotes.com/nineteenth-century-criticism/goblin-market-christina-georgina-rossetti

And the poem discussed being read

Or simply read it.
www.theotherpages.org/poems/roset01.html