If you read poetry... what do you enjoy?

[calliete]

I'm not a regular poetry reader but always read a couple of collections each year, and one of my favourite authors is Anne Carson. I only feel complete when I have poetry on my shelves and in my life. I struggle to make myself read it, as I worry I won't enjoy it, but when I do, even if I don't always understand/get a lot of it, I still weirdly get something out of it. I don't know much about meter or any of the technicalities behind its construction, and while I enjoyed studying it many years ago, I much prefer going in blind without a clue what I'm doing there. For me it's like diving into a pool composed entirely of language and getting lost in the waves and eddies, sometimes I'm floating and sometimes I'm lost in a sea of bubbles, but it's always an experience I love.

That's about as close as I can get to putting it into words. Most people I know, even very well-read friends and colleagues, don't 'like' poetry, and don't understand what I do. I never know how to explain it and since I don't 'technically' understand it, I always feel a bit of a fraud when people consider me someone who does!

This is all very similar to how I feel about art, too.

I'd be interested to know how others experience poetry. Do you read it with a strong foundation of knowledge in how it works? Do you just flounder around somehow enjoying it without really knowing why?

I enjoy what I consider to be all different types of poetry.

I don't know how many technicalities there are to know and I don't see that they make any difference to my enjoyment of it. I think blank verse has lines of 10 syllables. I know that a villanelle has a particular structure. There is a thing called an iambic pentameter, which might be dedadedadedadedadeda, but I might need correcting on that one. Some lines seem to just carry on to the next line but I once heard Judi Dench say that you just make a tiny pause there, and someone who knows far more than I do has told me there's a word for that but I can't remember it.

Preferably, poetry should be read aloud.

I think it's often necessary to read a poem through several times in order to understand more and more parts of it.

A WEA lecturer once said that sometimes there are pieces of a poem that you just can't understand and boy, he'd had plenty of practice.

'rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard, when the surge was seething free' - what a delight to roll your tongue around that one.

'Bang, bang, bang, said the nails in the ark. It's getting rather dark, said the nails in the ark.'

Your last sentence made me feel a whole lot better about my own reading!

And thank you, I agree with lots of what you said here (you also reminded me of some technical stuff I do actually know, even if I don't 'recognise' it while reading).

I think another thing I love is how poems can change your worldview in such a short space of time, as compared to prose.

Sadly no longer with us - John O’Donohue, poet and philosopher.

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from 'A Morning Offering' found in his books,
To Bless the Space Between Us (US) / Benedictus (Europe)

You don’t need to know anything about the technicalities to enjoy poetry.. I love reading and writing it. I think the word you are looking for is enjambement

I'm not from Liverpool but as a teenager I bought a copy of The Mersey Sound and I still enjoy the poems.

John Cooper Clarke is another favourite.

My favourite poet has always been John Keats and I was a bit obsessed with his poetry when I was younger. I went to Rome a few years ago and visited the house overlooking the Spanish Steps where he died of TB aged 25. I found it very moving to be in that room.

The oeuvre of Shel Silverstein, Ogden Nash, and haiku.
Plus John O'Donoghue

I am a member of a poetry reading group in a library and honestly it is one of the best things that has happened in my life. It kept all of us sane through the pandemic and is such a source of joy - none of us know very much about each other but we really cherish each other because of our love of poetry.

We have a leader who - with input - decides on the poets for the year and then we take it in turns to lead on a poet - we read the poems aloud and discuss them,

One of our best sessions was recently when we read the first two cantos of Byron's Don Juan out loud over our 1.5 hour session. Who knew that Don Juan was laugh out loud funny.

Me too, Shetlands. I was blessed with a wonderful English teacher who also loved Keats. I'm an artist, and his poems are so full of images that fill my mind when I read or hear them. I also went to that room in Rome at the Spanish steps (I cried), sadly didn't manage a visit to his grave. Loved him for sixty years. I love the romantic poets, Byron comes next after Keats. (My lovely English teacher studied at uni under Tolkien).

I am rediscovering Wilfred Owen at the moment.

I recently found a poem called 'The heavy bear who goes with me' by Delmore Scwartz. I love it so much!
The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me | The Poetry Foundation

My DD is a big poetry fan and she always finds great ones and sends them to me.

I enjoyed poems at school. The ones I had to study for O level were read so much that I could say one or two off by heart. I can manage bits of them now but not all.
I belong to a poetry-reading group. We don't have to study the poet. We don't have to study the poem. We just read and listen.
My book of villanelles is a bought-new hardback. Some books were £1.50 in the local charity book shop.

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