On Poetry
For some reason poetry has been cropping up in several unrelated conversations recently.
This has got me thinking about how much I used to enjoy poetry and yet how little I either read or write it these days. I think if there is one thing guarenteed to put you off poetry it's education. Poetry works much better when you go out and discover it for yourself. You can take it at face value or attribute any meaning to it you may want it to have. If it says something personally to you then you know you've found something you can enjoy. It's exactly the same with music. How would you feel if you were forced to study a song? Slowly dissecting it until no word remained unturned. Eventually that song could end up having less meaning to you because you've scrutinized it so thoroughly and been given all of these theories as to it's possible meaning. If a song has any meaning to you it's probably because it's linked to a memory. This might be the first time you heard it, an event that happened while it was playing in the background, or just a memory that the words triggered and then became inseperable from.
Poetry shouldn't be taught in a way that explains everything. If a magic trick is explained it no longer becomes magical. Why should poetry be treated so coldly? If poetry is not dead, as a lot of teachers will insist, then why give it an autopsy?
I had one tutor while I was studying for my A-levels who was obsessed with one thing and one thing only when it came to poetry. Don't get me wrong, ordinarily he was a very good teacher, but show him a poem and in kicked the one track mind to the point of ridiculousness. Whatever a poem said, whatever had been written about it, whatever you may have thought, the poem we were looking at would always turn out to be a metaphor for the penis. Always.
Now I've studied enough literature to know that phallic or sexual imagery is a consistent theme in a great many texts. The strawberry scene in 'Tess of the D' Urbervilles' between Angel and Tess springs to mind (and I think I've just worked out why korova likes Thomas Hardy so much...) . However this teacher would attribute this theme to anything he could think of. I remember one poem we studied was about a fighter plane that had crashed in a village during WW2. I forget the name of the poem or who wrote it now, but there was a rather grissly description of the airmans corpse. A particular detail was how one of his slightly melty eyeballs had popped out and was resting on his cheek.
'What do you think this represents?' the teacher asked.
We offered up a few suggestions, each of which were casually batted away or treated with the contempt of the well educated man about town with a phallus obsession.
'Don't you think the author is referring to the penis?' he said.
'No!' we all cried, incredulously. 'It's an eyeball. It says it's an eyeball. It's fallen out of his eyesocket. Why in God's name would anyone think it's a penis?'
Believe it or not even though we had studied enough poems with this man to completely accept and even joke about his singlemindedness, none of us had seen it coming (pardon the pun).
'Well obviously it's a metaphor.' he said, refusing to back down.
'You can only take metaphor so far, surely? This is a poem about a dead airman with a melty eyeball. Is there room for metaphorical knobs? Wouldn't that be overdoing it?'
Apparently not was the answer we left with in our scarred little minds. From that day on none of us would ever trust anything ever again, just in case it was a penis in disguise.
Still, the point of all this phallic rambling (sounds painfull) is I want some suggestions for poetry to read. I've always tended to stay away from anything fairly modern, but I'll give it a try if it's reccomended. I like Keats, Poe, Blake, Wilde and Coleridge to name a few and a lot of the war poets, if that helps with any suggestions.
In the meantime I've dug out a short poem that I wrote well over ten years ago now. Looking back on it I was really proud of it at the time but it seems so... (as much as I hate the word) quaint now. I'll post it up for your appreciation, or amusement as you feel appropriate.
This has got me thinking about how much I used to enjoy poetry and yet how little I either read or write it these days. I think if there is one thing guarenteed to put you off poetry it's education. Poetry works much better when you go out and discover it for yourself. You can take it at face value or attribute any meaning to it you may want it to have. If it says something personally to you then you know you've found something you can enjoy. It's exactly the same with music. How would you feel if you were forced to study a song? Slowly dissecting it until no word remained unturned. Eventually that song could end up having less meaning to you because you've scrutinized it so thoroughly and been given all of these theories as to it's possible meaning. If a song has any meaning to you it's probably because it's linked to a memory. This might be the first time you heard it, an event that happened while it was playing in the background, or just a memory that the words triggered and then became inseperable from.
Poetry shouldn't be taught in a way that explains everything. If a magic trick is explained it no longer becomes magical. Why should poetry be treated so coldly? If poetry is not dead, as a lot of teachers will insist, then why give it an autopsy?
I had one tutor while I was studying for my A-levels who was obsessed with one thing and one thing only when it came to poetry. Don't get me wrong, ordinarily he was a very good teacher, but show him a poem and in kicked the one track mind to the point of ridiculousness. Whatever a poem said, whatever had been written about it, whatever you may have thought, the poem we were looking at would always turn out to be a metaphor for the penis. Always.
Now I've studied enough literature to know that phallic or sexual imagery is a consistent theme in a great many texts. The strawberry scene in 'Tess of the D' Urbervilles' between Angel and Tess springs to mind (and I think I've just worked out why korova likes Thomas Hardy so much...) . However this teacher would attribute this theme to anything he could think of. I remember one poem we studied was about a fighter plane that had crashed in a village during WW2. I forget the name of the poem or who wrote it now, but there was a rather grissly description of the airmans corpse. A particular detail was how one of his slightly melty eyeballs had popped out and was resting on his cheek.
'What do you think this represents?' the teacher asked.
We offered up a few suggestions, each of which were casually batted away or treated with the contempt of the well educated man about town with a phallus obsession.
'Don't you think the author is referring to the penis?' he said.
'No!' we all cried, incredulously. 'It's an eyeball. It says it's an eyeball. It's fallen out of his eyesocket. Why in God's name would anyone think it's a penis?'
Believe it or not even though we had studied enough poems with this man to completely accept and even joke about his singlemindedness, none of us had seen it coming (pardon the pun).
'Well obviously it's a metaphor.' he said, refusing to back down.
'You can only take metaphor so far, surely? This is a poem about a dead airman with a melty eyeball. Is there room for metaphorical knobs? Wouldn't that be overdoing it?'
Apparently not was the answer we left with in our scarred little minds. From that day on none of us would ever trust anything ever again, just in case it was a penis in disguise.
Still, the point of all this phallic rambling (sounds painfull) is I want some suggestions for poetry to read. I've always tended to stay away from anything fairly modern, but I'll give it a try if it's reccomended. I like Keats, Poe, Blake, Wilde and Coleridge to name a few and a lot of the war poets, if that helps with any suggestions.
In the meantime I've dug out a short poem that I wrote well over ten years ago now. Looking back on it I was really proud of it at the time but it seems so... (as much as I hate the word) quaint now. I'll post it up for your appreciation, or amusement as you feel appropriate.
posted by The Neath at 7:02 am
3 Comments:
Who was that, then?
I'm glad I didn't do A-level english, then. I would have been expelled for shouting 'PENIS!', every time we did some textual criticism. Which would have been coool.
No Byron or Shelley??? You cannot claim to enjoy poetry if you do not read these two. Alongside Hardy, they are the finest poets in the English language!!
As for writing poetry, I used to write loads. In fact, my website was originally going to be used as a way to publicise some of my stuff. I've been lucky enough to have some published but, when I look back on some of my stuff, I am rather embarrassed by it. I hate them, in all seriousness. Consequently, I am now incapable of writing anything creative. I hate everything I write.
As for Xulub - I shouted 'penis!' throughout my studies in English Literature, even when studying for my degree. It never did me any harm. Although I do visualise badgers with big penises, so maybe that's not entirely true!!
not sure about all these poets but i only know about the 2 comedic poets hardy and laurel !!!!
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