What is Poetry?

Since taking this class, my ideas of what poetry is has changed. Before, I thought poems usually rhymed and made sense. I thought they had to have certain amounts of lines and follow a pattern. I now know, poems don't have to rhyme and they definitely don't have to make sense. There really are no rules to poetry. It's an abstract way of expressing your thoughts and feelings. A poem can turn a mundane subject into something interesting just by the way the words are arranged. Poems can be written in stanzas or paragraphs, written with no punctuation, or with words jumbled all across the page. Every element gives the poem a certain feel.

A poem that made no sense to me was "The Scent of Verbena" by Hinako Abe. No matter how many times I read this poem, I couldn't quite get it. I also got bored and stopped paying attention because there was no cool rhythm or play on words. The only thing I thought was interesting was the way the words were arranged like an hourglass. That's the cool thing about poetry, the words don't have to be in neat paragraphs with perfect punctuation. It's all up the the writer.

Punctuation and the way the words and lines are arranged in a poem are very important. In the poem "Standing Strong" by Ed Roberson, the only line that is isolated and with a period is "He wants to walk away from this." It's also the most concrete sentence in the poem, like it's the only concrete the author or subject of the poem is thinking. It's a strong statement and gets the point across.

I think a poem is made or finished when the writer decides it is. A poem doesn't have to be complete, in fact, the best poems I have read have been open to lots of interpretations. Poems can be extremely short or extremely long. They are finished when they leave the reader thinking about what they just read. I think a good poem doesn't straight out tell you what it is talking about, but they give you little pieces of the puzzle and leave the reader to put them together.

My favorite poems have a cool rhythm to them and sound pleasing when you say them. For one example, I like the way Langston Hughes' poems have almost a musical sound to them. They sound laid back and flowy. He uses slang and writes sounds like, "Oop-pap-ah-pa!" Another poem I think has cool rhythm and sound is

City Eclouge Responses

The Open

I chose to respond to this poem because after reading it through the first time, I thought it was fairly easy to grasp and it had a good rythm to it. The way the words sounded when they are said next to each other sounds cool in this poem.

From the first couple lines of this poem, I got a clear visual in my head. I pictures construction in a city with that dusty haze filling the air. It says that the bulldoze blocked the air to open light and took your breath. Already I can tell that one of the themes of this poem is going to be how we are building too much and taking for grantid the natural land.

The poem goes on to talk about how we have taken away other peoples land to build building upon building. I like the line, "a highway through someone else's possibility." This makes it sound like we have made people move and give up their land for construction. We are taking away their possibilty and running them over without any thought.

The author talks about how the air smells of money. I thought this was really powerful because it's like they are saying that money consumes us so much we really don't care what we are destroying to get it. Money is such a central part of our lives, it's like we can smell it in the air.

Standing Strong

The first time I read this poem through, I thought it was a little more difficult to understand than some of the previous ones, but I thought it sounded cool so I chose to write about it. What I liked most about this poem was the way the words all flow together. Some parts of the poem use the same sound multiple times in a row. "As if he could not see what he sees to wear what he seizes on as medicine from here from standing strong." This line repeats the "ss" sound.

The word choice in this poem also helps to set the scene. Some of these words and phrases are: dark roads, dead as night, gunshot bulls-eyed, gang, night crimes. These phrases set the tough street life scene.

I think the shoes are kind of a metaphor for his life. At the end of the poem it says that somewhere out there there's a couple decent pairs of shoes. The poem writes that these shoes have been washed by the black pavement and dark roads. Shoes are what you wear on your feet and your feet are what take you where you want to go. This poem is saying that these shoes have been worn through the hard times on the dirty, dark roads.

The name of the poem is "Standing Strong" and I get the feeling from the poem that he is frustrated. He says "He wants to walk away from this." And in the poem, this line is only one that is isolated and has a period at the end. It's like saying plain and simple, he's tired and wants to get out of this life and he is "standing strong" to get through it.

Poetry Packet Responses

The first poem I have chosen to respond to is Emily Dickinson's poem 375. I initially likes this poem because it was easy to understand and fairly straightforward. This poem is divided into three stanzas. The first stanza has three lines that rhyme and one line that does not. The second stanza does not have any rhymes. In the third stanza, there are two lines that rhyme. Overall throughout the poem there is no actual rhyming pattern but there are lines that rhyme. This poem has a good rhythm and flow to it.

The first stanza goes like this: "A Coffin- is a small domain, Yet able to contain A citizen of Paradise In its diminished Plane." I like these lines because when you think of the word coffin alone it brings about feelings of sadness or maybe even creepiness. But this she is saying that even though a coffin is small in size, it is able to contain something much bigger that is not physically measurable- and that is the entire life of a human that has passed.

I also like the last stanza which goes like this: "To Him who on its small Repose Bestows a single friend- Circumference without relief- Or Estimate- or End." I like this line because even though death is a very sad subject to write about, this poem portrays it in a hopeful way. I think she is saying that even though the circumference of the coffin may be small, the person inside has no end.

The other poem that i liked was "Preference" by Langston Hughes. I liked this poem because it had a very laid back feel to it and also was written in language easy to read and understand. The slang that Langston uses helps to set a very laid back mood. He does not speak in proper English and uses slang words and phrases that wouldn't normally be found in poetry or formal reading. For example, he says, "I likes a woman," and, "It ain't forever," and, "Young girl'll say." All of these phrases are grammatically incorrect but the point is to set that laid back mood. He also uses words like "fool" and "gimme" which set the tone.

This poem talks about how he likes older women because they aren't using him for his money. Older women may have something to offer him. He says that older women say, "Honey, what does YOU need," instead of saying, "Daddy, I want so-and-so."

Both of these poems were written in a way that is easy to read and understand, yet they have very different messages.