That poetry meme
I have always had a love/hate relationship with poetry. Mostly hate. Partially because I had a string of really bad English teacher. Partially because I don't have the same tastes in poetry as my parents. And mostly because I think a lot of the utility of poetry has been replaced by hip hop and rap, and I'd rather listen to that than read poetry.
My first formal introduction to poetry was in the seventh grade, where amongst other things, we had to memorize and recite a poem. I had no way to get to the library, so I was limited to what volumes of poetry my mother had. My mother is into long, flowery poetry. Imagine if Georgia O'Keefe wrote poetry. Needless to say, I failed. I am terrible at rote memorization to begin with, and the poems were too long for me to memorize without an external interest. After my mother finished yelling at me for that, she pointed out that I had already memorized many poems. But at the time I thought that poetry had non-rhyming stanzas, and was about a thing, be it tangible or not. The verses I'd memorized before rhymed and told a story; ergo, not poetry. I'm not sure if I blame this confusion on my literalness or my public education.
The next poetry unit was better, if only because I got to write a sonnet about a dude who was decapitated by a revolving door. But then I got depressed that no one in my class had heard of Maya Angelou.
Now, in the interest of not being a poopyhead... Y'all know my two favorite poems, and I won't hog up your flists with their length. Instead, I'll go with the first poem to really touch me in some way. My choir director junior and senior year was really into Robert Frost. I can come up with at least four of his poems we sang in those two years. The others were either goofy, or ones I knew from years before. But this poem I spent days staring at, trying to figure out what in hell it meant, and damned if I didn't find something new every time I read it.
O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud --
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says "I burn."
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
My first formal introduction to poetry was in the seventh grade, where amongst other things, we had to memorize and recite a poem. I had no way to get to the library, so I was limited to what volumes of poetry my mother had. My mother is into long, flowery poetry. Imagine if Georgia O'Keefe wrote poetry. Needless to say, I failed. I am terrible at rote memorization to begin with, and the poems were too long for me to memorize without an external interest. After my mother finished yelling at me for that, she pointed out that I had already memorized many poems. But at the time I thought that poetry had non-rhyming stanzas, and was about a thing, be it tangible or not. The verses I'd memorized before rhymed and told a story; ergo, not poetry. I'm not sure if I blame this confusion on my literalness or my public education.
The next poetry unit was better, if only because I got to write a sonnet about a dude who was decapitated by a revolving door. But then I got depressed that no one in my class had heard of Maya Angelou.
Now, in the interest of not being a poopyhead... Y'all know my two favorite poems, and I won't hog up your flists with their length. Instead, I'll go with the first poem to really touch me in some way. My choir director junior and senior year was really into Robert Frost. I can come up with at least four of his poems we sang in those two years. The others were either goofy, or ones I knew from years before. But this poem I spent days staring at, trying to figure out what in hell it meant, and damned if I didn't find something new every time I read it.
O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud --
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says "I burn."
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.