Poetry

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Poetry
If a poet looks through a microscope or a
telescope, he always sees the same thing. The
poet puts language in danger. --Gaston Bachelard,
The Poetics of Space
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What is Poetry?
If a poet looks through a microscope or a
telescope, he always sees the same thing. The
poet puts language in danger. --Gaston Bachelard,
The Poetics of Space
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Poetry
Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte
Laurids Brigge
Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them
too early in your life. You ought to wait and
gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime,
and a long one if possible, and then, at the very
end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good
lines, For poems are not, as people think, simply
emotions (one has emotions early enough )they are
experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you
must see many cities, many people and Things, you
must understand animals, must feel how birds fly,
and know the gesture which small flowers make
when they open in the morning. You must be able
to think back to streets in unknown
neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to
partings you had long seen coming to days of
childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to
parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in
a joy and you didn't pick it up (it was a joy
meant for somebody else) to childhood illnesses
that began so strangely with so many profound and
difficult transformations, to days in quiet
restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to
the sea itself, to seas, to it is still not
enough to be able to think of all that.
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Poetry
Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte
Laurids Brigge
You must have memories of many nights of love,
each one different from all the others, memories
of women screaming in labor, and of light, pale,
sleeping girls who have just given birth and are
closing again. But you must also have been beside
the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the
room with the open windows and the scattered
noises. And it is not yet enough to have
memories. You must be able to forget them when
they are many, and you must have the immense
patience to wait until they return. For the
memories themselves are not important. Only when
they have changed into our very blood, into
glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer
to be distinguished from ourselves only then can
it happen that in some very rare hour the first
word of a poem arises in their midst and goes
forth from them.
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Poetry
Poetry is a compromise for a language of
intuition which would hand over sensations
bodily. It always endeavors to arrest you, and to
make you continuously see a physical thing, to
prevent you gliding through an abstract process.
. . . Verse is a pedestrian taking you over the
ground, prose--a train which delivers you at a
destination. --T. E. Hulme
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Poetry
A poem is not so much heard as overheard. --John
Stuart Mill
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Poetry
The purpose of poetry is to make life complete in
itself. --Wallace Stevens, "Adagia
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Poetry
I don't believe in a tame poetry. When poetry
hears its own name, it runs, flies, swims off for
fear of its own life. You can bet your boots on
that. Jean Cocteau said a poet rarely bothers
about poetry. Does a gardener perfume his
roses? --Frank Stanford
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Poetry
Poetry gives knowledge of the chaos and
confusion of the world by imposing order upon it
which leaves it still the chaos and confusion
which it really is. --Archibald MacLeish
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Poetry
Poetry is indispensableif I only knew what
for. --Jean Cocteau
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Poetry How NOT to Read a Poem
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Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening Whose woods
these are I think I know. His house is in the
village though He will not see me stopping
here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My
little horse must think it queer To stop without
a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen
lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives
his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some
mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy
wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely,
dark, and deep. But I have promises to keep, And
miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go
before I sleep.
Poetry
How NOT to Read a Poem
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Poetry
Mrs. D. was an imperious, white-haired woman who
not only gave extra credit for every symbol we
could find in The House of the Seven Gables (the
chickens in the back yard repressed sexuality,
etc.) but concocted a humiliating scheme in which
11-A students would tutor 11-Bers, including me,
thereby allowing close acquaintances to be more
than ordinarily supercilious and condescending to
their about-to-become-former-friend. The
highlight of the year, however, was our
discussion of Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a
Snowy Evening." The poem, we were told, and we
had to regurgitate what we "learned" on a
subsequent test, is about Santa Claus indeed
Kris Kringle is the speaker, taking a break
"without a farm house near" to contemplate the
work that yet lies ahead in delivering all those
presents. (The "little horse" is, of course,
really a reindeer he thinks it odd to pause in
an empty field because there is no house to
deliver presents to the speaker has "miles to go
before he sleeps" because he has "promises to
keep" to all those little boys and girls,
etc.--you get the idea.) Though not yet literary,
not yet even a reader, I smelled a rat. Such an
approach seemed silly.
How NOT to Read a Poem
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Poetry
How silly I realized only recently, while
teaching introduction to literature at Middle
Tennessee State University. In the required text,
Michael Meyer's comprehensive Bedford
Introduction to Literature, I was surprised to
find an excerpt from Herbert R. Coursen, Jr.'s
"The Ghost of Christmas Past 'Stopping by Woods
on a Snowy Evening,'" an essay, originally
published in College English in 1962, four years
before I suffered through Mrs. D's class. A
parody of poetic interpretation, a "how not to do
it" guide, Coursen's essay had evidently been
misread by Mrs. D. with all the literalism of the
British audience of Swift's "Modest Proposal."
She didn't get the joke, and she passed on her
lack of discernment to us. All over Western
Pennsylvania there are probably hundreds of
people now in their fifties who think the poem is
about Santa Claus.
How NOT to Read a Poem
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Poetry
Herbert R. Coursen, Jr., A Parodic Interpretation
of "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening The
Ghost of Christmas Past Stopping by Woods on a
Snow Evening, College English (December 1962).
How NOT to Read a Poem
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Billy Collins Introduction to Poetry from The
Apple that Astonished Paris (Fayetteville, Ark
University of Arkansas Press, 1996).
I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the
light like a color slide or press an ear against
its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and
watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the
poem's room and feel the walls for a light
switch. I want them to waterski across the
surface of a poem waving at the author's name on
the shore. But all they want to do is tie the
poem to a chair with rope and torture a
confession out of it. They begin beating it with
a hose to find out what it really means.
How NOT to Read a Poem
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Poetry Terms
alliteration
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Poetry Terms
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica
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Poetry Terms
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe diem
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Poetry Terms
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial
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Poetry Terms
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative
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Poetry Terms
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse
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Poetry Terms
Free verse is like playing tennis with the net
down.Robert Frost
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole
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Poetry Terms
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image literal
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Poetry Terms
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image literal metap
hor simile
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Ogden Nash Very Like a Whale
Poetry Terms
One thing that literature would be greatly the
better for Would be a more restricted employment
by the authors of simile and metaphor
simile. Authors of all races, be they Greeks,
Romans, Teutons or Celts, Can't seem just to say
that anything is the thing it is but have to go
out of their way to say that it is like something
else. What does it mean when we are told That
that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the
fold? In the first place, George Gordon Byron had
enough experience To know that it probably wasn't
just one Assyrian, it was a lot
of Assyrians. However, as too many arguments are
apt to induce apoplexy and thus hinder
longevity. We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for
the sake of brevity. Now then, this particular
Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming in
purple and gold, Just what does the poet mean
when he says he came down like a wolf on the
fold? In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of
in our philosophy there are great many things.
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Ogden Nash Very Like a Whale
Poetry Terms
But I don't imagine that among them there is a
wolf with purple and gold cohorts or purple and
gold anythings. No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll
believe that this Assyrian was actually like a
wolf I must have some kind of proof Did he run
on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a
big red mouth and big white teeth and did he say
Woof Woof? Frankly I think it is very unlikely,
and all you were entitled to say, at the very
most, Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down
like a lot of Assyrian cohorts about to destroy
the Hebrew host. But that wasn't fancy enough
for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a
lot of figures of speech and then interpolate
them, With the result that whenever you mention
Old Testament soldiers to people they say Oh yes,
they're the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up
in gold and purple ate them. That's the kind of
thing that's being done all the time by poets,
from Homer to Tennyson They're always comparing
ladies to lilies and veal to venison, And they
always say things like that the snow is a white
blanket after a winter storm.
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Ogden Nash Very Like a Whale
Poetry Terms
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under
a six-inch blanket of snow and I'll sleep under
a half-inch blanket of unpoetical blanket
material and we'll see which one keeps warm, And
after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend
dimly What I mean by too much metaphor simile.
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image literal metap
hor simile onomatopoeia
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Poetry Terms
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image literal metap
hor simile onomatopoeia
paraphrase
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Poetry Terms
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image literal metap
hor simile onomatopoeia
paraphrase persona
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Poetry Terms
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image literal metap
hor simile onomatopoeia
paraphrase persona poetic diction
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image literal metap
hor simile onomatopoeia
paraphrase persona poetic diction prose
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image literal metap
hor simile onomatopoeia
paraphrase persona poetic diction prose prose
poem rhyme
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image literal metap
hor simile onomatopoeia
paraphrase persona poetic diction prose prose
poem rhyme
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image literal metap
hor simile onomatopoeia
paraphrase persona poetic diction prose prose
poem rhyme stanza
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image literal metap
hor simile onomatopoeia
paraphrase persona poetic diction prose prose
poem rhyme stanza understatement
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Poetry Terms
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Poetry Terms
alliteration allusion ars poetica carpe
diem colloquial dramatic monologue figurative free
verse gestalt shift hyperbole image literal metap
hor simile onomatopoeia
paraphrase persona poetic diction prose prose
poem rhyme stanza understatement verse