I've gone from no appreciation whatsoever to a kind of fledgling, neophyte, still-mostly-aspirational-but-occasionally-concrete starter-level appreciation. But I feel like I've stalled out in my progress and I'm not sure how or where to get going. My one real achievement is learning to hear and genuinely enjoy the sound elements of poetry - the rhythm and rhymes and word play and such. I started out firmly in the camp of "why bother putting things into poetry when prose is so much better anyway", but now I can at least appreciate how good sound is worth aiming for. (I still appreciate the stronger and more obvious sounds, though - not sure I'm up for catching the more subtle rhythms.) But I'm still pretty much at square one when it comes to appreciating the visual images; it's still way too much like deciphering the images instead of *feeling* the images; it still feels like the images are getting in the way of the meaning instead of being the substance of the meaning. Actually, I'm not sure I actually grasp all that much about how the rhythms and rhymes and such embody meaning, either, but I enjoy them for their own sake; and for my own sanity, I'm subscribing to the “appreciating poetry for being lovely is at least half of the point of poetry appreciation” school of thought. (I also subscribe to the “the sound of poetry is at least half the point” and “only analyze poems you already love” schools, too.) But I'd like to learn to appreciate the imagery side of poetry, too: to appreciate the lovely images of a poem as much as the lovely sound of it. And to generally increase my poetry reading ability and stamina. As far as it goes, I genuinely *like* nursery rhymes and humorous children's poetry (Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, T.S. Eliot's “Book of Practical Cats”, A.A. Milne in Winnie-the-Pooh). And I intellectually appreciate and mildly like non-humorous children's poetry (Robert Lewis Stevenson and the ones in children's anthologies). AKA I enjoy poems with lots of fun rhythms and sounds and wordplay, coupled with straightforward images; plus humor provides excellent motivation. But I haven't really progressed beyond that. There's been the occasional poems I've struggled with on and off because I was motivated to understand them (Tolkien's “Mythopoeia”, Kipling's “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”, some of Dante's “Inferno”), plus I try hard not to just skip poetry excerpts when they are quoted in prose stuff I'm reading (although sometimes I fail when the excerpts are on the longer side). (Interestingly, I just realized that on the “harder” poems I was motivated to understand despite the inherent detriment of their being poetry – I almost entirely ignored the sound. Whereas on the poems I'm reading *because* they are poetry, I pay far more attention to the sound than the images.) Anyway, I've thought about trying narrative poetry, because I like stories (and things with a point), and it might help improve my poetry stamina. But unless the language is really good (while the images are not-too-hard to comprehend), it's going to suffer from “this story would be so much better in prose” syndrome. Any recs for good narrative poems, especially those with a great sound to them? I've also thought about trying short poems of increasing difficulty, hopefully some that have a great sound and are in areas of interest. Any recs for good humorous or religious poems (esp sacramental Christianity; hymn recs welcome)? Or, really, any poems you absolutely love and want to sell me on? Other people's enthusiasm carries me pretty far (esp if the poem is short <shifty>). ~*~ Also, any thoughts or links or recs wrt “why poetry” are welcome. I have only the most fledgling intuitive sense of “why poetry.” It's enough to inspire me to press on, to take it on faith that poetry can convey things that are impossible to convey in prose, and that those things are worth the trouble of conveying - but I still have no idea what those things actually are. I've read a lot of “why poetry” stuff, and while I'm inspired by their writers' obvious passion for poetry, their reasons never resonate. It's like they have the worldview of a poetry-lover and I don't, and until I can somehow manage the paradigm shift, I'll never be able to understand their reasons. Especially since half the time they resort to poetry to try to explain their love of poetry ;). Understandable, given that poetry is apparently the best way to try to say the unsayable, but not as helpful as it could be to the aspires-to-understand-poetry set, lol. (It has occurred to me that my attempts to try to understand poetry apart from actually, you know, actually reading poetry, might amount to me seeking a royal road to poetry <shifty>.) I know I suffer from needing to know *why* I'm doing something, and my reasons for "why tackle poetry" are still a little too "because it's good for you (somehow, in general)". About all I have for intuitive, felt reasons is the inherent pleasure of strong, singsongy rhythms; this one, brief shining moment of poetry appreciation in high school where I had to answer a multiple choice question about the meaning of a line and it just struck me so hard how the line itself was so much fuller and more beautiful and made the test answer seem so ugly in comparison; and when I was filling out a response form for a religious retreat I was on and I didn't have the words to describe what the services were like - I had to resort to "It was really great", and that was just so *inadequate* that it made me wish I'd memorized poetry, so I'd have had the words to do justice to the experience. Those are enough to keep me plugging in an on-and-off sort of way, but not enough to persist in a disciplined sort of way.

What will you do to celebrate? I am planning to put up a “poet tree” later this week. I’ll also take out my poem-a-day book and share a poem at lunch each day we’re home. I’ll aim for a poetry tea time each week. Last, I’m going to have each of my children pick a poem to memorize this month. Here are some links: National Poetry Month at Poets.org Poetry Tea Time Index post to poetry books I’ve reviewed over the years on my blog (shameless plug)

My 12 year old son (just started 7th grade) is a super creative kid. He's very interested in poetry right now - writing it and reading it. He is working through WWS 1 this year for his writing curriculum, however, I'd like to feed this love of poetry. While I will research different poets for him to read and ponder, I'd like to find him a writing curriculum to help him understand the basics. In fact, he asked if I had "any books that could help him understand and write poetry better." In my googling, I've found a few curricula that help with poetry memorization, but we already do that. And that's really not what he's looking for. Any suggestions?

I would like experience opinions on whether it matters with this series of lectures if it's the DVD version or the CD version and why you prefer one or the other. It seems that since it's a poetry course, then visuals aren't as important. Thanks!

Touchpress The Sonnets by William Shakespeare DS is studying the sonnets this fall at the CC and I remembered seeing this link shared a while back. Scroll down to where the numbers are listed to watch each video. Re-sharing for those who might find it similarly helpful. I'm drooling over the ones read by Patrick Stewart (our favorite Star Trek captain) and David Tennant (our favorite Doctor!). :drool5: We have an old iPad that's not cooperating so we are watching the free ones on our laptops for now. There's an iPad/ iPhone app for those who want to try that (not free)!