Poetry - how does anyone enjoy it? Inspire me so I can inspire my kids

[rose]

Here's my ignorant confession - poetry seems painfully pointless to me. Why do people write it and how does one go about enjoying it? I know that I must be missing something here. I'm a math and science person. Writing is about communication and poetry seems like an intentionally constrained medium that limits communication. To me it would be like trying to make a delicious meal with only ten ingredients. Why would I want to do that? I don't want to pass this attitude on to my children any more than I already have. Inspire me please. Share with me your favourite poem and tell me why you love it.

[bgtw]

I'm really tired right now, so I'm afraid I won't make a very good ambassador for poetry, but I'll try :)

 

Here's my food analogy...I love to read Stephen King; reading Stephen King is like sitting down with a big bowl of buttered popcorn.  To compare, poetry is like eating a piece of baklava...so sweet and rich that I take small bites and enjoy it slowly, rather than eating it by the handful.  

 

Here are a few poems that I love:

 

"Song: How sweet I roam'd from field to field" by William Blake

 

"homage to my hips" and "adam thinking" by Lucille Clifton

 

"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" by Walt Whitman

 

"Goodbye to James Garner" by Kim Dower

 

"The Sound of a Tree Falling" by Hal Sirowitz

 

"This is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams

 

I can't say why these in particular.  Something in each of them reaches into me and connects with me...surprises me or makes me laugh or cry or think of something in a new way.  

 

Instead of thinking of poetry as constraining, I think of it as wide open.  You don't have to follow conventions of any sort (although you can).  Poets can work outside the bounds of any writing conventions; or work within the constraints of a certain meter, rhyme scheme, etc if they want.  Poetry is like distilled writing...the words, the imagery is (usually) so carefully selected that it can contain so much meaning. 

 

If you want to share poetry with your children, and enjoy it yourself, I would go broad...try lots of books of poetry from the library and just flip through and see what appeals to you.  I love books of poetry curated for children (not necessarily poems written for children).  One we're enjoying right now is The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems which we found at the library.  Here is another we love so much we bought a copy, Lemonade: and Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word.  Also try listening to poems read aloud...I grew up listening to Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac and love the way he reads.  And maybe try Bravewriter's Poetry Teatime.  

 

 

[Hobbes]

I am much more of a prose person than poetry, but I have slowly developed a love for poetry.

 

To me, poetry is less like restricted cooking with few ingredients and more like not dumping tons of sauce on the top of a great cheesecake because you carefully selected a few great ingredients to use in the cheesecake and you want the simplicity of it to shine.

 

Things that helped me to appreciate poetry:

 

- Read a collection. Collections mean someone else has dug through the heap and pulled out the good bits for you. The first poetry collection I loved was one I bought in an airport in my teens: Good Poems by Garrison Keillor. With my kids, Favourite Poems.

 

- A.A. Milne. His poetry is witty, snappy, observant, and adorable. Much more my speed than more vague and wandering styles.

 

- Nursery Rhymes with little ones. These are introductory poetry and are quick, snappy, fun, and familiar. They are also part of the fabric of our language.

 

- Reading it aloud, without too much hooferah. The words make great impact when heard aloud, without pressure to analyze them. I read a poem or two from Favorite Poems at breakfast/morning time each day. We all like it and there's no pressure for discussion. I skip ones that really, really don't interest me.

[reign]

Do you like music with lyrics? That is the most commonly over looked yet most modern and accessible form of poetry. You could start with your favorite songs.

[Critterfixer]

First, you have permission to not like every poem you read. I could no more love all poetry than love all forms of music. There is music out there that I will never appreciate. It isn't all equal to me.

Most writing is constrained to a form. Even prose. Even fiction is constrained by a plot. An essay is constrained by form and by the purpose. Research papers would be constrained by form, information and purpose as well. Every act of communication has constraints. Poetry has the unique constraint of being musical as well as depending on mental pictures for the message. It's almost a visual art. So you might do better to approach it as something with that visual component--words painting pictures. I find it very useful to discuss poetry with both of my boys as a way to learn how vivid pictures in the mind are the product of great word choice, imagery that sings, and knowing exactly what you mean when you write. It's awesome for putting the punch in prose.

Some of my favorites:

About anything by Yeats-powerful images, and he's not afraid to pull the punches.

Fern Hill-Dylan Thomas-word choice, graphic images, you are there when you read this poem.

Much of Frost-terse, often, almost a stream of consciousness going on for some of his stuff, sometimes he polishes it. Frost is watercolor for me--he leaves it open for you to find what you see there.

Kubla Khan-Coleridge-I don't know. I just love this poem. Maybe it is because there is an ache in it for things that don't add up when you see them, but in some crazy way, they are true and right.

 

I do admit to trying to write my own poetry. It's pretty clunky, but one of these days, I'll figure out how to set some of my mythology and tales in verse. It's an interesting exercise anyway. I'm currently working with a story told in a book that I'm writing, and the character is limited by time, so he sets it to verse and tells it. I only included one stanza in the book, but I'd love to write the whole thing out and see how he did it.  

[SparklyUnicorn]

I really enjoyed MCT's poetry books.  I think he does a wonderful job explaining what is so interesting about poetry.  I felt similarly beforehand.

 

FWIW, I think it's ok not to like a particular type of writing, but again, I think MCT helps one understand what is so special about poetry.

 

 

[J&JMom]

I am with you, Rose.  I don't get the appeal of poetry either.  Maybe if you approach it like a riddle, make a game out of it, it might be more interesting?  Read books of riddles and invite the kids to compose their own to appreciate the nuances of language and meaning.  Then read some boring ol' poems and see if something happens?  My STEM-loving kids can learn about the beauty of poetry from their high school & college professors. I just read them the teacher's manual because I rarely can make heads or tails of them myself.  For example, I read aloud to them "Out of the Dust".  I am not sure why narrative poetry was the author's choice when, to me, prose would have done just as well. But Shakespeare - I get, lol!

Edited June 13, 2016 by J&JMom

[Haiku]

I suggest getting a copy of A Family of Poems by Caroline Kennedy and reading through it with your kids. The poetry is top-notch--some is serious and poetic, some is silly and fun, and it's all accompanied by John Muth's gorgeous watercolor art.

 

We have been memorizing poetry for 8 years. My kids have memorized well over 100 poems. Poetry has become a part of who we are, and we frequently reference poetry and quote lines from it when we are reminded of it by circumstance or surroundings.

 

I believe that in order to love poetry, you have to have a relationship with it, and, like all relationships, it is built over time. Don't expect to love all the poems you read; don't expect to understand all the poems you read; but keep reading, and take time to get to know the poems that you find yourself drawn to. Work to build a relationship with poetry so it doesn't seem strange and remote. There is no right way to read or understand poetry. It doesn't have to be a high-brow pursuit. Don't worry about analyzing it. Just enjoy the sound of the words and the mental images they evoke.

 

Poetry is art, and just like someone who works with a palette and canvas, poetry is someone's small gift to the world, thrown out with love in hopes of touching other people. As a poet myself, I believe that poetry is the most democratic of arts because all you need is a writing implement and something to write on (although, really, you don't even need that; you can create it in your mind and share it).

 

Poetry is in no way constrained. There are no rules to writing poetry.

 

My current favorite poem is The Song of Wandering Aengus by William Butler Yeats because it is a little bit magical and has beautiful imagery.

 

Edited June 13, 2016 by TaraTheLiberator

[brynndolyn]

This is my favorite poem: http://m.sparknotes.com/poetry/frost/section10.rhtml

 

I am not sure why. It's beautiful and simple. I was reading it to my kids a few months ago and actually got choked up during it. As a previous poster said, something in it just speaks to me. I so feel the desire to enjoy the beautiful, quiet things in life but also feel the pressure to skip them to do the things that "need" to be done. More so now that I'm a parent, but I've loved this poem since I first heard it.

 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Haiku]

This is my favorite poem: http://m.sparknotes.com/poetry/frost/section10.rhtml

 

This is my son's favorite poem. Frost had a real gift for simplicity.

[Carol in Cal.]

--Poetry is best read slowly aloud.  Slowly because it is such an efficient way of writing, with each word so polished and well-chosen, that to really absorb it takes time.  Aloud because one of poetry's tools  is how words actually sound, and because reading them silently speeds them up and obscures the sound of them.

--Poetry is like a Japanese garden with a stream running through it.  That stream will look wild and free, but actually each rock in it will have been placed extremely carefully to convey that effect, and to generate exactly the sounds that evoke the same 'wild and free' feeling. 

 

Some poems I really like:

The Chambered Nautilus--an excellent exhortation to virtue with a very unusual trigger that is nevertheless easy to picture

I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day--faints

Wide Open Stand the Gates--I cited this in another thread--it was written as a hymn about the Eucharist and it's absolutely glorious.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, a short but sweet one--

   But after all, my onetime love, my no longer cherished,

   Need we say it was not love, just because it perished?

 

[City Mouse]

Shel Silverstein is a great place to start with poetry for kids. His poems are fun and kid topics such as taking out the trash. The rhyme and rhythm also make them fun for kids.

 

 

Poems don't have to be all deep and symbolic to be "good".

[Jackie]

FWIW, even though I don't care much for poetry, all I've had to do is keep my mouth shut regarding my own dislike, provide some opportunity, and keep out of my kid's way and she has developed a love for it all on her own.

 

We did go through MCT's Music of the Hemispheres. She absolutely loves Brave Writer poetry teas.

[Lori D.]

Love everyone's thoughts and comments above! 🙂

Poetry can be tough for very literal-minded or "just the facts" thinkers. Poetry is very focused on language use and word play, with a strong use of images and metaphor, so understanding and appreciating connections, layered meanings, and use of language helps a lot. As said by a poster above, in poetry, the sound of the spoken words is very important, as it creates a kind of music when read aloud, so poetry is something that is best read by slowing down, reading small amounts, and reading it aloud to hear what the music the poet is creating. A lot of poetry also attempts to share thoughts, ideas and emotions that are not easily explained through facts or direct one-to-one correlations, so you have to slow down, be patient with it, and sit with it awhile (or let it sit within you awhile).

We live in a culture that does not at all promote meditative slow bites of reading, much less *living*  :eek:  , so you do have to fight upstream and work to make this aspect happen… When teaching my co-op class this past year, we were covering some Medieval literature, and it was so striking to me that Anglo-Saxon riddle-poems are a large part of what literature survived from that time period. The riddle poems are rhymed, use images creatively, and contain a lot of word play and double meanings. I could just picture peasant farmers plowing and working the fields, while meditatively working their brains by thinking on these riddle-poems -- inventing them, and trying to solve them. Without electronics and the crush of a fast-paced life, they had the time and ability to "sit awhile" with language and appreciate it. :) In contrast, our culture is a barrage of images and slogans, sound-bites and brief blogs -- when language is used (because SO much is about video and images these days), it is short and plain and to the point. Complexity of thought and language is almost completely gone now, as we simplify language to 144-character tweets and "LOL" and "RU coming 2nite?"

Some children's poetry collections can be a very fun and playful and accessible way to start with poetry:
Antarctica Antics: A Book of Penguin Poems (Sierra), or, The Dragons Are Singing Tonight (Prelutsky) -- light poems on a single topic
Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reverso Poems (Marilyn Singer) -- poems about fairy tale characters, which work forwards AND backwards!
Opposites (Wilbur) -- short riddle-like poems, high on humor
A Poke in the I (Janeczko) -- great, fun, word play poems
Poetry for Young People: Lewis Carroll -- "Jabberwocky" and other fun or parody poems on out-of-the-box topics using "nonce" words
Poetry Speaks to Children (ed.: Paschen) -- a GREAT intro to a variety of types of poems
also, poems by Ogden Nash -- short and often humorous
 

I think seeing that poets are often fun and playful, and to see the many ways poets play with language, can be a great starting place for enjoying poetry, so that's why I'm suggesting these collections and poets as a possible starting point.  🙂

 

I love Sparkly Unicorn's idea of using the first few books in Michael Clay Thompson's poetry series -- great for children AND adults! -- to help you slow down and savor and begin to see and understand what is put into a poem and why. For a more logic/STEM-based person you might like Margaret Chapman's very straight-forward Poetry for Beginners. As a next step, I think Tania Runyan's short and very accessible book, How to Read a Poem, gives some wonderful beginning tools for beginning appreciation of poetry. She based the book on Billy Collin's poem "Introduction to Poetry" -- a humorous and insightful poem about what poetry is about, and how poetry is frequently misunderstood.

Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins

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.

BEST of luck, whatever you decide to do/not do with poetry! 🙂 Warmest regards, Lori D.

ETA:
You might also find Tania Runyan's book How to Read a Poem a great starting point -- she uses Billy Collins' above poem to provide some ideas for seeing the strengths of poetry -- sound and imagery -- to begin to appreciate the very different way that poetry works. 😄 

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Lori D.

[ktgrok]

Full disclosure, I adore poetry and have written some myself in my day. It, like song lyrics, takes a whole story or thought or feeling and distills it down to the essence. Or the bones, if that metaphor works better.

 

One of my favorites, by Whitman in reference to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln:

 

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head; It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.    

[tm919]

EDIT: OK I fail at quoting (also I can't type) so...

 

I think the structure of the poem gives information in itself, or it CAN... kind of like music gives information that the words of a song alone don't.

 

from SEA FEVER (Masefield)

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied...

 

This poem sounds like being on a boat riding the waves. Then a commonly cited one for rhyme scheme:

 

From LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK (Elliott)

Let us go then, you and I,   
When the evening is spread out against the sky   
Like a patient etherized upon a table...
 

One of these things does not rhyme with the others. The rhyme scheme goes from heroic couplet (is that the term?) to just not rhyming in places (table?) -- tells you something about what the speaker wants to be but isn't.

Edited June 13, 2016 by tm919

[Rosie_0801]

Some poetry is funny.

 

My son's favourite poem was Queen Anne's Lace by Mary Leslie Newton because he liked the lip patterns.

[katilac]

I really enjoyed MCT's poetry books.  I think he does a wonderful job explaining what is so interesting about poetry.  I felt similarly beforehand.

 

FWIW, I think it's ok not to like a particular type of writing, but again, I think MCT helps one understand what is so special about poetry.

 

And if you ever get the chance to see him in person, all the better! dh is much like the OP, and he left the talk going, wow, wow, now I see... 

 

I love the books too, but I think they can be a bit much for someone who doesn't already at least kind of like some poetry. 

 

It can be hard to read poetry out loud, especially if you don't appreciate or understand it, so I really recommend audio books. 

 

Definitely Shel Silverstein for kids - those are a bit easier to read out loud bc they're funny and silly.

 

Robert Louis Stevenson was another big hit in my house. 

 

Poetry Speaks to Children, Poetry Speaks, there are just a ton of poetry audiobooks and most libraries have quite a few of them. 

 

If you struggle with meaning and the why of poetry, avoid the more esoteric stuff and focus on narrative poetry that tells an understandable story, and - I can't think of the right word, but the equivalent of protest and folk music. War poetry can be powerful; I like to have students compare something like Charge of the Light Brigade, which glorifies dying in war even if you don't understand why, with sadder or more jaundiced works like War is Kind or Anthem for Doomed Youth. 

 

Stay far away from the Romantic Era for now  :laugh:

[katilac]

Oh, and one of my favorites favorites, Not Waving But Drowning, can be a good choice for teens, who tend to identify with feeling alienated and misunderstood. 

 

I was much too far out all my life   

And not waving but drowning.

ending lines of Not Waving But Drowning, by Stevie Smith 

 

[goldenecho]

OH, you ask such a good question...not sure if I can totally explain but I would love to give it a try.  (And warning, I am not going to be able to limit myself to one poem...sorry, can't do it).  And yeah, this will be probably way too long.

 

While I like various types of poems my favorite type of poem is a medium length poem (longer than a Haiku, less than two pages long) with strong imagery and beautiful phrasing...something that when I read it I can feel like I'm seeing through the author's eyes.  I like that in novels too...but when I'm reading a novel I'm there for the story and sometimes I miss the details for the plot (or sometimes the details can weigh down the plot...a few things I had to read in college were like that).  But when I'm reading a poem, I'm there for the details.   That's why I like them short...so I can really sit and look at what the poet saw through their eyes (or imagination) and imagine it in detail.  It's sort of the difference between driving through the countryside and enjoying the view and getting out and picking a flower and really looking at all the beautiful intricacies of it.   But sometimes there's a story there too...and reading poetry gives me access to many different stories in the same amount of time it would take me to read ONE story in novel or even short story form.

 

I also like poems that have a little mystery too them...that I can't totally understand the full meaning of on the first reading (not that I can't understand them at all...but that I can get a feel of at first but there's still things between the lines to be ferreted out).  Some of my favorite poems are like a condensed mystery novel...where you're getting a piece of the story but there's clues to more of it too.  It's sort of like taking that flower I mentioned and then putting it to the microscope.  It's the excitement of figuring out the puzzle...but more personal because you get the same sort of attachment to the story and it's characters (where there are characters...or a character, even if that's just the poet).  

 

Even though the story in a poem is rarely complete, and more often just a moment in a story that's untold, that's part of the draw too.  Even a novel is only part of a story...there's almost always more to be imagined, and a poem can be a starting place for that imagination.

 

And then there's just the language...sometimes the way people say things can just be beautiful and powerful, and it's sometimes easier to appreciate that in a shorter form, like a poem or a quote.

 

But, I didn't really like poems all that much as a kid...EXCEPT for song lyrics, and Shel Silverstein.  If you're not familiar with him, here's one of his poems I still know by heart (though I can't remember the title)...

 

If I have one more piece of pie, I'll die.

If I don't have one more piece of pie, I'll die.

So since it's all decided I must die,

I might as well have one more piece of pie.

Ummm..

Gulp

Bye!

 

Silly, huh...

 

Have to share one more of his because it might be another answer to your question....

 

 

PUT SOMETHING IN

 

Draw a crazy picture,

Write a nutty poem,

Sing a mumble-gumble song,

Whistle through your comb.

Do a loony-goony dance

Cross the kitchen floor.

Put something silly in the world,

That ain't been there before.

 

I liked his poems because they were funny and clever, but he also had some deeper poems mixed in and I found I liked those too...they made me think about things in a way I hadn't before (I still like that about poetry...some poetry anyways).  I think this was how I got into poetry first...though I didn't really start to like poems until high school.  I remember stumbling on a book of Robert Frost poems and fell in love.  So many of his poems are beautiful and sad.  I think there's something to that mix that tugged on my soul a bit, like this poem (one of the first I read from that book)...

 

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. 

 

Here's another favorite of mine....

 

SPRING NIGHT
by Sarah Teasdale

The park is filled with night and fog,
The veils are drawn about the world,
The drowsy lights along the paths
Are dim and pearled.

Gold and gleaming the empty streets,
Gold and gleaming the misty lake,
The mirrored lights like sunken swords,
Glimmer and shake.

Oh, is it not enough to be
Here with this beauty over me?
My throat should ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.
O, beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love,
With youth, a singing voice, and eyes
To take earth's wonder with surprise?
Why have I put off my pride,
Why am I unsatisfied, --
I, for whom the pensive night
Binds her cloudy hair with light, --
I, for whom all beauty burns
Like incense in a million urns?
O beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love?

 

 

That one I love because I can just picture that street, picture how beautiful it would look, but I can also put myself in the author's place...feel her heartsickness and the pull of the beauty against her emotions.

 

Edited June 15, 2016 by goldenecho

[goldenecho]

I agree...I too think it's ok to not like a particular type of writing.  But I think with poetry it's important to know that it's really not just ONE type of writing.  Like some people love rhyming sing-songish poems and others hate that but like free verse, and some people like epic poetry (there are novel length poems, if the short length seems too pithy...The Odyssey, Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner....honestly don't care for either and I'm a poetry lover otherwise, but some do, though I did like "The Song, and The Singer, The Finale" which is a creative retelling of the story of Christ in a series of shorter poems that make up one longer story).  Others enjoy song lyrics (absolutely a form of poetry), or humorous limericks...etc.

 

And some try every type of poetry and still don't like it, and that's ok.  Just know when presenting it to your children that you have a lot of types you can dabble with and they may not like all but it's helpful to expose them to a lot of different types.  You might consider listening to some spoken word poetry (maybe attending a poetry slam...though that can get a little not pg depending where you go).  Poetry is really meant to be spoken. 

 

 

I really enjoyed MCT's poetry books.  I think he does a wonderful job explaining what is so interesting about poetry.  I felt similarly beforehand.

 

FWIW, I think it's ok not to like a particular type of writing, but again, I think MCT helps one understand what is so special about poetry.

 

 

Edited June 15, 2016 by goldenecho

[Bluegoat]

And if you ever get the chance to see him in person, all the better! dh is much like the OP, and he left the talk going, wow, wow, now I see... 

 

I love the books too, but I think they can be a bit much for someone who doesn't already at least kind of like some poetry. 

 

It can be hard to read poetry out loud, especially if you don't appreciate or understand it, so I really recommend audio books. 

 

Definitely Shel Silverstein for kids - those are a bit easier to read out loud bc they're funny and silly.

 

Robert Louis Stevenson was another big hit in my house. 

 

Poetry Speaks to Children, Poetry Speaks, there are just a ton of poetry audiobooks and most libraries have quite a few of them. 

 

If you struggle with meaning and the why of poetry, avoid the more esoteric stuff and focus on narrative poetry that tells an understandable story, and - I can't think of the right word, but the equivalent of protest and folk music. War poetry can be powerful; I like to have students compare something like Charge of the Light Brigade, which glorifies dying in war even if you don't understand why, with sadder or more jaundiced works like War is Kind or Anthem for Doomed Youth. 

 

Stay far away from the Romantic Era for now  :laugh:

 

 

THis is along the lines of what I was thinking.

 

I think for many people, the image of the poet is someone who is writing something rather esoteric, that needs to be figured out, and that seems to come from some of the romantics, or modern poets. 

 

But that isn't all poetry, and many people don't really like that sort of thing.  I think it was C.S. Lewis who said he had no idea how an evening could be like a patient etherized on a table - it may not speak to some, and it probably isn't the best for kids.

 

But there is a lot of great narrative poetry - much of literature, so long as we depended on oral rather than mainly written memory, was poetic - because you can remember and recite a very long narrative poem in a way that you probably could not recite a work of prose - you sing it, really, rather than just tell it.  And so the poetic forms of those works were specifically intended to aid memory retention, and recitation, and to support the action in the story.

 

Sometimes it doesn't seem so obvious to us in those older works because we read them in translation, and it can be difficult to maintain the form - sometimes it can't even really be translated into our language, as it may depend on elements that don't work in English.

 

But I would defiantly look at story poems as a good place to start.  It doesn't have to be really old stuff - Kipling and Burns are both poets who have a strong connection (IMO anyway I don't actually know much academically about them) to that kind of singing and storytelling mode. 

 

 

[Bluegoat]

Some other things that strike me:

 

About form - all arts have form.  Part of creation is choosing the best form for the job.  Is this a traditional ballet or hip hop?  A sonnet or a limerick?  All kinds of things can go into that decision, but often, having a form, the constraints of it, in themselves, fuel creativity and thinking about the subject more carefully and deeply.  Trying to communicate in art without form would be like trying to communicate in daily interactions without a language. 

 

One of the sad things, to me, about modern communication, is that we tend to think that things operate pretty much on one level, or at least on a few, obvious ones.  What a thing says is what it says, so long as you can work out the correct meaning.  It's a very empirical and one dimensional way to think about language, and I think when people believe this, they are actually missing out of much of the nature of the universe.  So much of what is real is not there, obvious on a page, it is beyond the words.  The goal of language is actually to try, in some way, to connect you to the reality beyond the words.  Prose can have a way of making us believe that it is really summing up a whole idea.

 

Sometimes people who are really into science tend to take this view about language for granted - it can be what appeals to them about the sciences, especially for young people, it seems solid and real.  What I would suggest though, is that there is in fact a similar thing going on there.  If scientists talk about some system or explanation or set of reasons something in nature happens a particular way, they are constructing a model.  They can do it through normal language, or mathematically, or a computer model, or a paper mace model for that matter.  But none are the thing in itself, they are all abstractions, that show someone, in part,. and idea of the thing in itself.  Which type of model is better depends on the purpose.  And it's also possible to have very different models or concepts that both describe the same phenomena in a true way, but are not mutually compatible.  WE are in some sense imposing limits and forms that are useful to us, that are (we hope) somewhat true but may in some ways also be limited or even a little arbitrary.  (Could we imagine a biology, for example, where we don't bother to talk about or define species?)

 

So - I think one way to think about literature is that it is, like all language, creating models of reality for us.  And the model that is chosen is the one that will bring out something new or particular, or be most useful for our purpose, or whatever.  If you want to send a satellite to the moon, you should probably use mathematics in your work.  If you want to talk about the way that the solar system is animated, maybe that is as well, or better, expressed by talking about angels pushing around the planets.  If you hope to create a sense of the majesty of the celestial bodies, music might be a good choice of medium.

 

 

 

 

[Lori D.]

goldenecho and Blue Goat -- lovely, lovely thoughts and wonderful insights! And hopefully helpful in making poetry not seem so foreign or boring or unaccessible! Thanks for sharing those most recent posts in this thread! :)

[rose]

Thank you, all. I really appreciate your explanations. I'm going to give poetry another chance. Maybe I'll write a poem some day entitled, "A Second Chance for Poetry." I would personify poetry as the nerdy, pimply boy at the back of English class whose glasses were too thick. He'd ask me to the prom and I'd laugh in his face but in the end I'd see his stellar character and we'd end up in love, married and having babies together. I'll dig up this thread and share it if I get there. :)

[Kalmia]

I think there is something to be said for an adult starting (or restarting) her relationship with poetry from the beginning. That is, with children's poetry first. You may find as you provide poems for your child, one or two will stick with you. Then you will be eager to find more of similar style or caliber. Your appreciation may "grow up" faster than your children's as you already have the background knowledge and maturity to leap forward if you establish a strong base.

 

It may also help to know, that biologists of the last two centuries (1800s and 1900s) often chose to introduce each chapter of their books with a snippet of poetry about the creatures they discussed within! In the 1700s, some scientists even wrote up the results of their investigations in verse!And that there is science poetry:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/07/10/30-days-quantum-poetry-xyz/

 

“The ideal scientist thinks like a poet and works like a bookkeeper,†the influential biologist E.O. Wilson said in his spectacular recent conversation with the former Poet Laureate Robert Hass, exploring the shared creative wellspring of poetry and science.

 

I've always used this poem when discussing metamorphosis and the dragonfly nymph emerging from the water where it has lived an aquatic life, shedding its exoskeleton, pumping up its wings with hemolymph, his new exoskeleton hardening, and then, finally, being structurally sound for flight and becoming a creature of the air. Of course, Tennyson gets across this biological process in a much more lovely way:

 

The Dragon Fly by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

Today I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.

 

 

 

Edited June 15, 2016 by Kalmia

[ShariM]

I didn't read all the responses, so forgive me if I repeat something.

 

I hesitated to read poetry to my boys but I did anyway and here are a few benefits I found:

analogies- poetry is huge with analogies, and homo- words (nyms, phones, and such) which benefits...

vocabulary- they come across vocabulary they wouldn't otherwise come across

repetition- because most children's poems are so short it's easy to memorize, and so they hear that vocabulary over and over again which helps with retention

variety of subject- again, because of the short poems you can introduce short subjects,  or moods, or ideas, without much time investment, unless you want to

 

And they are really liking the silly ones. Those are a lot of fun for younger boys.

 

 

[J-rap]

To me, poetry serves three purposes:

 

It is fun, and makes words sound fun.

 

It can express a feeling or emotion more precisely and creatively.

 

It can have a cadence or rhythm that draws you in unlike other types of literary expression.

 

 

 

 

 

[Carol in Cal.]

Start with silly stuff, like Sue Boynton--But Not The Hippopotamus

[Mrs Twain]

I recommend starting with IEW's linguistic development through poetry memorization book. It was written for people like you.

 

Also get a book that only has poems by Robert Louis Stevenson.

 

I bet you and your kids may actually start liking poetry after you read these.

[lulubelle]

I'm not big on poetry either, but my kids think memorizing it is the best thing.  The more you hear a poem, the more you appreciate and understand it.  We just memorize and appreciate it that way, we don't break it down or anything.  Just through that, my kids have a great appreciation of it.

[OnMyOwn]

I haven't read all of the replies, so maybe someone's already mentioned it, but my kids used IEW's poetry memorization program in the elementary grades and that sparked a love of poetry in my dd.

[madteaparty]

I don't enjoy some of the ye olde English ones but mainly I need to work on being open to it because there's very few surprising things in the world anymore and poems still have that power over me. I think David Whyte (spelling?) said something like "poetry is language we have no defenses against" and that's how I feel. Take for example "life while you wait" by a certain polish poet whose name I can't spell at the moment.
And there was one in the New Yorker a few months ago something about a child death and hospitals over a holiday weekend...I've forgotten the name of the poem and the author but I think of the poem itself every other day on average.oh here i found:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/27141

Edited June 17, 2016 by madteaparty

[Black-eyed Suzan]

I haven't read the rest of the responses, so someone may have already mentioned his, but have you listened to poetry? It often makes a difference.

 

Here are a couple I like (for you - preview before showing your kids, and mine wouldn't like the first two at all):

 

Billy Collin's The Lanyard

 

Billy Collin's Litany

 

I also love the imagery in Emily Dickinson's A Slash of Blue.

 

Reading aloud picture books with poems are a fun way to introduce them to children. Robert Louis Stevenson, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, Thanksgiving Day by Lydia Maria Child are just a few. I found many by going to the children's poetry section of the library and browsing.

 

 

 

[mayath]

Here are two poems about growing up that I love: Turning Ten, by Billy Collins, and The Light Gatherer, by Carol Ann Duffy.

And here are some poets explaining the magic of poetry:

 

To see the Summer Sky

Is Poetry, though never in a book it lie –

True poems flee.

-       Emily Dickinson

 

 

A poem begins with a lump in the throat.

-       Robert Frost

 

Browsing the dim back corner

Of a musty antique shop

Opened an old book of poetry

Angels flew out from the pages

I caught the whiff of a soul

-       Pixie Foudre

 

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

-       Carl Sandburg

 

Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

-       Thomas Gray

[Arcadia]

Nursery rhymes are poetry :)

 

My kids didn't mind poetry but won't read poems unless assigned. They just create their own melodies for them.

[JanetC]

Hamilton! How can we not mention Hamilton!

 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/lin-manuel-miranda-performs-white-house-poetry-jam-8-8

[Beebug123]

I don't really have a favorite poem but what helped inspire my girls to enjoy poetry was to throw poetry tea parties. We bought some fun pastries and made up tiny sandwiches, dug out all of the fun tea sets we had, and bought a few children's poetry books. As we ate out treats we would take turns flipping to a page and reading the poem. We haven't done them in a few years but my girls remember them fondly.

[Lori D.]

Bumping this thread, wondering if you've had an opportunity to explore some poetry and "give it a chance to speak to you", RoseM. 🙂

Also, I thought of another aspect that might appeal to you, Rose, specifically, as a Christian believer.

Because God is spirit and infinite, and we are human and finite, and because so many aspects of our faith and worship are mysteries, faith is not something that can be scientifically / factually / finitely communicated, explained, and understood. Examples of mysteries of the Christian faith: Creation (everything from nothing), the Incarnation, the Eucharist, the working of the Holy Spirit, prayer, etc.

The closest we can come to understanding or explaining aspects of these mysteries is through images and comparisons. Much of what Jesus shared about the Father and the Kingdom of Heaven came in the form of parables -- images and comparisons. In the parables, Jesus was not saying this IS the way the Kingdom works, but he was using similes and visual comparisons, to say that the Kingdom is LIKE this -- in other words, it's NOT this precisely, but there are aspects from this thing you know and are familiar with (a vineyard, a shepherd, seeds being sown) that echo aspects of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Prose tends to directly state single layers of facts, or narrate the factual details of a story. Poetry is best at communicating multiple layers of meaning, indirectly, and through suggestion -- images, comparisons, and making connections that can't be made through direct, factual statements .

So in Scripture, while the history and doctrine parts of faith CAN be directly communicated through factual prose (I and II Samuel; Acts; the Epistles), mystery cannot be full expressed through "bald factual" prose. The multiple layers, images, and connections of poetry are a better fit for trying to express all the meaning that is tied up in Mystery. Think of all the layers of meaning that is packed in the poetry of Psalms and the books of the Prophets.

Some quick examples of how poetry adds depth and meaning through imagery, comparisons / connections, and sound (musicality) of language with something as simple as the flower of the rose, which shows up in a lot of poems and in our culture. 🙂

In Shakespeare's play Romeo & Juliet, Juliet has fallen in love with Romeo, who is a member of the family that her family has a deadly feud with, so she is trying to find a way around this by "untangling" the person of Romeo from his name (family connection), by questioning the factual meaning of words:

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title..."

 

For hundreds of years, poets have been writing about roses, and using roses as comparison to create layers of meaning. Robert Frost humorously "tweaks" that idea in this poem about how poets compare everything to a rose:

"The Rose Family"
by Robert Frost

The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple's a rose,
And the pear is, and so's
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose -
But were always a rose. 
 

And this contemporary poet from India was inspired by Shakespeare's thought, and especially by Robert Frost's poem above, to write a poem that, in a way, expresses the opposite: BECAUSE a rose IS a rose (itself, a solid fact), and people see it/interpret it in many different ways, no matter how bad things get or how poorly people behave, we can hold on to the lovely FACT that roses exist:

"A Rose is a Rose"
by Roopali

A rose is a rose,
No matter where it grows.
Some saw thorns,
Beauty some chose.
Criticized by some,
Valued by loads;
People's opinions,
You can't change them by force.
Perfection is desired,
Even if it's freestyle prose!
Our lives might be cumbersome,
Let's accept the challenges they pose;
There's a bit of stardust in us all,
No matter hellish situations might come how close,
because, a rose is a rose.

___________________

Again, I encourage you to enjoy Tania Runyan's How to Read a Poem as a starting place for yourself for appreciating poetry. And take a look at Classical Academic Press's Art of Poetry (the dvd set has 15 hours of teacher guidance through the poems!) as something to possible do with your children.

Enjoy exploring poetry! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Lori D.

[forty-two]

This was a timely thread bump for me. I've just been thinking that my quest to learn to enjoy poetry has stalled.

 

I got from "why a poem when prose is so much better?" to appreciating the *sounds* of poetry through nursery rhymes and children's poems. Nursery rhymes and poems for kids were way more accessible and, oh, "obvious" in their use of poetry elements (both sounds and images) than the Very Great Poems I attempted to study in AP English. I had sort of thought you identified rhyme and rhythm through marking up the rhyme scheme and stress pattern - the idea you could just *hear* it through reading it aloud without having to figure out what you were supposed to hear first was a revelation to me. (Also the importance of reading poetry aloud was a new thing.)

 

Nursery rhymes are especially fun because because you can really get a nice sing-song rhythm going, and unlike with "serious" poems, it's totally ok to do that the nursery rhymes :thumbup:. And it really helps in learning to hear what's going on in poetry - plus it's just plain fun ;). And poetry for young kids also has pretty "obvious" images - it's relatively easy to understand. And so much of it is just plain silly, ridiculous fun with words - and the sort of fun that you can appreciate without having to think and re-think, and the sort of fun that's enhanced and not ruined by exaggerating the sounds and images.

 

In addition to nursery rhymes, my kids and I really enjoy Edward Lear and T.S. Eliot's Book of Practical Cats - it's easy to feel the rhythm of the words and it's so fun to say, plus the meaning is fun and not terribly hard to grasp.

 

 

But I've not managed to move beyond fun kids' poems. Especially I've not been able to appreciate the imagery of poems - still feels like an overly complex circumlocution instead of, you know, just *saying* what you mean ;). I've given myself permission to just read poems aloud and enjoy the rhythm and not bother to try to figure out the meaning (appreciating 50% is better than appreciating 0%), but mostly I just haven't been seeking out poems.

 

But in this thread I read most of the poems people posted, and I did enjoy them :).

 

Wide Open Stand the Gates--I cited this in another thread--it was written as a hymn about the Eucharist and it's absolutely glorious.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, a short but sweet one--

   But after all, my onetime love, my no longer cherished,

   Need we say it was not love, just because it perished?

I really appreciated both of these :).

[laundrycrisis]

I'm not big into poetry, but haikus are fun.  I make them up to entertain myself.  

 

I just made this for you :)

 

I like poetry.

It is a way of using

words differently.  

 

lol !

 

The poet I most like to read is E. E. Cummings.

 

And I just realized how old the thread was...

 

Zombie thread was dead.

Then, someone posted again;

Just a friendly bump.

 

:)

 

 

 

Edited January 25, 2018 by laundrycrisis

[Earthmerlin]

I recommend starting with IEW's linguistic development through poetry memorization book. It was written for people like you.

 

Also get a book that only has poems by Robert Louis Stevenson.

 

I bet you and your kids may actually start liking poetry after you read these.

What is 'IEW'? I looked for this (book?) on Amazon but couldn't find it.

[forty-two]

What is 'IEW'? I looked for this (book?) on Amazon but couldn't find it.

 

Institute for Excellence in Writing.  Here's a link to the poetry memorization:

http://iew.com/shop/products/linguistic-development-through-poetry-memorization-teachers-manual-cds

 

[fairfarmhand]

For some humor on poets and poetry, check out the old show petticoat junction, called bobby jo and the beatnik.

 

And I love frosts stopping by a woods on a snowy evening. Had to memorize it in the 7th grade and when I’m walking in the woods in the snow the words drift back through my mind.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[EKS]

I see this is an old thread, but I thought I'd respond anyway.

 

The reason I like poetry--well, some poetry--and the reason that I like to write it, is because poems are like nuggets of thought.  It's a way of playing with language--either by conforming to certain rules, as you would play a game, or by stretching the limits.  From an academic standpoint, I've found that my years of writing poetry and thinking of language in unconventional ways is directly tied to my ability to write academic prose.

[Tsuga]

Here's my ignorant confession - poetry seems painfully pointless to me. Why do people write it and how does one go about enjoying it? I know that I must be missing something here. I'm a math and science person. Writing is about communication and poetry seems like an intentionally constrained medium that limits communication. To me it would be like trying to make a delicious meal with only ten ingredients. Why would I want to do that? I don't want to pass this attitude on to my children any more than I already have. Inspire me please. Share with me your favourite poem and tell me why you love it.

Poetry to me is singing without having to carry a tune. I like Edna St. Vincent Millay. I like lyricism. I am not ashamed of not liking what I don't like. If I don't get it we don't waste time on it.

 

Not trying to enjoy what doesn't inspire joy is.crucial. Some chemists don't love biology, but they are both scientists. And that is okay.