Why Do I Find Poetry So Inscrutable?
March 12, 2018 at 2:18 p.m.
By Max [email protected]
Poetry is an art form that dates back to ancient times and a form of expression that makes our society more civil. That being the case, why do I have a difficult time understanding most poems I read? Why do I find it so hard to memorize them? Are these reasons why reading poetry is becoming an endangered art?
My queries stem from an editorial I recently read in a medical journal. In that issue, the author quoted some lines from Cecil Day Lewis' poem “Walking Away,” and then interpreted the contents:
I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into wilderness.
That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give-and-take.
I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show —
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.
The author of the journal article, Belinda Jack, as a means of interpretation, tells us that the poem recalls our first day at school, ourselves being the "hesitant figure." Those of us who have had children will remember their child's first day at school and the accompanying parental anxiety and the sense of loss. At the close of the poem, the lines "How selfhood begins with walking away/And love is proved in the letting go" suggest much that is central to child development psychology.
"Selfhood begins with walking away" is, according to the author, an extraordinary concise way of expressing the fact that a child has to establish independence by distancing itself from its mother and then its family. "Love is proved in the letting go" describes the other side of the equation. The parent has to accept, even encourage, this separation, even if it goes against certain protective instincts and this can be painful for the adult and the child.
In further discussion, the likening of the child to a "fledgling" and a "winged seed" suggests that this parting is part and parcel not just of the poet's experience, but fundamental to nature — both creatures and the botanical. The wilderness is both a literal one, nature in the wild, and a metaphor for the playground with all its unknowns.
After reading the poem, again according to Jack, a great poem may give us a sense of understanding of emotions that might otherwise remain an amorphous mass of unprocessed feeling. I accept all of the explanation after reading it several times, but doubt I could do the same with each poem I read. Moreover, “Walking Away,” unlike other poems, is not that complicated.
The solution to my dilemma lies in continuing to read books about poems, how to read them and how to understand them. There are a number to choose from, indicative of the reason such books are urgently needed. One of the best is "How to Read a Poem," written by Edward Hirsch. It describes why poetry matters and helps open our imaginations to the message the poem sends us. One much older is "Understanding Poetry" by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. This book is in its fourth edition. "Essential Pleasures" edited by Robert Pinsky is an great collection of poems to be read aloud. Another excellent collection of poems can be found in Garrison Keillor's book "Good Poems.”
My favorite poem is “Nobility,” written by Alice Cary, born April 26, 1820, and died Feb. 12, 1871. The first stanza is:
True Worth is in being, not seeming —
In doing, each day that goes by,
Some little good — not in dreaming
Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in their blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.
One editor ranked “Nobility” as one of the best and most beautiful poems every written. I continue to read it along with other great poems.
With regard to my inability to memorize poems, I have included this limerick:
There once was a fellow from Yuma
Who told an elephant joke to a puma.
Now his skeleton lies
Under hot western skies,
The puma had no sense of huma.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, will touch on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
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Poetry is an art form that dates back to ancient times and a form of expression that makes our society more civil. That being the case, why do I have a difficult time understanding most poems I read? Why do I find it so hard to memorize them? Are these reasons why reading poetry is becoming an endangered art?
My queries stem from an editorial I recently read in a medical journal. In that issue, the author quoted some lines from Cecil Day Lewis' poem “Walking Away,” and then interpreted the contents:
I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into wilderness.
That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give-and-take.
I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show —
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.
The author of the journal article, Belinda Jack, as a means of interpretation, tells us that the poem recalls our first day at school, ourselves being the "hesitant figure." Those of us who have had children will remember their child's first day at school and the accompanying parental anxiety and the sense of loss. At the close of the poem, the lines "How selfhood begins with walking away/And love is proved in the letting go" suggest much that is central to child development psychology.
"Selfhood begins with walking away" is, according to the author, an extraordinary concise way of expressing the fact that a child has to establish independence by distancing itself from its mother and then its family. "Love is proved in the letting go" describes the other side of the equation. The parent has to accept, even encourage, this separation, even if it goes against certain protective instincts and this can be painful for the adult and the child.
In further discussion, the likening of the child to a "fledgling" and a "winged seed" suggests that this parting is part and parcel not just of the poet's experience, but fundamental to nature — both creatures and the botanical. The wilderness is both a literal one, nature in the wild, and a metaphor for the playground with all its unknowns.
After reading the poem, again according to Jack, a great poem may give us a sense of understanding of emotions that might otherwise remain an amorphous mass of unprocessed feeling. I accept all of the explanation after reading it several times, but doubt I could do the same with each poem I read. Moreover, “Walking Away,” unlike other poems, is not that complicated.
The solution to my dilemma lies in continuing to read books about poems, how to read them and how to understand them. There are a number to choose from, indicative of the reason such books are urgently needed. One of the best is "How to Read a Poem," written by Edward Hirsch. It describes why poetry matters and helps open our imaginations to the message the poem sends us. One much older is "Understanding Poetry" by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. This book is in its fourth edition. "Essential Pleasures" edited by Robert Pinsky is an great collection of poems to be read aloud. Another excellent collection of poems can be found in Garrison Keillor's book "Good Poems.”
My favorite poem is “Nobility,” written by Alice Cary, born April 26, 1820, and died Feb. 12, 1871. The first stanza is:
True Worth is in being, not seeming —
In doing, each day that goes by,
Some little good — not in dreaming
Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in their blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.
One editor ranked “Nobility” as one of the best and most beautiful poems every written. I continue to read it along with other great poems.
With regard to my inability to memorize poems, I have included this limerick:
There once was a fellow from Yuma
Who told an elephant joke to a puma.
Now his skeleton lies
Under hot western skies,
The puma had no sense of huma.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, will touch on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
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