How to Read a Poem, Lesson 1 continued

Let’s jump right into using Lesson 1 of How to Read a Poem.

I wrote “The Fruit” a long time ago. The 2nd stanza I wrote 10 years after the 1st.

Q.  Can I see a pattern in the stanzas? Number of lines, number of syllables.

I taught myself to hate                      6 syl

And proved my hate was right.       6 syl

I listed all the items                           7 syl

Till my case was very tight.             7 syl

Was proud of all my logic                7 syl

So I told it to my friends.                  6 syl

But now I find hate’s gift                  6 syl

Will cause my love to end.              6 syl

I gave myself to Love                       6 syl

And yielded to its power.                 7 syl

It shed a mighty light                        6 syl

That made my hatred cower.          7 syl

As it focused its bright beam          7 syl

On my lists of others’ sins,              7 syl

I saw their records burn                  6 syl

As hope was born within.               6 syl

A. Two stanzas, each with 8 lines; 9 lines have 6 syllables, 7 have 7 syllables.

Q. Is there rhyme? If so, is the rhyme consistently in the same places in each stanza?

A.  End rhyme in lines 2 & 4, 6 & 8, 10 & 12, and 14 & 16. No odd numbered line rhymes. These two Q/A’s will be useful later when we talk about stanzas and scansion. 

Q.  Scan for words you don’t recognize and for “poetic words.

A.  No problems. You might wonder why love is capitalized.

Q.  Is the poem punctuated like a normal sentence/paragraph?

A.  Yes, every 2 lines is a sentence up to the final 4 lines, which are a sentence.

NOTE:  A poem is a song without music. Everything music has, a poem has except for the musical scale. And poetic music is frequently controlled by the number and stress of syllables in the lines. So, read the poem aloud just like you’d read a paragraph. Do not read a line like it is a sentence.  Then . . .

Q.  Describe the mood, the attitude, the situation that the cadence of the poem puts you in.

A.  It seems rather sing-songy. Sounds like a nursery rhyme. But the words have a serious meaning while the cadences and sounds suggest either a child-like or a childish aspect. 

NOTE:  A poem, like an automobile, is a vehicle that carries something. In “The Fruit,” the vehicle is like a little Strawberry Shortcake  battery-powered car, while the passenger is like a preacher.

Now you are ready to deal with THEME!!

I'd begin by collecting data -- words, phrases, ideas from each stanza that I need to consider in my theme statement, which will begin “The theme of “The Fruit” seems to be . . .”

Now, the words for stanza 1:  taught, proved, logic, gossip, love dies. For stanza 2:  Love, give/yield, power/light, my accusations burned, hope is born. Add to these words the attitude of either child-like or childish that we dealt with earlier.

But remember, the reader is responsible for stating a theme.  Since the poem gives you all you need for theme, I don’t need to tell you what I think it is. 

GOOD LUCK! YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN! Write your theme in a comment box, and I’ll tell you what I think.

You are now an average reader of poems.

But if you wish to be a student of poetry? That’s where we’ll go in Lesson 2.  Take a minute to enjoy one of my favorite poems. 

The Secret

Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

I who don't know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me

(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was
not even

what line it was. No doubt
by now, more than a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,

the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can't find,

and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all.

Denise Levertov