How to Read a Poem, Lesson 1

        This is the first of a series of essays I’ll write on How to Read a Poem. The audience is probably more high school up to college sophomore than a poetry-loving adult. I undertook the task for my tenth grade granddaughter, Kelsey.

I.  Questions to ask before reading a poem:

1. Can I see a pattern in the stanzas? Number of lines, number of syllables.
2. Is there rhyme? If so, is the rhyme consistently in the same places in each stanza?
3. Scan for words you don’t recognize and for “poetic words.”
4. Is the poem punctuated like a normal sentence/paragraph?

II.  Some questions that you should NOT ask.

1. What is the poet trying to tell me?
2. What am I supposed to get out of this dang thing?

III.  Ideas that may help you read any poem.

1. 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.
2. A poem is not a one-way communication. It requires a reader willing to hear the cadences, willing to feel the emotions, willing to share herself with the poem.

IV.  What is that thing teachers always talk about -- THEME?

Perhaps this will help -- compare theme to thesis. In an essay, a THESIS is a sentence that states clearly exactly what you are going to talk about -- it controls what you will allow yourself to say in the entire essay. Thesis is explicit!

In a literary work, a piece of music, a painting, or sculpture, THEME functions the same way as a thesis does in an essay, EXCEPT -- the audience is directly involved in art. Poetry is not a statement,  not a telling -- it’s a sharing of how and what the artist sees in his universe. And the reader finds the theme! Theme is Implicit -- Implied!

Let’s compare a simple math question to finding theme.

The sentence is 2 + 2 = 4. On a math test the question would look like this: 2 + 2 = ____. As the taker of the test, you do the math and get 4, only one correct answer.

Now, go to English class -- the teacher assigns the reading of a poem -- you think that’s the 2 + 2. Now to provoke class discussion, the teacher asks what the theme of the poem is. Immediately you search for some 4 -- something that will give that one correct answer. Something that the teacher and the poet will approve. So, the 2+2 is the poem; the 4 is the theme. And there’s only one correct answer!

But for poetry, that's backwards. When the teacher asks for theme, the students (and teacher) should know that the poem is the 4, the whole,  and his question asks the students to give their answers to what equals 4. Is it 1+1+1+1? Or 2+2? Or 3+1? of 1+2+1? Or 1+3? Or . . .

I’m not saying that theme is anything you say it is -- 4 is not equal to 2+3 or 2+1. And the question, What is the theme? is not a question for the poet. It is a question for the reader when he thinks about the whole poem and relates it to his own life’s experiences -- his own universe.  

Think on these things for a while and then we’ll take a look at four of my poems, I’ll make comments in the right column, but I’ll leave room for you to make comments too.

            If you are able to do all that I’ve outlined, then it make sense to go into iambs, trochees, anapests, dactyls, spondees, etc. And then to meters and the stanzas like couplets, tercets, quatrains, or named stanza patterns like ballad stanza, sonnet, villanelle, terza rima, etc.

            In the next lesson, I’ll discuss a poem or two. Like "The Fruit."

The Fruit

I taught myself to hate

And proved my hate was right.

I listed all the items

Till my case was very tight.

Was proud of all my logic

So I told it to my friends.

But now I find hate’s gift

Will cause my love to end.

I gave myself to Love

And yielded to its power.

It shed a mighty light

That made my hatred cower.

As it focused its bright beam

On my lists of others’ sins,

I saw their records burn

As hope was born within.