The Road Not Taken

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The Road Not Taken

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1rrp
jul 4, 2012, 10:13 am

Here's the thing. I read a lot, for enjoyment and for insight. I love language, the way it works and the way it doesn't work. I delight in a good turn of phrase. But poetry leaves me cold.

I can quote the odd snippet from Shakespeare and a humorous rhyme here and there, but would be hard pressed to remember a single poem that moved me.

As one example, take "The Road Not Taken". A while ago I thought Robert Frost might cure my affliction. But I remain confused. His famous poem is completely ambiguous -- it carries no meaning to me. How am I supposed to respond to it? I really don't know. My best guess is that I should appreciate the ambiguity. Yet, to be honest, I am always repelled by confusion and ambiguity towards clarity and understanding, hence away from poetry.

What am I missing? Who or what is the cure?

2WholeHouseLibrary
jul 4, 2012, 12:44 pm

What about it do you find ambiguous?

3barney67
Redigerat: jul 4, 2012, 12:57 pm

This poem is misread a lot. Most people, Americans in particular, see it as an affirmation of nonconformity: Yes, I will be bold and take the road not taken "and it has made all the difference." People are okay to read it this way and I don't tell them they might be misreading, lest it ruin the pleasure they have created from it

But to be a wet blanket about it, the poem repeatedly insists that both roads are the same. It's only when we look back that we see that they look different. We revise our own history to tell ourselves that we made the right choice, took the right road. We let our present mindset influence how we view our past. If we had taken the other road, a whole other set of consequences would have been set into action, things that we wouldn't know about or control. Not the road itself but the fact that we made a choice is what "made all the difference."

Fairly existential, as some of Frost's poetry was.

4aulsmith
jul 4, 2012, 1:34 pm

1: If you don't like ambiguity you'd be better off reading Milton or Pope or Dryden rather than stuff from the 20th century onwards. Modern poetry is often about dual over-lapping visions of the world.

5rrp
jul 4, 2012, 1:53 pm

#2 and #3

Not the road itself but the fact that we made a choice is what "made all the difference."

...or perhaps Frost was being ironic and, as the roads are the same, it didn't make any difference at all.

That, and the "misreading", are good examples of the ambiguity.

6rrp
jul 4, 2012, 2:03 pm

#4 Maybe that's it. But then am I justified, as someone who doesn't appreciate ambiguity, in giving up on modern poetry? I will admit that I don't appreciate ambiguity in modern fiction either (except ambiguity in humor, which seems fine to me.) Can I, and others like me, justifiably dismiss the whole endeavor? Would an ability to appreciate ambiguity be a component of a well (g)rounded modern person? Would we be missing something?

7aulsmith
jul 4, 2012, 2:18 pm

6: I have a BA in English and the only thing of value that I learned is that people like what they like, regardless of what anyone else thinks about it. If you've tried modern literature and don't like it and know why you don't like you, you are perfectly justified in never touching the stuff again. If you find yourself, at another point in your life, appreciating ambiguity more, you know that there's literature available to you. To me that's what being well-rounded is. Knowing what's available; not forcing yourself to read stuff you don't like.

8WholeHouseLibrary
jul 4, 2012, 2:26 pm

That's not ambiguity; it's life and choices made without knowing the outcome. Beyond that, it's human nature to wonder what the consequences (in the broadest interpretation of that word) would have been otherwise.

If you want to see a good lesson of that, find a copy of the movie Sliding Doors.

9rrp
jul 4, 2012, 5:31 pm

#7 I think what puzzles me most is that other people seem to appreciate what I do not. If it was a preference for strawberry ice cream over chocolate ice cream, I'd understand, even though I don't like strawberry ice cream. But they don't teach strawberry ice cream appreciation in schools or colleges. However, they do teach poetry and literature appreciation, it's often a core subject. You can't learn to appreciate the flavor of strawberries, so why do we think we can learn the appreciation of ambigous poetry. What's the difference?

10rrp
jul 4, 2012, 5:37 pm

#8 Thanks for the movie recommendation, but I am afraid that it's just the sort of movie I know I would dislike.

The ambiguity in "The Road Not Taken" is precisely that of interpretation and meaning. We already have several versions of interpretation mentioned here. It's the fact that people seem comfortable with those different versions of what the poem means that bothers me. Surely, a poet intends for the poem to transmit meaning from the poet to the reader, and if I, as a reader, don't receive that meaning, the process has failed, either at the poet's end or mine (more likely mine.)

11barney67
Redigerat: jul 4, 2012, 6:51 pm

10 -- Yes, I agree. Somewhere the meaning gets lost. It's a complicated question, and two degrees in English from my school days many years ago don't make it any less complicated for me. I still find poetry a struggle.

There should be less ambiguity to a story or novel or movie. That you can learn in any creative writing class. Because if the writer doesn't know what he means, the reader sure won't. The writer starts with a meaning he wants to convey. He transmits the meaning through language. The movie or story means one thing, or some things, but does not mean others. It has an objective meaning. I don't think a successful writer should play games, hiding clues to what the work is be about, and forcing the reader to play detective. I never encourage people to read between the lines. That is where you get the worst kind of English-major stereotype gibberish of the work means one thing to you, another thing to me. On the other hand, in complex texts, there is a lot of information to mull over, and it is not all obvious on first reading. Hemingway's short stories are like this.

Poetry is more ambiguous becomes it deals in images, metaphors, symbols, and other indirect means of expressing the good, the true, and the beautiful. Contemporary poetry is known for being especially ambiguous and difficult to read. This does not make it better.

Frost's poems are deceptive. They look simple but they have layers underneath. I wouldn't have been able to read Frost or any other poet if I hadn't studied them in school with good professors. Poetry is a difficult subject to learn on one's own. "The Road Not Taken," a tricky one, ambiguous like you said, requires a "close reading" of the poem, which is largely the way I was taught. From wikipedia:

"Close reading describes, in literary criticism, the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. Such a reading places great emphasis on the particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they are read.

The technique as practiced today was pioneered (at least in English) by I.A. Richards and his student William Empson, later developed further by the New Critics of the mid-twentieth century. It is now a fundamental method of modern criticism. Close reading is sometimes called explication de texte, which is the name for the similar tradition of textual interpretation in French literary study, a technique whose chief proponent was Gustave Lanson."

One other point in reading this way is to ask: Is there proof of your reading in the text itself, or are you reading into the poem something which isn't there? Are you imposing an idea from outside the poem onto the poem? If you can use evidence from the text itself to support your reading, you are likely on the right track.

For an example of close reading of Frost's poem, as well as a good introductory anthology about how poetry works, see An Invitation to Poetry by Jay Parini.

Finally, if poetry leaves you cold, don't worry about it. Read whatever you want.

12barney67
jul 4, 2012, 6:55 pm

I also think 5 is on the right track. There's irony in that poem and I think you got it.

13aulsmith
jul 4, 2012, 9:47 pm

7: I'm not sure that most literature courses are what I'd call "literature appreciation." They're more like lit crit indoctrination. But let's say there was a literature appreciation course. It would probably be a lot like my music appreciation course. It would give you enough background information so that you have some idea what's going on. (In music: a concerto has a soloist and a symphony doesn't; in literature: a poem has a different formal structure than a short story). Then it would put together a whole bunch of examples that illustrate the basic concepts and show you how one artist influenced others. And then you'd read a whole bunch of stuff and try to fit it into the structures they told you to look for. We had to listen to and be able to identify over 30 different pieces of music. I still hate Sibelius and Grieg and can't tell them apart, but I can definitely distinguish them from Beethoven and I understand what it is about the structure of Indian music and jazz (which weren't discussed in the course) that makes me like them better than most Western classical music. So I didn't end up liking the music they were introducing me to, but they gave me enough information to appreciate other kinds of music. So they can teach appreciation in general if not liking of a particular thing. Does that make sense?

I think you should give Pope's Rape of the Lock a try. You might need an annotated copy as there are lots of anachronisms, but he's slow and deliberate and clear like Trollope.

14WholeHouseLibrary
jul 5, 2012, 3:47 am

#10, Surely, a poet intends for the poem to transmit meaning from the poet to the reader, and if I, as a reader, don't receive that meaning, the process has failed, either at the poet's end or mine (more likely mine.)

I think you assume too much. There is no rule that says a poet must transmit meaning in his/her works. This is especially if the poet in question has existentialist leanings, as Frost did. I find the poem a bit Zen-ish in its outlook. Two paths looked slightly different. A choice was made, and it didn't seem to be very much different as what the journeyman had observed of the beginning of the other. Life goes on; stand by the choices you have made. In the end, it makes no difference, and all the difference.

15joannasephine
Redigerat: jul 5, 2012, 4:41 am

Ok, outing myself as a poet here.

When you start to write a poem, you often have no idea what you're going to say. I'd go as far as saying that the best poems are the ones that go in a completely different direction to what you were expecting. The act of writing is one of the ways you discover things you didn't know you knew. But from the point of view of a reader, that's probably not relevant, or terribly helpful. And part of the aim of revision, for poets, just as for novelists, is to try and shape that material into something that can speak to other people. (Although that varies, depending on what your particular literary theory perspective is.) Part of the pleasure of a poem is that it can have multiple possible meanings. Ambiguity is usually considered to be a good thing, as long as it adds depth to the poem, and not just confusion.

Think of it like a meal: a lot of people enjoy eating something that has lots of flavours layered together. Get it wrong, and it's a horrible muddle. And if you've never eaten anything that isn't strong, simple, even strident flavours, it takes a while before you can appreciate the complexity. And you may never enjoy it as much as the simple taste of something like a good, plain steak. It doesn't make either item inherently better than the other. Learning to appreciate the more complex thing just gives you access to a wider range of pleasures.

And staying with the food metaphor -- don't decide you don't like poetry just because of a couple of poems you don't like. You wouldn't judge all food by a couple of bad restaurant experiences, or because you grew up in a house where boiling to disintegration wasnthe only approved cooking method. Robert Frost wrote this particular poem about a hundred years ago. The field has widened quitena bit since then. And I suspect it isn't the ambiguity as such that you're unhappy with -- if you watch any television at all, you already deal with quite complex layers of ambiguity. It's just that television is something almost everyone in the modern world is indoctrinated into from infancy. Think for a few minutes about what goes on in even the simplest tv show. You're dealing with time shifts, scene shifts, characters appearing and disappearing ... you just haven't tuned yourself into poetry yet.

As with everything else, there is a huge amount of rubbish poetry out there. But there's a huge amount of really good work too. As a poet, I feel really lucky to be living at this point in history. Pretty well every possible style and approach of poem is fair game. And because poetry in the westnis so undervalued, we can do our work without any official scrutiny. (Financially terrible; artistically great.)

So some concrete suggestions. Don't worry too much about "yes, but what does it mean?!", if you can avoid it. I know it sounds like a smart-alec answer, but a poem means ... what it says. And sometimes it's the wrong question to ask, just as it's a bit pointless to ask what a painting of a sunset means. Yes, there can be some sort of message woven in there. But not always, and not only. And unless you're still in school, you aren't going to be examined on what the poem means! Above all else, poetry is about pleasure. Maybe sharing an experience, or commemorating something, or just having fun with language. It's a machine made of words that is trying to make you feel something. Sometimes it's not a response you can put words around, which is fine. Poetry is the art of putting words around the things that words can't really express. The role of ambiguity there is to allow as wide a field of response as possible. If poem X is just too ambiguous for you to enjoy, that's fine. Try poem Y. Or decide that you don't feel like steak tonight, and have some fish instead. Maybe tomorrow.

Have a look at anthologies like The Best American Poetry, or The Forward Book of Poetry to see if there are some poets or poems that do appeal to you, and go looking for more work by them. If you want some commentaries on poems as well, try Ruth Padel's 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem, or The Poem and The Journey, or Edward Hirsch's Poet's Choice or How to Read a Poem. There are lots of others, but those two authors are great places to start.

Now I'm just hoping that my ratio of "convincing" to "confusing" is on the right side of the ledger ...

edited because I'm trying to type this in front of "Whose Line is it Anyway", which is not a good idea ...

16madpoet
jul 5, 2012, 5:01 am

16 I think you either 'get' poetry, or you don't. You can't force yourself to like it, or really understand it. But don't expect poetry- modern poetry- to be logical or consistent with itself. As Walt Whitman said:

'Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large: I contain multitudes.'

17rrp
jul 5, 2012, 10:22 am

There is some good stuff here. This is a reply to all.

I have tried a few anthologies of poetry, but found nothing to latch on to. The closest I came was Robert Frost. I think I liked "The Road Not Taken" when I first read it, although it's hard now to reconstruct. Maybe it was the Zen like elements. Anyway, I did look up some more of his poetry and thought some more about "The Road Not Taken". The more I thought, and the more I read, the more puzzled I became, and, disliking puzzles I can't solve, eventually became irritated. So, I don't "get it", but am puzzled because others do. Another puzzle I can't solve.

Maybe a poem doesn't have to have one meaning, perhaps meaning is the wrong word. But surely the poet has an intention, an intention that the reader will respond to the poem in a certain way. Maybe not, but then what would the point be?

I like the analogy with food. I can see that some prefer simple fare, other more complex cuisine. But there is a problem here. We all eat. Some are only exposed to simple food, and like simple food, because that is all they can afford. Only the rich eat cuisine. Surely poetry is not like that? And no one has to read a book on how to appreciate food. Why would we need to read a book on how to appreciate poetry? And unlike poetry, how to eat food is not part of a school curriculum.

Maybe poetry is more like music. Nearly everyone likes music of some sort, and these days everyone has access to all kinds of music. Tastes vary, and maybe classical fans look down on country fans, a probably vice versa. A book could certainly help improve someones appreciation of a complex piece of music, but surely they would have to like it enough in the first place to put in the effort. People who don't like music of any kind are rare.

One exception are those who are deaf, or tone deaf. And then we have a reasonable explanation for why they don't like music. Is it possible to be tone deaf to poetry? What makes someone tone deaf to poetry?

18barney67
jul 5, 2012, 12:30 pm

Try "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. You can google it and find it, or on gutenberg.org. One of my favorites. Eliot taught me what poetry could be.

19Lcanon
jul 5, 2012, 2:50 pm

I was always a very fast and precocious reader and for a long time had a similar reaction to poetry that you do. I think I trained myself to read for information (not technical information, but information in terms of a character's thoughts, explanation, description). Poetry lacked this and I often found myself reading line after line without comprehension.
I don't know what changed. I think it's partly age. But in addition to what's been said above, I'd keep in mind that there's more to poetry than meaning. A huge part of poetry is aural, the way words sound and delight in a well-turned phrase. I once heard Allen Ginsberg read -- the first poetry reading I'd ever been to - and those poems were completely different read out loud.

20aulsmith
jul 5, 2012, 4:03 pm

17:

Food: They have whole courses to learn to appreciate wine, cheese, beer. And frankly, literature is much, much more complex than food. Food is only taste and smell: taste isn't that complex and smell is so complex we don't have a good vocabulary for it, making it hard to teach. Poetry is aural and vocal and meaning. It has a large number formal structures that have to be learned. It does require quite a bit of effort to appreciate the complexity of the really good stuff (Everyone likes limericks and nursery rhymes -- to go with your country music analogy)

Zen: Are you into zen? If so, you might want to read the Japanese zen poets (Basho et al.), though I'll warn you, they are REALLY ambiguous. They aren't attempting to evoke meaning at all. They're trying to transfer with words the qualities of an experience. (Which for my two cents is what Frost is trying to do. He wants to you feel yourself at the crossroads with a dilemma, making a decision and understanding that making the decision has made you a different person than you would be if you'd made the other decision. He doesn't want to say anything about it; he wants you to feel it.)

Prufrock: Based on what you've said so far, I'd give Prufrock a miss at this point. It's just another puzzle poem that undergraduates sit up late at night and argue about.

21joannasephine
jul 5, 2012, 5:41 pm

I'd second the suggestion you avoid Eliot for now. And on behalf of living poets, could I put in a plea that you look at the work of poets who are still alive? Don't get me wrong: Frost and Eliot are poets I admire enormously. But given how long ago their work was published and the fact that they've both been dead for quite a while, it's pushing things quite a bit to call them "modern".

RRP, I don't know your taste at all, but judging from your catalogue it isn't difficulty as such that is your problem. Just ... the way poetry uses ambiguity. Try Billy Collins. Some of his work is great, some pretty ordinary. But there is a good mix of simple with rather more interestingly ambiguous work, especially in his latest collection. And some of the British poets might be good tasters for you -- try Sheenagh Pugh, or Seamus Heaney, or Carol Ann Duffy (The World's Wife would be a good one to start with.

As much as anything else, it's how you come to the poem that will determine how frustrating or otherwise you find it. If a poem "speaks to you", for whatever reason, then that's great. Even if you have no idea what it means, or whether your interpretation lines up with anyone else's. A poem isn't
like an instruction manual, just as a violin solo isn't the same sort of thing as a warning siren. There's no comprehension test at the end of it, and no marks being handed out.

Personally, I reckon that there is at least one poem in existence that will catch hold of you. But without knowing you, or getting your reaction to a variety of different pieces, I'm just lobbing guesses in your general direction. If you feel inclined to have another go at finding a poem or poet that you might enjoy, do go and have a look at work by some of the poets I've mentioned. It may just be that you are at a point in your life where reading for pleasure in this way is something that you can't do. If ambiguity in any form is something that irritates you, then you won't be able to enjoy many of the poems that are considered really great, because the use of ambiguity to add depth and complexity is something that is regarded as a good thing in poetry. But if you've ever heard a phrase that really moved you, something that you wanted to write down or keep with you, then you've already been touched by poetry. No-one likes all of it. And it is often taught really badly, because teachers have to focus on students getting good grades.

Have a look at work by poets who are considered "accessible" -- this tends to be shorthand for "you don't need a degree in linguistics to be able to get something from them". (Personally, I count this as a good thing. But tastes vary.) Wendy Cope is another who you might enjoy. There's often more to her poems than there seems at first glance (as with Billy Collins), but they're fun, and easy to get something from, even if only a smile.

Actually that opens up a question that I probably should have asked earlier. What do you want to get from a poem?

22MarianV
jul 5, 2012, 6:54 pm

Sometimes we don't have to understand every little detail in order to understand the poem as a whole. Poetry is like dessert, we can savor it without understanding all the ingredients.

Unfortunately for many readers, poetry in the 2nd half of the 20th century took a turn to the obscure. Some poems were so obscure that the poet gave different interpretations on different occassions. On the other hand, poetry is not written to explain. It is the experience of how the poem touches our thoughts, memories, ect.

Robert Frost is one of the easier poets to understand. His "Stopping by the wood on a snowy evening" is a classic that even elementary students (some of them) can understand. Once. as an assignment, I wrote a poem based on Frost's called "Stopping by Walmarts on a Snowy Evening". There were people in that class who thought I had committed a sacraledge.

21 century poetry is not is obscure as it once was. Poets like Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Ted Kooser all say what they mean in a way we can understand. Also poetry. like some books, music TV shows do not appeal to everyone. But before you give up on poetry completely, give some of the newer poets a try!

23rrp
jul 5, 2012, 10:56 pm

Lots to think on, thanks.

I think it's partly age.

I think if it were age, I'd be there by now. But one should never give up hope.

It does require quite a bit of effort to appreciate the complexity of the really good stuff (Everyone likes limericks and nursery rhymes -- to go with your country music analogy)

Ouch! I didn't mean my analogy that way. Some country music can be complex and some "classical" music simple. I didn't mean to imply a judgment that way; I happen to like some country music as well as some classical. On wine tasting: hasn't blind testing shown that most people can't tell the difference between a "good" wine and an "OK" wine. To repeat a point, I think you have to already love wine to put up with the great effort required to get to the skill level required to make the fine distinctions. Is poetry like that; do you have to like it first to put in the effort to get to the skill level required to understand it?

On "The Road ...". If both roads are the same, then how can taking one over the other make a difference? We all make many decisions each day, yet I feel the same person as I did yesterday.

I did try Bill Collins. There was one poem about how he preferred to look at a picture of someone fishing rather than go fishing for real. I don't think I got that one. I have tried Seamus Heaney too. I'll give the others mentioned a go though, thanks.

What do you want to get from a poem?

What others seem to get, whatever that is. To find out what I am missing. Perhaps enjoyment and insight?

His "Stopping by the wood on a snowy evening" is a classic that even elementary students (some of them) can understand.

I hope you meant elementary students of poetry, not the general kind, otherwise I am in trouble. I did read that one. I felt sorry for the poor horse, but wasn't sure what else it was supposed to convey.

Oh. And I did look up Prufrock on the Internet, but all I could find was a version in Italian. I'll give it a miss as some of you advised.

24madpoet
jul 5, 2012, 11:27 pm

I don't know if this is true for all who appreciate poems, but I was raised by parents who loved poetry. My father would read poems to me when I was a boy, instead of a bedtime story. His favourite was Sea Fever by John Masefield, which begins:

'I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by...'

As I grew, of course, my tastes evolved. But I still love those simple ballads and lyrical poetry. The best poetry is usually short, as it takes a true master poet (a Homer, Milton or Dante) to sustain a poem for longer than a few stanzas. Even in the epics, it is only a few short passages, here and there, which are truly memorable. The opening of Dante's Inferno, for instance:

"In the middle of the journey of my life, I found myself in a dark wood, for I had lost my way..."

So... try different genres and eras of poetry, and maybe you will find a poem or two to love, after all.

25rrp
jul 6, 2012, 1:28 am

A tall ship. Ah, the romance of the sea has some appeal. The reality was somewhat harsher; cramped, eternally damp living conditions, bad food, hard labor without parole, long stretches of boredom, and the ever present chance of sudden death. However, if you were lucky, you could get rich quick.

26aulsmith
jul 6, 2012, 9:13 am

21: "Modern" is a lit crit term denoting a particular style of writing. It has nothing to do with the era it was written in.

23: Some country music can be complex and some "classical" music simple. I didn't mean to imply a judgment that way

I didn't mean to imply judgment either. Most country music, even complex country music, is catchy and can be enjoyed regardless of your musical knowledge. A lot of the poetry is like that too -- especially the stuff we're given as children. Some of it is more like symphonies where you have to understand the form in order to really get it. Do you have to like it enough to learn the forms? Probably. That's why they try to teach the forms in school when you're forced to be there anyway, so you'll have them at hand if you want to give poetry a try as an adult.



Now you're arguing with Frost, not about the interpretation of the poem. Frost thinks making decisions changes who we are. He thinks he has a great metaphor for conveying that. You disagree before you even start reading the poem. The metaphor does not convince you. That's all there is. Move on to something else.

27thorold
jul 6, 2012, 10:03 am

At the risk of saying something extraordinarily banal: poems can move you in all kinds of different ways and for all sorts of different reasons, just as music or novels or films or chocolate do. There's no legislating for it, and there's no guarantee that what works for you in one situation will work for another person in the same situation, or you in a different one. Something that should be ultra-tacky — like "Sea Fever", or like John Hannah reading Auden's "Funeral Blues" in Four weddings... — can still be really moving if it catches you at a susceptible moment.

The "crossword-puzzle" aspect of poetry, the pleasure you get from working your way through to a difficult meaning, can be important sometimes, but it's not the only thing, and it's certainly not the most important. The most obvious way poetry grabs you is through the interplay between sound and meaning: sometimes, as with Masefield, that's almost all there is in a poem, but it can still give a good deal of pleasure. "The wheel's kick and the wind's song" speaks to your emotions in a way that "cramped, eternally damp living conditions" doesn't, even though one is romantic nonsense and the other historically accurate.

For that reason, if you want to "get" poetry, don't neglect opportunities for hearing it performed. Sometimes a poem that looks dull or impenetrable on the page can come to life when it's read by a good actor. (Or, in a few cases, by the poet...) That's especially true for poetry that exploits the vocabulary and rhythms of non-standard English (Caribbean, Scots, etc.).

28rrp
jul 6, 2012, 3:11 pm

#26

Sorry. The problem I have is the connection you draw between things that children can appreciate and things that only adults can appreciate, if they have been appropriately trained. I know you don't mean it that way, but it could seem a little condescending. I enjoy symphonies but have never had any training and haven't a clue about their form. It seems to me that poetry stands out in that regard. I suppose I had some training in poetry when I was at school, but must have done very badly at it as I have forgotten it all. I can't remember a single poem from that time.

I don't mean to argue with Frost. I was trying to understand what he meant and I thought perhaps he was being ironic. If he wasn't then, again, it means I find the poem hard to understand; that's all. That's why I picked it for illustration.

#27

Several have mentioned the aural aspect. I did look up Wendy Cope, as suggested by joannasephine and found some recordings of her reading some of her poems. It certainly helps having someone read it. I thought this one "On a Train" wasn't bad (maybe it's that nice English accent, and I have always liked trains),

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=5681

but I think I'd need someone to tell me what it means. I didn't get the last line at all. Why "still warm"?

29joannasephine
Redigerat: jul 8, 2012, 6:51 pm

There's no guarantee that my reading is correct, but to me it's reinforcing the play of opposites -- cold and still with warm and moving. The poem is about one of those precious moments when the universe comes into focus and you're just ... happy. Grateful for the good things: the company of people you love, good books and the time to read them, living somewhere that's actually quite peaceful and safe and beautiful. So that's one part of it.

The fact that she's repeated the "still" twice makes it seem likely that we're meant to take a hint from that that the person the hand belongs to may not necessarily have been expected to be here and alive. (If it was just repeating "warm", you could assume it was a way of luxuriating in the sensation.) The book this poem was published in came out in 2001, so it's a pretty safe bet there is at least a hint of reference to the Great Western railway crash in 1999. The Welsh poet Gillian Clarke wrote about it in a poem called "On the Train". (You can read about Clarke's poem here if you're interested.

Does that help at all?

Edited to add:
I've just checked the notes in the back of Two Cures for Love, and it lists the date for Cope's poem as 1999. So it looks like my guess is a reasonable one.

30rrp
jul 8, 2012, 10:02 pm

#29 Thank you for your answer and explanation, and it did help.

Strange to say, the only reason I could come up with for why she used the word "still" in "still warm" was because the other person was dead. But I could not see how he or she could be dead on a train and how that fit in with the rest of the poem which seems to have a happy tone. It seemed a bit creepy. I didn't make any connection to a train crash. I suppose if I had been living in England in 1999 I might have got the reference.

I found the page about Gillian Clarke's poem and the poem itself on here home page here. I read it and its pretty opaque to me now, even knowing its about the train crash. I don't think I could answer many of the questions she poses on the "Sheer Poetry" page. I'll try reading the notes and see if it clears things up any.

31bookstopshere
jul 22, 2012, 1:27 pm

let me recommend Howard Nemerov's REFLECTIONS ON POETRY & POETICS for a damned concise series of illuminations of poetry, obscurity, etc

; )

32rrp
aug 2, 2012, 11:37 pm

I couldn't find a reference to Nemerov anywhere, but I did pick up Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled.

I did like his Three Rules.

1. Take your time.
2. Don't worry about meaning.
3. Carry a notebook.

Rule 1 reminds me of Piet Hein whose poem's at least have the decency to be short.

Rule 3 seems good advice for anyoe, even those adverse to poetry.

But Rule 2 sticks out. Is it really OK to let meaning flow by? (admittedly Fry says it will come eventually, I suppose if you take enough time.)

33joannasephine
aug 3, 2012, 12:03 am

Is it really OK to let meaning flow by?

Yep, it is. If trying to figure out what the poem means is stopping you enjoying it, then definitely. The same as a piece of music -- there may well be a meaning behind it, and learning that meaning will probably deepen your appreciation of the piece, but first and last it is intended to be enjoyed. And the point Fry is making isn't so much that you shouldn't try to find meaning: just that you shouldn't worry about it. Enjoy it first. It isn't meant to be a test.

34rrp
aug 3, 2012, 10:44 pm

I think I get that. But I have this lingering suspicion. I enjoy nonsense poetry, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, or Spike Milligan, because there is no meaning to get. But most, if not all, of those works are targeted at children. Shouldn't grown-ups appreciate real poetry, poetry that conveys something, if not meaning what? Can you really enjoy grown-up poetry if you don't get the meaning?

Perhaps someone could point to an example of a poem for adults that one can appreciate without understanding what it is trying to convey?

35barney67
Redigerat: aug 4, 2012, 11:22 am

Well, I don't know if you can have poetry without meaning. Maybe you'd be interested in light verse. I checked Amazon. There's the Oxford Book of Light Verse edited by W.H. Auden and also The New Oxford Book of Light Verse edited by Kingsley Amis. There's also the Oxford Book of Comic Verse edited by John Gross.

36rrp
aug 4, 2012, 11:58 am

Somehow the word "light" puts me off. I don't want the light stuff, I want to get the heavy stuff. Now Fry suggests that it is possible to appreciate the heavy stuff with worrying about meaning, at leat at first. I know there is meaning there, but it seems to be very hard to get at. What I was looking for is a suggestion of a poem that has meaning, that one can read with appreciation while not worrying about the meaning. Is there such a poem?

37joannasephine
Redigerat: aug 4, 2012, 5:48 pm

Ok, Try Federico Garcia Lorca's "Gacela of the Dark Death", Paul Celan's "Todesfuge", and Wallace Stevens' "The Snow Man".

38rrp
aug 4, 2012, 9:15 pm

Thanks for the recommendations. I did read them. I didn't understand them. I am not sure what in them I am supposed to appreciate. Sorry.

39joannasephine
aug 5, 2012, 2:31 am

In the case of the Celan poem, it's an evocation of the experience of being a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. The Wallace Stevens is about ... to be honest, lots of things. And probably slightly different things for different people. For me, it's about winter, and solitude, and the way that the mind withdraws into contemplation. The Lorca is one that I couldn't even begin to paraphrase logically, but have loved for as long as I've known it. The wildness of it. It's what Lorca referred to as duende.

40jbbarret
aug 5, 2012, 4:17 am

The Lorca poem reminded me of John Clare's "I Am"

41MarianV
aug 5, 2012, 9:11 pm

The idea that poetry is something to "get"or to "understand "applies to only a small portion of poetry written today. Most modern poetry means what it says. Read Mary Oliver, Billy collins, Donald Hall, Maxine Kumin, Rita Dove., Edna St. vincent Millay,
Poetry can enrich your world and it can also be enjoyed.
There is an abundance of good poetry written today. Try a magazine like "Poetry" or poems in "The New Yorker" or other magazines that hmake room for poetry. Read the collections compiled by Garrison Keillor. You will find favorites among those writing today and those who wrote in the last century. Read them out loud if you are not certain. Do not struggle, sometimes just the emotion from a poem is enough.

42rrp
Redigerat: aug 5, 2012, 10:25 pm

Someone mention Billy Collins above. I found "Fishing On The Susquehanna In July" which seems to be about someone who would rather look at a picture of someone fishing than go fishing. That I don't understand.

I read "I Am" too. I tried first time through not trying to understand it. But that just left me confused even more. What I still don't understand is how I am supposed to react to reading it, what about it I am supposed to appreciate.

I was perhaps hoping that someone could help me understand, or point me to a book which explains to someone who doesn't see what, to put it perhaps too bluntly, what all the fuss is about, what there is to appreciate.

Thanks for all the recommendations, but I still don't get it.

43joannasephine
Redigerat: aug 5, 2012, 10:59 pm

The trouble is, it's a bit like saying you don't get what the fuss is about music. The field of possibilities is really really huge.

If you want someone to lead you by the hand through as many poems as either it takes or as you/they can stand, then online is probably too impersonal to work. If you genuinely want to try, see if there are any Introduction to Poetry classes near where you live.

Books that do that sort of thing have been suggested to you already -- Edward Hirsch's How to Read a Poem, Ruth Padel's 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem and The Poem and the Journey. Try them.

I've taught quite a few groups of people who claimed to hate poetry, and every single one has ended up meeting with at least one poem that changed their mind. But I don't know how much effort you're making, or what frame of mind you're going in to the poems with, so I don't know what else to suggest. It would seem that you aren't able to enjoy a poem that doesn't give its meaning quickly, and have a low tolerance for ambiguity and multiple meanings, at least where poetry is concerned. So ... if none of the things we've suggested do anything to help, walk away. Maybe in a few years you'll be ready to look again. There's no rule that says everyone has to enjoy poetry.

44rrp
aug 6, 2012, 3:26 pm

The trouble is, it's a bit like saying you don't get what the fuss is about music.

You are right. Except that I like music and most people I know like music. And they didn't have to take a course or read a book before they came to like music. I genuinely want to understand. I don't know how much effort I have to make or whether it will be worthwhile (or even why I have to make an effort in the first place.)

I tried the Stephen Fry book, but didn't get very far. Admittedly it was about writing poetry not reading it. I will try reading one of those books you mentioned.

I have overstayed my welcome. I thank you all again for the recommendations.

45WholeHouseLibrary
aug 6, 2012, 5:21 pm

I'm not sure this is a place where you could overstay your welcome. I hope you meant it metaphorically.

46rrp
aug 6, 2012, 6:46 pm

I have a genuine puzzlement about how to gain an appreciation of poetry and am having a hard time finding out. I still hope that someone can explain it to me one day. I know there are many people who do appreciated it, and some have tried to explain what and why, but I still don't get it. I appreciate the efforts, but don't want to get to the point of being annoying with my dumb questions. That's what I meant.

47rrp
aug 7, 2012, 12:12 am

From the Preface of Hirsch's How to Read a Poem.
I let the poems themselves act as my Virgilian guides. I have called often on the poets, my beloved immortals, to testify about poetry.
I don't know about poetry, but as prose goes that's pretty awful. I hope it get's better.

48barney67
aug 7, 2012, 11:19 am

I guess I don't know what you're looking for.

I stand by my recommendation of An Invitation to Poetry by Jay Parini. There's also Understanding Poetry by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren and The Well-Wrought Urn by Cleanth Brooks.

49rrp
aug 8, 2012, 10:06 am

I guess I don't know what you're looking for.

Do all these authors salt their introductions with poetic land mines to scare away the unpoetic? I picked up a copy of Understanding Poetry by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. I was moving along quite well until I hit this.
Well all know how the expressions, verbal or other, of love, hate, pain, joy, or grief tend to fall into rhythmic patterns.
Well we don't, because I haven't a clue what they are talking about.

I soldiered on, but was tripped up again later. They give two versions of some lines by Burns.
The white moon is setting behind the white waves
And Time is setting with me, O!
and
The white moon is setting behind the white waves
And Time, O! is setting with me.
and are told that "The transposition of the word O has made a great difference in the movement of the lines." Eh? I don't get it. I think we are obviously supposed to see something that I, just as obviously, don't see.

I guess I am looking for someone to explain this to me, and not assume I "know how how the expressions of love etc. fall in rhythmic patterns" or that I see that the placement of that "O" is clearly superior.

50steve.clason
aug 8, 2012, 11:00 am

#23> "I think if it were age, I'd be there by now. But one should never give up hope."

Given this comment you might like Tennyson's "Ulysses".

#49> "I think we are obviously supposed to see something that I, just as obviously, don't see. "

It's more like we're supposed to HEAR something you're not listening for. Read those two lines out loud and you should hear a clear difference. Not necessarily that one is superior to the other but that they're different. It's hard, in my experience, to enjoy, or sometimes even to tolerate, poetry unless you slow down to speaking-speed.

51jbbarret
Redigerat: aug 8, 2012, 11:30 am

>50 steve.clason:: hear Frasier quoting, in a somewhat sickly tone, from the end of Ulysees here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4HRP10F_Rk

52rrp
Redigerat: aug 8, 2012, 12:21 pm

It's more like we're supposed to HEAR something you're not listening for. Read those two lines out loud and you should hear a clear difference.

Well everyone can clearly hear a difference; the "O" is in a different place. Apart for that, I am not sure what it is about the sound of the first I should obviously, according to Brooks and Warren, find superior. What's the "O!" supposed to mean anyway?

53barney67
Redigerat: aug 8, 2012, 1:03 pm

That "O" is a melancholy sigh, and when people speak with "sighs", they usually start with them at the beginning of a statement, as in "Oh, I feel so bad" or "I feel so bad, O I can hardly stand it" but rarely if ever do they say, "I feel so bad, O!" at the end of a sentence. The movement of one letter makes the statement closer to actual speech. That's my guess anyway.

Also the placement of the comma after Time isolates the word "Time," thus emphasizing it and preparing the way for the next word, the melancholy O, which is also isolated between the comma and the exclamation point as well as between the subject and the verb, emphasizing it further. The sigh breaks up the sentence.

The O is melancholy because of the "time is setting with me" i.e. time is passing me just as the sun sets, creating a feeling of melancholy.

54rrp
aug 8, 2012, 12:34 pm

Some lines in Ulysses sound familiar. I googled it and found

http://www.economist.com/node/21557734

which is perhaps where I read some recently. So, it's obviously an important poem with some well known lines. I think I would need some help working out what in it I should appreciate.

55rrp
aug 8, 2012, 12:39 pm

# 53 How can you tell it's a melancholy "O", not an "O" of surprise, as in "I didn't realize is was so late" ? And I think the first version with the "O" at the end is the one we are supposed to find superior.

56barney67
aug 8, 2012, 12:40 pm

Well if it is, I'm wrong.

57Lcanon
aug 8, 2012, 12:51 pm

This is really very subjective, but to my ears, ending the line with O! gives it a kind of jolly or singsong sound ("Ho for the wind and waves-O!") which would not mesh with the solemn mood of the lines. The moon is setting, time is setting, the guy's going to die. He's not happy.

58rrp
Redigerat: aug 8, 2012, 1:00 pm

Well apparently, Brooks and Warren got it from Yeats who picked (the first version) as lines he "greatly admired". I am glad I am not alone in saying "Eh?"

59steve.clason
aug 8, 2012, 2:04 pm

#54> " I think I would need some help working out what in it I should appreciate."

Here's the clue, from #23: ""I think if it were age, I'd be there by now. But one should never give up hope."

Are you familiar with the character Ulysses (Odysseus)?

60rrp
aug 8, 2012, 2:26 pm

Yes, and I gather the "Idle King" is he. I also think its impolite of him to compare "barren crags" with his "aged wife"? Not exactly the right place to start if we are supposed to be empathizing with him. Or are we?

61Lcanon
aug 8, 2012, 4:11 pm

>I am glad I am not alone in saying "Eh?"
Or else Burns is trying to play against the cliche and using a jolly O to contrast with the melancholy mood of the poem...
See, you can't win. It's poetry, man.

If it's any consolation to you, I sometimes feel the way I think you feel when I am exposed to contemporary art. I often find that the picture or piece is stating something that is either completely obvious or completely boring and I am amazed that other people can be entranced by it.

62steve.clason
aug 8, 2012, 7:59 pm

#60> " I also think its impolite of him to compare "barren crags" with his "aged wife"?"

Wow. You dismissed the narrator as impolite after misreading the first three lines. Let's skip down to:

—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

That's why I thought you might appreciate it. (That is, to paraphrase the poem, "I'm old (so's Penelope) but I can still do stuff so I'm going on a boat trip with my buddies. See ya.")

But I think we should leave this "Ulysses" meander and go back to not understanding Frost.

63rrp
Redigerat: aug 8, 2012, 10:33 pm

"I'm old (so's Penelope) but I can still do stuff so I'm going on a boat trip with my buddies. See ya."

I am sure his, old and craggy wife will be delighted. Weren't the Romans rather down on Ulysses; I think I am with them. Swanning off on a cruise because you can are bored and can afford it, having led a life of supporting acts of war in other peoples countries, including use of weapons of mass deception.

Funny you should mention Frost again. Brooks and Warren's first full poem in their book is by Frost. A jolly little piece about a boy who dies after cutting off his hand in an accident with a wood saw. Great mood lifter that.

I think Lcanon has a point. I don't get modern art either. I too am amazed that other people can be entranced by it. But you can excuse modern art because it's pretentious and incestuous and silly. Old art is at least still good to look at.

But I really feel that I am missing something with poetry, that I really should be appreciating it, even if it's just the old stuff. But I am still at that phase of not understanding what about it entrances other people. I feel that if only someone could explain that to me, I'd get it.

64rrp
aug 16, 2012, 9:18 am

I haven't given up get, but may have stumbled on a partial explanation of why I find appreciating poetry difficult. I was reading The Sounds of Poetry by Robert Pinsky who was trying to explain to me the rhythms in poetry that derive from stress. He gives a few examples and I find myself saying "well if you say so" because I don't immediately see that the stress in the poems has to be applied the way he says it is. I always thought that stress is tied with meaning, and you have to get the meaning first to work out where the stress is applied (at least if you are reading). I took this example of how meaning affects stress and vice versa from Wikipedia.

I didn't take the test yesterday. (Somebody else did.)
I didn't take the test yesterday. (I did not take it.)
I didn't take the test yesterday. (I did something else with it.)
I didn't take the test yesterday. (I took a different one.)
I didn't take the test yesterday. (I took something else.)
I didn't take the test yesterday. (I took it some other day.)

Pinsky eventually came to a poem by Ben Johnson to illustrate trochee.
Oh, but my conscious fears,
That fly my thoughts between,
Tell me that she hath seen
My hundred of gray hairs.

I needed to be told that in the lines "Oh, but" and "Tell me" that the stress is on the first syllable, and to be honest I still don't get why.

The other explanation is that perhaps I fall somewhere towards the end of the spectrum of people with visualization skills. If you ask me to imaging the face of my mother, I would have a hard time. I had to look at a picture just now to remind me. I think that there are other people who would not find that difficult at all and could understand that poems that rely on invoking visual imagery in the reader wouldn't work very well on me.

65thorold
aug 16, 2012, 9:43 am

>64 rrp:
If it were an iamb, I think he'd have had to change the title to "My goat, left in Scotland" — Oh, butt my conscious fears!

I tried to visualise your mother, without success, so I'm probably at that end of the spectrum too.

66rrp
Redigerat: aug 22, 2012, 12:35 am

So this visualization thing has me puzzled. I didn't realize how different I was from other people until I recently asked around. There is this test called VVIQ (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vividness_of_Imagery_Questionnaire_(VVIQ)), you can find it on the web, which is a self test of someone's ability to visualize a sceen. I scored way off the end in inability to visualize. So here is a question for those who do appreciate poetry; does anyone else score as highly unable to visualize?

67barney67
aug 22, 2012, 6:31 pm

Where's the test?

69carusmm
Redigerat: maj 19, 2016, 10:04 am

Detta konto har stängts av för spammande.