Black History in 1880s Vancouver
London Open Mic Poetry Archive
  • Home
  • Frank Davey Blog
  • Stan Burfield Blog
    • Fred Burfield's Homestead Memoirs
  • Our Events
  • News
  • PHOTOS & SUMMARIES
    • Season 5: 2016-2017 >
      • June 7th, 2017: Summary & Photos featuring Stan Burfield
      • May 3rd, 2017, Summary & Photos featuring Jason Dickson
      • April 5th, 2017 Summary & Photos, feeaturing James Deahl & Norma West Linder
      • Mar. 1st, 2017: Photos & Summary featuring Andy Verboom
      • Feb. 1st, 2017: Photos & Summary featuring Ron Stewart
      • Dec. 7th, 2016: Photos & Summary featuring David Stones
      • Nov. 2th, 2016: Photos and Summary featuring Don Gutteridge
      • Oct. 5th, 2016: Photos and Summary featuring David Huebert
    • Season 4: 2015-2016 >
      • June 1st, 2016: Photos and summaries: featuring Lynn Tait
      • May 4th, 2016 Photos and Summary: featuring indigenous poetry
      • April 6, 2016 Photos & Summary, featuring Steven McCabe
      • Mar. 2nd, 2016 photos, summary: featuring Andreas Gripp
      • Feb. 3rd, 2016 photos: 3 Western students.
      • Dec. 2, 2015 photos: featured reader Peggy Roffey
      • Nov. 7, 2015 photos: Our Words Fest open mic
      • Nov. 4, 2015 photos: featured reader Charles Mountford
      • Oct. 7th, 2015 photos: Madeline Bassnett featured
    • Season 3, 2014-15 >
      • Aug. 16, 2015 photos: The Ontario Poetry Society's "Sultry Summer Gathering"
      • June 3rd, 2015 photos: John B. Lee featured
      • May 6th, 2015 photos: Laurie D Graham featured
      • Apr. 1st, 2015 photos: John Nyman & Penn Kemp featured
      • Mar. 4th, 2015 photos: Patricia Black featured.
      • Feb. 4th, 2015 photos: feature Gary Barwin
      • Dec. 3rd, 2014 photos: Feature Debbie Okun Hill
      • Nov. 5th, 2014 photos: feature Julie Berry
      • Oct. 1st, 2014 photos: feature Roy MacDonald
    • Season 2, Sept. 2013 to June 2014. >
      • June 4th, 20114, featuring Monika Lee
      • May 7th 2014, featuring Susan McCaslin and Lee Johnson
      • Sept. 4th, 2013 featuring Frank Beltrano
      • April 16th, 2014, featuring Penn Kemp and Laurence Hutchman
      • March 5th, 2014, featuring Jacob Scheier
      • Feb. 5th, 2014: featuring four UWO students of poetry; music by Tim Woodcock
      • Jan. 2nd, 2014: featuring Carrie Lee Connel
      • Dec. 4th, 2013, featuring M. NourbeSe Philip
      • Nov. 6, 2013 , featuring Susan Downe
      • Oct. 2nd, 2013, featuring Jan Figurski
    • Season 1: Oct. 2012 to June 2013 >
      • June 4th, 2013 featuring David J. paul and the best-ever open mic
      • May 1st, 2013, featuring Sonia Halpern
      • Apr. 24, 2013 featuring Frank Davey & Tom Cull
      • Mar. 6th, 2013, featuring Christine Thorpe
      • Feb. 6th, 2013, featuring D'vorah Elias
      • Jan. 3rd. 2013: John Tyndall featured.
      • Dec. 5, 2012: RL Raymond featured
    • Dig These Hip Cats ... The Beats
  • Poet VIDEOS (open mic & featured readers)
    • 5th Season Videos (2016-2017)
    • 4th Season Videos (2015-16)
    • 3rd Season Videos (2014-2015)
    • 2nd Season (2013-2014) videos
  • BIOGRAPHIES - Featured poets & musicians
  • INTERVIEWS & POEMS (featured poets)
    • SEASON 6 - Interviews & Poems >
      • Kevin Shaw: Poem & Interview
      • David Janzen - Interview
    • SEASON 5 INTERVIEWS & POEMS
    • SEASON 4 INTERVIEWS AND POEMS
    • SEASON 3 INTERVIEWS AND POEMS
    • SEASON 2 INTERVIEWS & POEMS (only from Dec. 4th, 2013)
    • Season 1 INTERVIEWS & POEMS (& 1st half of Season 2) >
      • INTERVIEWS of Featured Poets
      • POEMS by Featured Poets (1st Season & to Nov. 2013)
  • Couplets: Poets in Dialogue
  • Future Events
  • Past Events
    • 5th Season: 2016-2017
    • Season 4: 2015-2016
    • Season 3: 2014-2015
    • Season Two: 2013-2014
    • Season One: 2012-2013
  • Who we Are
  • Testimonial
  • Our Mission
  • Links
  • Contact us
  • Frank Davey Blog
  • Frank Davey Blog
  • New Page

A TRICK I’VE LEARNED TO HELP ME READ POEMS

2/27/2013

0 Comments

 
For the first time in my life, I’ve been reading entire books of poetry that are written by only one writer. I set myself this task partly to help me prepare for interviews with the featured poets at our monthly events. But mainly just to get myself to do it.

It’s been interesting. Not only have I learned a fair bit about writing poetry, and about the poets themselves (to say nothing of the various things they actually wrote about), but, when I was reading our fifth poet’s book (‘Ani’ by D’vorh Elias) I also stumbled across a valuable little trick to help me read poems. 

I’m sure this trick won’t come as any surprise to those poets and readers who have been seriously educated in this sort of thing, but to amateurs like myself, who tend to enjoy writing their own more than reading others’, it could prove as much of a revelation as it has to me, especially if they try it. (I would like to hear how it worked out for people who do.)

The trick has two components. Firstly, you have to read each poem three times or more, instead of just once. Of course, I’m not talking about limericks, but poems that, at least in my eyes, are worth the effort of reading. So the way I look at it now is that every poem I come to is three times as long as what I see printed there. I used to read a poem only once and then move on to a different one, or usually a different poet, if it didn’t immediately give my brain some kind of orgasm, and certainly so if I didn’t care for it, or if it was just too dense or obscure or not self-explanatory enough. But now I reserve any judgement until I’ve actually finished reading it. Meaning for the third time. 

On the first reading, like everyone, I try to get as much of it as I can, in all its aspects -- the content, the wording, the feeling, the rhythm, the form if any, even the poet, the poet’s outlook and frame of mind, and so on. In the struggle to put it all together I inevitably come to a line or two that don’t mean much of anything to me, or that could mean any number of things depending on how they’re interpreted, or that just seem to be sloppy poetry or sloppy logic, and so I skip over them and get back into the solid poetry. 

The second reading makes up for the slowness of my first reading. And I’m a very slow reader. Of anything. But especially of poetry. As a consequence, by the time I get to the end of the poem, concentrating on what I’m reading at each moment, I’ve forgotten a lot of the bits and pieces that came before. So I use the second reading to put the poem together into one thing, with the full extent of it’s meaning visible all at once, beginning with the title. And it usually works well. I may try a little harder at the one or two meaningless lines but the important thing is to feel that I have now read the poem. 

The third reading (or second if the poem is a limerick) has one function, to fulfill the second component of my trick: This is where I get into those two lines, motivated by the knowledge that this poet has worked hard on every word and has put nothing in that isn’t necessary and has already taken out everything that isn’t. So I study them. I analyze them. What could they possibly mean? What are the different possible meanings, and which of those could have something to do with this poem? Usually, after a while, I realize that there is one word or phrase that refers to something else in the poem in a way which I hadn’t noticed before. When I see that connection, I try very hard to put all the other words and lines I hadn’t understood into the newly redeveloping poem in my mind. 

And at this point the poem opens up. Where I had thought I understood it before, now I really see what the author was saying, the whole picture, and that picture is nearly always astonishing. Why is it astonishing? Because it’s something new for me. I had earlier put the poem together out of things I already knew. I had created a hodgepodge of my old memories, my old ideas. Mine. Not the poet’s. But when I finally force myself to see the poem through the poet’s eyes, I see a NEW thing. I see this thing for the first time in my life. This entire vision of the poet’s, the life that is expressed in the poem. Some, or even all, of the parts may be familiar to me, but the whole situation is something I’ve never experienced before. No doubt it was just as new and overwhelming to the poet as well, and that was the impetus to put it into words. 

I’m not saying that the lines or words should be analyzed until they are understood logically. Although that’s my tendency because I love to analyze things. But no, at least for me the big revelations have usually come from an intuitive understanding, not a logical one. Nothing wrong with that. Intuition is simply visual logic. You end up understanding the line just as clearly, only not in words. And actually I think visual, intuitive understanding is much more likely to allow you to put the whole thing together in your mind at once than is linear, logical understanding. But in either case it’s the clear understanding that’s important, and that allows the whole poem to gel in your mind in exactly the way it gelled in the poet’s. Or at least in a similar way, and certainly for you a new way.
 
This isn’t the only way to get something of value from poems. A common way of looking at ones which don’t seem logical is to simply use them to spark images, feelings and intuitions in the reader. There’s nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of poems that are written with that aim in mind, words and images strung together in pretty ways. Modern Art. But I want there to be depth beyond that, hopefully of a kind I’ve never experienced before.

S.B.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012


    Categories

    All
    Administration
    Alan Leangvan
    Allen Cook
    Allen Ginsgerg
    Andreas Gripp
    Andy Verboom
    Anthology
    Basic Poetics Study Group
    Bernie Koenig
    Bill Paul
    Blog
    Book Launch
    Brighton Mckinnon
    Brittany Renaud
    Carl Lapp
    Carolyn Smart
    Carrie Lee Connel
    Chapters
    Chapters Reading Series
    Charmaine E. Elijah
    Cheryl Cashman
    Children's Poetry Workshop
    Christine Thorpe
    Coming Events
    Couplets: Poets In Dialogue
    David Heubert
    David Hickey
    David Stones
    Dawna Perry
    Debbie Okun Hill
    Dennis Siren
    Don Gutteridge
    Dorothy Nielsen
    E-journal
    Elliot Sapp
    Erik Mandawe
    Erik Martinez Richards
    Essay
    Featured Poet
    Founder
    Frank Beltrano
    Frank Davey
    Future
    Gabe Foreman
    Gary Barwin
    Gloria Alvernaz Mulcahy
    Guerrilla Poetry
    High-school English Students
    Indigenous
    Internet Manager
    Interview
    Jacob Scheier
    Jaime R. Brenes Reyes
    Jan Figurski
    Janice McDonald
    Jan Stewart
    Joan Clayton
    John B. Lee
    John Nyman
    John Tyndall
    Josef Kaplan
    Journals
    Julie Berry
    Karen Solie
    Kathryn Mockler
    Ken Babstock
    Kenny Khoo
    Kevin Heslop
    Laurence Hutchman
    Laurie D. Graham
    Lemon Hound
    Leonard Cohen
    Light Of East
    Linda Burfield
    Lineup
    London
    London Arts Council
    London Open Mic Poetry Night
    London Yodeller
    Louisa Howerow
    Marlene Laplante
    Martin Hayter
    Mary Dowds
    Media
    Monika Lee
    Music
    Mykonos Restaurant
    National Poetry Month
    Ola Nowosad
    Open Mic
    Organizer
    Patricia Black
    Peggy Roffey
    Penn Kemp
    Penn Kemp
    Photography
    Poem
    Poet Laureate
    Poetry
    Poetry London
    Poetry Night Essay
    Poetry Reading
    Poetry Study Group
    Poetry Workshop
    Press Coverage
    Prison Poetry
    Projects
    Rl Raymond
    Ron Stewart
    Roy MacDonald
    Sebastian Rydzewski
    Sharon Bee
    Sheila Deane
    Shelly Harder
    Sidewalk Poetry
    Slam
    Social Media
    Stan Burfield
    Students
    Summary
    Table Reading
    The Ontario Poetry Society
    Tom Cull
    TOPS
    Tribute
    Videos
    Volunteers
    Workshop

Proudly powered by Weebly