Journal # 10 - What Is Poetry? (Your Turn)

"Reflect upon your past experience with poetry, as well as your idea of what poetry is. How useful, in your opinion, is the study of poetry? How open minded are you about our study of poetry?"

Poetry is one of my favourite forms of writing. Magic lives within poetry, whether it is written or read, there is some form of magic to it. Poetry is a form of communication. It is a communication that is beautifully and articulately done. For some people, poetry is nothing more than a bunch of words that have some form of rhyme scheme attached to it. For me, poetry is communication, poetry is art, poetry is magic.
The study of poetry is extremely useful, in my opinion. It shows people a different form of communication, one that is able to be understood through interpretation. It displays a completely different way of writing. A way where you don’t have to include detail in order for the reader to understand what is going on. In poetry, everyone has their own, separate interpretations of what things mean. This, I believe is the beauty of poetry. The way that five hundred people can read one poem, and in the end, there are five hundred interpretations of the same poem.
The way I read poetry is, I read it through completely the first time, and then I go back and read it again, reading each line carefully. By doing this, I am able to get a better understanding of what the poem’s overall meaning is, and what the poem is saying. I am able to draw my own interpretation through this.
I am very open-minded about poetry. It being one of my favourite forms of writing, how could I not be. I enjoy reading sonnets, short poems, long poems, any kind of poetry, I enjoy. Now, that’s not to say that I enjoy every topic used in poetry. There are certain topics that I would rather not read about in poetry, or in any form of writing, for that matter.
My favourite part of poetry is being able to interpret in the way that I want. In poetry (for me anyways) there is no right or wrong answer in interpretation. Unless, of course, the poem is about a dog and it clearly mentions a dog, and you think its about a tree. Then, in that case, your just wrong. But anyways, back on track.
Many poets will write what they are thinking or are feeling. Reading their words, you are unable to know exactly what they were thinking or exactly how they were feeling at the precise moment they had written the poem. When you first read a poem, no one else is able to feel the exact same while you are reading. Personal interpretation of poetry is perhaps, the most important part of poetry.
I am excited to be doing a poetry unit, as I love reading and writing poetry. Poetry is an intimate form of commination, one that can only come from within. For me, personally, poetry is a form of magic. It is the type of magic that allows people to be as creative as they want, say what they want, the way they want.