HOW TO READ A POEM -- ABSORB IT slowly!

Poetry as the Language of Unified Thinking

“Poetry is a kind of multidimensional language. Ordinary language--–the kind that we use to communicate information—is one-dimensional. It is directed at only part of the listener, his/her understanding. Its one dimension is intellectual. Poetry, which is language used to communicate experience, has at least four dimensions. If it is to communicate experience, it must be directed at the whole person, not just at his/her understanding. It must involve not only his/her intelligence but also his/her senses, emotions and imagination. Poetry, to the intellectual dimension, adds a sensuous dimension, an emotional

Sound and Sense (p. 10) by Laurence Perrine

As Perrine words it so well, interesting poems are richly dimensional worlds. When we take the time to linger with them as readers, poems appeal to our whole beings: heart, mind, body and soul. More than anything, a poem asks us to breathe it in, absorb it first with our breath by reading the poem aloud, and then with our bodies as we linger with the poem, re-read it. By reading the poem aloud several times over, the imagery and sound, sensuality and movement (rhythm) of the poem begin to send currents through you. The Ripple Effect. Just take them in. Be hospitable. You are not reading for information. While the poem will have cohesion and direction, it will not reveal its insight in a linear way. It reveals primarily through association and sensory details as well as through narration of events, feelings and thoughts. Often, it will show and suggest rather than make outright statements.

It is only after reading the poem aloud several times, slowly, line by line, that you begin to actively think about some things. Think of it not as a puzzle but as a process of beautiful revelation, as if you've just met some new fascinating person who, in her or his own good time, will tell you the story of a moment. Listen carefully from beginning to end, line by line, detail by detail.

Then begin trying to describe/name the moment or series of moments which serves as the heart of the poem. Every poem is rooted in a moment or a series of related moments – this is what propels the poet to write, a feeling about some moment or situation founded upon a moment or event. Once you have a clear sense of this underlying moment, then you can observe how all the elements of the poem: imagery, white space, line, word (diction & rhythm) and stanza reflect the meaning of this moment.

Beginning with the title and first line, then moving line by line (or at least stanza by stanza) notice and talk about:

1)Patterns of imagery and repeated words: these are the details of the moment being recreated by the poem.

2)How the poem uses white space. Are the lines long, short or a variety of both? Do you see patterns in the number of lines within the stanzas (for example: one long stanza, couplets, tercets, a sequence of stanzas of variable length)? The poem’s sense of orderliness (symmetry of lines and stanzas) contributes a great deal to the mood and pacing of a poem – white space is a way of building pause and therefore time into the narration of a moment or event. How do these patterns relate to the underlying moment and its sensory details? What is the effect of the white space upon you as reader?

3)Patterns of movement (flow, rhythm). Does the poem move slowly, quickly, in a variable fashion? What feelings does the movement generate in you? Are questions used?

4)Patterns of sound and music such as near rhyme, internal rhyme, end rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance. Which lines appeal most to your ear, your eye, your memory? ENJOY THEM!

5)It can be useful to consider the speaker of the poem: is it one person or does it suggest a “we”, does the poem suggest the age and gender of the speaker, where the speaker lives, how the speaker feels about the moment or situation voiced in the poem?

6)What kind of poem for your own writing does this poem suggest, in terms both of the moment recreated and in terms of how form reflects the moment?

Cyra S. Dumitru

January 2005