How to Read (and Even Enjoy) Poetry
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- Опубліковано 15 чер 2024
- Poetry has an undeserved reputation for being difficult and confusing. But the truth is that you don't have to figure poetry out--you just have to read it. In this video, we talk about what poetry is, and we read a poem together with the goal of enjoying it rather than deciphering it.
Check out these cool contemporary poems: www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-a...
Poems in this Video
The Red Wheelbarrow: en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Re...
Dawn: en.wikisource.org/wiki/Al_Que...
0:00 Introduction
1:35 What Poetry Does
4:36 Why I Love "The Red Wheelbarrow"
6:07 Reading a Poem
9:14 Conclusion
This video is an introduction to a productive mindset for reading poetry. If you're looking for some more practical reading skills (and more difficult poetry), check out this video for the next steps: ua-cam.com/video/jv6OA3QBRLM/v-deo.html
A very good interpretation of what poetry is. Personally, not being any type of an English major, barely passing college requirements for a degree, I thought poetry was to evoke more feelings than experience. Well, unless experience is linked to emotion. I do not know for sure.
First step to enjoying poetry, Get a mental illness, brain injury or illness, then start wearing 1960 style suite jacket and a terrible weird coloured bowtie!
Some constructive criticism, if you are open to it. The introduction is annoyingly long. Consider that if someone is watching the video, they are probably already interested in the topic and go from there. You don't need to assume they don't care about it and try to entice them to actually care about it. With that in mind, the first 1 minute and 44 seconds are totally useless. The problem nowadays is that if you are interested in a topic there are so many options to learn it from, that it can be overwhelming. At least I usually skim through several videos to judge its quality and whether it covers what it claims to cover (i.e. is it click bait?). If you give a long, unnecessary introduction, people who actually want to learn about the topic, can get bored and close the video.
@@Diego20529 I have had no prior interest in poetry, but this video showed up on my feed, so I checked it out.
@@danquaylesitsspeltpotatoe8307 Are you okay?
"Life isn't a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced" -Soren Kierkegaard
And when the experience is annoying, like, "WHAT depends on the wheelbarrow?" then I don't want to have that experience. Therefore, I don't want to read poetry.
@@randomgrinnwell, why do you find it annoying? What turns you off of it
@@randomgrinn Clearly your mother depends on the wheelbarrow. Not many other options to move her around, considering how much she weighs.
Maybe stop reading the wheelbarrow poem. There are others.
I think the point is that poetry is just a medium of information. Like how reading a novel allows you to imagine the world, reading a poem also allows you to imagine a moment, or an experience, much like the explanation in the video.
Art is really only enjoyed out of your own volition, and it's the artist's goal to make you get there. However if you yourself are inclined, you can get to that point without much push from the artist.
As for poetry, who cares what the poem means? It's only about what you see in the poem. Maybe the chickens are rabid and the wheelbarrow really is full of your mother or something. As long as you like that interpretation. Convincing others of your interpretation is separate from what you care for it to be.
In high school, I remember wanting so badly to grasp Shakespeare better. And the more I stopped trying to make sense of each word and just let the whole of it paint a picture in my mind, the more I understood what was happening. It’s so counterintuitive-to just let language wash over you and trust yourself to understand on another level. It’s like trying to hold a bubble, which ruins it. You can only watch it shimmer in the air until it’s gone.
Wow, that's a very cool way to put it! Thanks for your insight (I might have to borrow it sometime...)!
Nice metaphor.
I think it helps significantly to *experience* Shakespeare instead of just reading it. Shakespeare didn't intend for anyone to read his plays line by line in a classroom, his intention was for the majority of his audience to see and hear his plays onstage. I've acted in a Shakespeare play, putting it onstage transforms it.
You could have never convinced me Macbeth is a great work by making me read it, seeing it is the only way to fully grasp it.
Very good metaphor indeed. You should write some poetry yourself :)
@apollofell3925 yeah I wouldn't give MacBeth the time of the day if I had to read it. But having worked on a stage production in a youth group of children with disabilities, I goy great memories of it as a play. Be it more with making costumes talking about how we could enunciate different lines to make them believable.
Shakespeare in school is just killing your brain over dead trees with even deader words on them.
I suddenly feel the urge to write a poem about how I feel like I’ve been missing out on poetry
Do it ❤😊
Understanding
Where once rested, a mysterious giant,
Amorphous, intimidating form --
Light spread of source and knowledge connected,
form melting,
into something simple,
something pure.
@@Pandor18
Rekindled
My body, so vibrant
What is this I'm feeling
Nostalgia, warmth, desire
Now I'm finally seeing
A once forgotten love
In plain sight, a treasure hidden
So simple, so wonderful
Never overwritten
@@Tuuubesh0wdamn bro publish that immediately
My poetry professor in university would say that poems give you feelings where words fall short. A shared experience is the perfect way to describe it
I love that explanation--thanks!
Did your professor ever explain what's up with the weird breaks in the sentences? Because most of the time there's no rhythm, there's no particular meaning, it's just there seemingly with the sole goal of confusing the reader
@@helgenlane not all poems are like that though. Personally, I like the ones that rhyme.
But that's like saying pictures give you feelings where pixels fall short. It doesn't make sense! Now if your professor had said "where grammar/syntax/plot falls short" I'd get that.
This literally makes no sense at all. Poems don't use words? Poems are shared experiences? Neither one of those is true.
"Painting is poetry that's seen rather than felt and poetry is painting that's felt rather than seen."
~Leonardo Da Vinci
I have a Bachelors of Arts in Creative Writing, took poetry classes, and not once was the genre of poetry been clearly articulated. Always technique, never the purpose. It was always presupposed. I appreciate how clearly you intro-ed this and makes me want to re-export them genre more
Ain't it the way? It is funny how some of the most fundamental things get left out where you'd think they're most needed. I'm really happy to hear this helped!
man, that must've been a poopy poetry class then
Bachelor's of Arts and Creative Writing*
I'll have a frappucino with extra cream, thank you
I think this is true of so much education, even math.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
78 years old and I have just learned tor the 1st time that poetry and literature are not impossible test questions to labor over until you finally have enough days into English class to move onto the next grade. Thank you for introducing me to a whole new world of enjoyment!!
You're so very welcome--thanks for commenting!
I feel the same way. I’ve always thought that poetry was something (?) to figure out to find clever meaning within. That there were symbolic truths to be understood that if I labored long enough I’d get it. Logical, not an experience to feel. Can’t say my efforts were always successful and left not liking poetry very much. Thank you for a whole new perspective. I’m going back to reread a few. I’m optimistic and by the way I’m 78 years old too.
Love the explanation...feel a poem about to burst forth!!! Thx for the nudge!! Poetry!! 🖋️ 🗒️
Thank you for this video, it’s really alleviates the anxiety of “getting a poem right.”
And, fittingly, the first poem in the Library of Congress poetry collection that you linked is “Introduction to Poetry,” by poet laureate Billy Collins;
“I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.”
oof i felt this
This is the best explanation of poetry I have come across up till now. I have been really struggling with understanding what the poet meant but your perspective takes the pressure of “analysing” off. Thanks!
This made my day, so happy to hear this helped you see poetry in a different light. Poetry can be fun--as long as we stop worrying we have to get it "right." Here's to lots of pleasant poetry reading!
Try over standing it sometime. Blessings.
A school classroom is possibly the worst place to be introduced to poetry, since it's a context of right and wrong answers.
Image been reading my kid poetry at bedtime his while life as just part of a mix of stuff requested and unrequested. Now I'm fully expecting him to disagree with the teacher when he finally gets to that stuff at school
As a Native American who is learning Spanish (the Language of God), I guess the video is decent. Jesus G. Maestro already made videos on poetry and its mechanism. His "Critica de la Razon Literaria" already delved into extensive detail, so I am happy this is spreading.
@WritingwithAndrew thank you for this video, I agree with the comment at top
You just openened up a whole new world for me, thank you so much! I always thought that poetry is "just too difficult for me" and couldn't enjoy it because I thought I would just always miss "the actual meaning". You stopped the poetry gatekeeping for me🥺
Yesss! That's the best possible news--there's a whole wide world of delightful poems just waiting for you to enjoy them. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Blame pseudo-intellectual gatekeepers like George Steiner and Harold Bloom... then again the anglosphere has been pretty bad in Literature since the protestant reformation. Just compare the ghost stories between "Canterbury Tales" and "Macbeth", the former was almost picaresque and written by one man, while the later was a rational atavism that was spewed by who knows how many dozen anglos.
Well, it is more difficult to write.
I have had this opening as a result of this video too. I always thought I was not "learned" enough to really get it. I like what you said about stopping the gatekeeping - exactly right.
txs hermes
As a teen I always appreciated poetry but I never got it, I never understood “why”. You have rekindled a lost joy for poetry that & thank you for that!😁
Art is a mirror.
It teaches you who you are.
This is, by far, the best redemptive explanation on reading poetry i have come across the internet. We always discuss it like this during literary workshops. It is great that it is expressed here too, as it helps many appreciate poetry more.
Thanks! And you're right--this is the kind of approach that we always take in the writing workshops I've been a part of, very different (and more fun, I think) than what we encounter in other kinds of English classes
So glad UA-cam randomly recommended this to me. You are an excellent communicator and I particularly love that photograph analogy for poetry. Off to go read some poems now!
Thanks a bunch--have a lot of fun!
I really cant hate youtube. This is just what i needed to start my journey.
As a poet I agree. Writing a poem is one of the great pleasures of life. Imagine how Frost felt when he wrote Birches. He must have felt great.
Right? Thanks--now I'm going to have to go read Birches!
A poem fan here. I have favorites like "Desirata", and ,,kvæðið um fuglina(translates to the poem about the birds). Icelandic, my native Icelandic is great for poems.
You spelled unemployed wrong
@@d3r4g45 you can have a job and be a poet in your freetime, that's the beauty of being human
@@d3r4g45 spelt
I'm autistic and as a child 19th century french poetry was my special interest. I could spend hours reading and memorising poems because I loved the ambiance it created around me. It felt like with a few words the poets could give me emotions to feel and landscapes to contemplate and experiences to ponder. Suffice to say I didn't have me many people to share my love of poetry with.
I'm so happy to see more people getting into reading and writing poetry! It's a fun outlet for creativity and there's something so special about keeping a few verses with you that describe a special day, a nice holiday, a beautiful sunset.
I used this to help introduce my grade 11 class to our unit on poetry in which we are reading the poems of Wallace Stevens. They found it very helpful - especially because they'd (unfortunately) been taught to do the exact opposite of the points you make here. Thanks!
I'm honored! Here's to undoing the fear of poetry!
You sound like a good teacher who gives a damn!
I learned more in 11 minutes than years of language arts classes in high school and college. I think this will help me to not only enjoy poetry more, but also movies, music, and visual arts. Thank you,
That's awesome--thanks!
I have studied literature up to university level but I have always been trying to decode or unravel the meaning of poems, especially shorter ones, which has often been a frustrating experience and meant that poetry has been my least favourite type of literature. I wish someone had told me this years ago. Hopefully this will give me a new way of reading and appreciating poetry. Thank you Andrew.
You're very welcome!
I often feel very alone in my love of poetry. I just really enjoy reading all kinds of poems and the images they create in my head that I could never ever imagine on my own. I don’t know anyone else who enjoys them like I do so I’m very excited to have found your channel!!
Thanks--I'm glad you did too!
Thank you so much for your take on poetry!
While there can definitely be "hidden" meaning in poetry, it's not hidden in the poem, it's hidden within the reader and the poem just brings it to the surface, per my experience. What makes a poem particularly touching is if it stirs up states and emotions you as the reader have experience before, what makes it have "meaning" is when it actually connects the dots between insights you already have, but couldn't put together until you found the key to them, whether in a poem or from anywhere else.
So in this sense, what moves me in a poem is when said poem speaks of me and about me, what's moving is the self-reflection and also remembrance of experiences past, or even the making up of experiences I haven't had... I've never been in that scene with red wheelbarrow, yet it has touched me some as you described it!
Thanks again :) I stumbled on your video by complete happenstance, but will be looking at others!
Oh my gosh! I feel so much more free to just have “my” experience (whatever that may be) be the “correct” one versus struggling to tease out the what the “right” one is.
Also your description of poetry as being a “snapshot” would have been a powerful shift in how I experienced poetry, had I heard that in school.
Thank you so much! I’m excited to share this with my partner 🥰
That is the single most accurate discussion of how poetry is open to everyone. Whilst you were explaining the “…glazed wheelbarrow “ I was thinking of the ‘gateway’ poem that did exactly the same for me, Walter de la Mare’s The Listeners” This poem opened up a whole world to me that had been shut away and, as I mistakenly thought, only accessible by the ‘academically trained’. You showed what I had thankfully stumbled upon. Fantastic discussion, thank you
When I read, “Oranges” by Gary Soto I was immediately in that moment. I understood the humanity in the poem not by breaking down each word but by simply taking it for what it is. A lovely memory to be treasured.
i love what you said about poems being like a photograph. It makes me think of narritive poems, and in a way, graphic story telling, like a comic strip (just a sequence of drawings (or even photos) telling a story) when you think of joining the pictures of poems together (with an end result in mind of course) than one could write a poem, a narrtive poem in ways that can connect and project an image into your mind in a swifter and pronounced way. It seems to me new possibilities to tell a story. These are things I search for on a daily basis LOL
its possibly comparable to that of a reader like a viewer, enjoying a motion picture. Capturing momnts (that again if you combine with thought around it) can create a story in text that can move for readers in ways that a short story, novel, or even film script, and play can't. This is theory, and one that I am enjoying very much atm.
Very cool insights--I have heard fiction writers say that learning poetry made their fiction much better, so I think you're on to something! Poetry is all about bringing readers into a distilled experience--why wouldn't that be beneficial for storytelling too? Cool stuff!
The movie ‘Manchester By The Sea’ is an incredible example of a poetic film… it’s not meant to have a message, but meant to be experienced… it’s not a film you “watch”- it’s a film you feel.
The photograph analogy really unlocked a new perspective with such clarity
Spot on! It's truly unfortunate that the way poetry is generally introduced to kids in school typically involves a painfully tedious exercise in meticulously "decoding" the puzzling symbolism employed and then formulating a conclusion about what it "really means" according to a particular method of analysis or some interpretation deemed to be "correct." If there was ever a way to rob poetry of its myriad enchantments, then methodically dissecting it in such a sterile and formulaic way would be a hard one to beat.
I’m 35 and you’ve given me a newfound appreciation for poetry. I've just read a few that I'd known in the past and it feels wholly different. Thank you so much. I’m about to embark on a journey of experience, a savoring of moments, and I’ll report back sometime later!
Loved this video, both as a writer and enjoyer of poems. You bringing up that poetry is about the experience more than any message makes me think of a line by R.A.P. Ferreria in his song CYCLES, talking about artists broadly: "Their job is to invent trophies of experience."
That's an awesome line--I'm going to hold onto that one!
Last place I thought I’d find a R.A.P. Ferreria quote but I love that you dropped one. Underappreciated artist.
Thank you. I am 63 years old and this is the first time I have stopped to understand poetry as a snapshot of someone's experience. I love photography and understand sharing an experience visually but have never connected it this way, so thank you for helping me "visualize" a poet's snapshot-experience via language.
One of my favorite things in poetry is when that experience is not necessarily shared, but can be generated and developed during the reading itself; it's like showing the reader a whole sky and each reader will see different cloud shapes or constellations. Playing with language can provoke really unique sensations and feelings.
Very cool--that's the fun of it for sure!
Thank you for giving me permission to just like a poem for the experience and words. I have often been puzzled by the “solving” mentality some people have and thought I might just be missing something.
As a published poet, I think this understanding of poetry can greatly challenge poetry writers to create more visual and external poems. Many poets today (including me) focus more on emotional, thoughtful, or opinionated expression instead of visual “experiences” as you put them. I think that this video compels me and (hopefully) all writers to try and write poems with less of an internal emphasis and more of an external one. As you said, this would ideally also motivate writers to care less about arguments or “profound” psychological pieces and, instead, just write about whatever they want.
Wonderful video!
Thanks--that's a great way to put it! It's the difference between telling someone to feel sad and telling them about a sad experience that causes them to feel the sadness, and I think it's what's at the heart of the familiar advice to show rather than tell.
This is the best reason I've heard of for giving poetry a second chance ! Thank you so much ! It IS stressful to always try to figure stuff out ! I just want it to wash over me, not having to analyze it like we did in high school.
Hooray! Definitely do give it a second chance--and thanks for watching!
@@WritingwithAndrew Your video convinced me! Well done!
Ahh thanks Andrew for this video! I have really been struggling with this primal feeling of "not getting the poet's views" and it is really stopping me from just enjoying the poem! But now I know how to look forward it and now I'm gonna read a lot of them.
Yes--go read all of them!
I love this video. I've always loved reading books, but too scared and intimidated to get into poems. This video has opened my eyes to how awesome poems can be!
That is awesome. I had no idea this is what poetry is. I spend a lot of time pondering on particular past experiences. It would be really cool to capture them in poems to read in the future.
Yes! Go write those poems!
If you catch your voice when reading out loud or to someone that's where the emotion is, enjoy the writing😊
Thank you, Andrew. I started writing poetry about a year ago, although I still consider myself a pre-poet. But I just won a poetry competition and I was getting nervous thinking, "do I really even know what poetry IS?" So I appreciated your insights.
Whoa, huge congrats on the win! I'm glad the video helped, but, for what it's worth, I think feeling like you have no clue what you're doing comes with the territory--you're in good company!
I have always said that if I can make someone feel the same way I felt when I wrote the poem, then I have succeeded as a poet. In that sense the poem is like a bank for emotions, accessible to anyone who can read it.
Thank you so much for this enlightening video! Poetry has always felt like this mysterious puzzle to me, but your channel has changed my perspective entirely. Your approach of emphasizing the enjoyment of poetry over decoding it is refreshing and liberating. Keep up the fantastic work in demystifying the world of poetry for all of us!
Thank you for this. I’ve often been so intimated by poetry that I avoid it and know I’m missing out on a beautiful art form. This helps it seem more approachable indeed.
Hooray!
In highschool, I felt so alienated when we read poetry. Whenever I would tell my classmates, that analysing isn't how it was sopposed to be done, they would just shrug or imply that I'm just not getting it. I'm still not sure why anyone would pretend to enjoy poetry that way, or why we never learned to actually READ poems. I'm lucky to have discovered the joy of writing poetry without any outside influence and thus gain an understanding of how to read it as well. I love your explanation of it being like a photograph. It's like a photograph that gets wider and more vibrant the more you are able to immerse yourself, which makes reading it so rewarding, and writing it encourages you appreciate your surroundings on a deeper level.
That's lovely--thank you!
This seems like a great channel, I'm glad UA-cam recommended it. I've always been struggling with enjoying poetry - I love reading, but any stimulation from poetry has mostly eluded me, with "huh, kinda cool" being my best reaction to it.
Since I feel like I'm missing out, here's hoping your videos will remedy that, cheers.
There are people who don't like poems? Do they not know what lyrics are?
Some people don’t like music 🥲
@@Aniyasimone___ . . . that sounds like a worrying disability.
HELPP
Amazing. I’ve always hated poetry because I never understood it. This is liberating. I love poems now!
Hooray!
@@WritingwithAndrew It’s never to late to learn and to have the mind opened. This was a gift. Thank you.
You're welcome!
In my 70-some years, I've slowly come to appreciate poetry, and your explanation articulates my feelings. My favorite poem is Tyger Tyger by William Blake. I love tigers, and if someone were to ask me why, I would show them Blake's poem. It captures the mystery of one of the most beautiful and most dangerous creatures in the world.
I find myself repeating the first couple lines of that poem every so often, like having a tune stuck in my head
this video is pretty much what got me into writing and reading poetry. i never have felt more seen with your example in highschool and how it felt like it was a riddle to be solved. school never taught me to appreciate art as it was, there was always a lesson to be taught for some dreaded grade. after this video i found love for it again, and even wrote my narrative referencing this video for school!
That really makes my day--thanks so much for taking the time to share! Keep on writing!
UA-cam algorithm found me a gem, today! I've been out of school for nearly a decade and haven't even thought about poetry since then, but this video gave me new appreciation for it.
This is simply incredible. By nature I am analytical and its difficult for me to relax and go with the flow. For the longest, I could not get into it, even though there have been several circumstances of great stress I created my own as an outlet. You simply telling us its meant to communicate an "experience." is so simple and obvious I feel like a goof.
Thank you very much.
You're very welcome! Analysis has its place, but it's sometimes nice just to be, to exist
I’m so glad that you’ve created this video. It explains so much in such a wonderful way.
This is so beautiful and refreshing. So much of my time with poetry has been spent on untangling, and hunting for meaning. Thank you for opening this door.
I'm glad I found this older video. Excellent tips! Thanks for all you do, Andrew.
That's very kind--I'm glad you found it too! Thanks for the support!
Wow, this is a very earnest explanation of poetry that I've never thought of before and makes perfect sense. What a great video, thank you!
I cannot thank you enough for this video. You have severely changed and shifted my perspective on poetry as a whole, and deeply resonated with everything said! Before this video, i was a textbook case of, "bad experiences in highschool due to trying to figure it out", reading them as enigmatic and vague puzzles! I never understood, nor was taught, what the point of a poem was, and found them entirely frustrating because I couldnt for the life of me, 'figure any out', reading them for meanings as i did novels and stories. We studied Plath for months and it was a tedious and impenetrable. I think moving forward, i am no longer going to entirely shut poetry out, and attempt see it for what it is! Thank you once again
That's awesome to hear it--you're welcome!
“You wouldn’t show the photo to someone who wasn’t there and say ‘now tell me what this means or I won’t think you’re very smart’” this totally just changed my thinking about poetry, thank you!!
Thank for for taking the time to create and upload this. I have been trying to learn (or figure out) how to read poetry all of my adult life, and the lesson here is a huge leap forward I think.
You're so welcome--I'm really happy to hear it!
This is the first explanation of poems that actually make sense for me. I will probably not go to deep into poetry but having it as a skill is very helpful (especially in school). I 've been trying to better my writing skills and even though english isnt my mother tounge the videos on your channel seem to be general enough to be not constricted to only one language. Luckily people like you can teach so many of us through the internet. Thanks :)
You're welcome!
This video gave me ptsd flashbacks to teachers asking me what impossibly vague poems meanings were 10/10
Your channel is a real treasure! So glad i stumbled across it. Loved your explanation in this video ❤️
Hey, thanks so much--I'm happy you're enjoying it!
People think I’m weird writing poetry. Let them.
I sure am glad I found this video. Thank you for the message and the simplicity in it.
I've written poetry on/off for over half of my life by now (That makes me feel old...) but still, with my 13-odd something years of experience in writing it, from freeform to limericks, to haikus or odes, I've always felt that none of mine ever "had" to have a deeper meaning. If what I wrote read the way I wanted it to read, I was happy with the result (Or even if it didn't! I loved hearing people's interpretations). It didn't "need" to be analyzed. It could, but it never "needed" to.
I like this video a lot! I appreciate that you've made it, because I think poetry has become misunderstood, with current culture and school especially teaching poetry with a certain bias.
Sometimes the curtains are blue simply because the curtains are blue.
"Poems aren't riddles, but most of them are a joke." -some wise guy
I like what you’re doing, man. This video is so important, especially in today’s overly fast-paced culture of immediacy. People don’t wanna think about anything for longer than a few seconds. We’ve become very literal and want results instantly (at least in the western world). I think folks would also benefit from learning how to appreciate the ambiguity of more “art house” films. Some are even called “tone poems”and for a reason lol.
Thanks, I appreciate that!
Don't think, feel!
The Red Wheelbarrow, to me, feels like it’s describing how our perception works, particularly when reading a poem. The small, simple details let you evoke a larger setting, and a network of other images.
"If this were a photograph what would you be seeing" -- that is pretty much how I view all poetry that I read and write.
Nice--now we just need to get everyone else on board!
I completely agree. I only recently started to like poetry out of self-exploration, I've graduated from university now. I wish you had been my English teacher in high school so I would have appreciated this form of art earlier. 😁
Thanks! It's never too late--I'm glad you're finding your way back to poetry!
Loved the simplicity and the perspective shift! I've recently begun to enjoy poetry - Keats and Mary Oliver are my go to and you've put into words what I had been feeling for a while - poetry is akin to a photograph. Thank you.
Thank you for telling me this; the feeling that I've written a poem comes fully only after a cryptic message is there to crack.
Thanks for this, I was too much into the idea of solving the poems, even if I had to research about it, mainly those harder ones like from Plath which made me feel like I was solving an equation. Even though it's fun sometimes seeing it as sort of an enigma, I can see how one would miss out on a lot more of the essence of the poetry. That idea of a poem being like a photograph is exactly the way I thought about haikus (like a timeless sight of nature), now I'll try to extend that to poetry in general.
Yeah, haikus are really good examples of poems to approach like photos. Come to think of it, they might be what got me started thinking this way in the first place...
Well done making this video, you're helping a lot of people like me who were instantly turned off to poetry by the mundane classroom meandering of careless, tired teachers. To that I say thank you a thousandfold!
A thousand thanks in return!
I've been falling on hard times right now, and watching this video opened up a whole new world for me that I didn't know I was missing. Something about watching this and hearing your passion for an art often ignored, learning how to enjoy it with the same vigor you have, it quieted my estranged soul, at least it has so far. Thank you.
That makes my day--sorry things have been hard, but thanks for sharing!
This is how I've always read poetry so it feels nice to have my experience of it validated. Will be checking out the rest of your videos
Hey thanks, I'm glad to hear it!
I love your summation of what a poem is. They also invoke emotions and can transport us to the moment. Edit. Love your well tied bow too.
Amazing!! I've always found poetry repulsive since the only contact I had with it early on was in school, but i've stumbled upon it with new eyes when trying to compose music and this video helps me appreciate poetry in strictly written form. Thanks!!
That's awesome--you're welcome!
i've been struggling with poetry for years and thanks to your video it finally started to make sense. intuitively while you were reading The Red Wheelbarrow even before your explanation i started immersing myself into this scenery and paid attention at colour contrast. red wheels and white chicken. i enjoyed it as it's a simple yet pleasant combination. so, your approach definitely works. thanks for the video!
That's awesome to hear--thanks!
Boy, am I glad this video popped up in my UA-cam feed. I've struggled with poetry since middle school, despite being able to find meaning and beauty in others forms of written text, like novels and essays. I thought poets were just pretentious artists who wrote in mysterious ways to make ME feel dumb. Likening a poem to a photograph is such a simple idea, yet I think you might have unlocked a new appreciation for poetry within me. I will pick up one of the dusty poetry collection on my shelf later this week and try and approach them in this new way. Looking forward to it. Thank you again for your video!
Fantastic summary -- thank you --
You bet--thanks!
This is just to say, thank you.
Another Williams classic--you're welcome!
I’ve never clicked “subscribe” with as much enthusiasm before. What an excellent communicator.
Thanks so much--I really appreciate that!
This video single handedly opened my world up to a new art form
This did gave me a new perspective towards poems. Now I won't look at it as I used to look at it before.
Thanks a lot for igniting my interest in literature.
Btw just a suggestion, there are many classic poems (by Shakespeare, Aldous Huxley etc) which are actually difficult to decode. It would be nice if you start making videos explaining them as you explain really well in simple words
Thanks for the suggestion--I'll put it on my list!
Love the video! I'm trying to learn how to write lyrics and its pretty tough, this has been very helpful.
Also, I would love to hear you narrate a nature documentary.
Thanks--that would be a fun gig!
Literally best explanation of poetry ive seen …throughout the years of me trying to understand poetry ive watched a lot of videos and even took poetry classes and none have said these things before and in the ways that you did thank you so much!!!!!
I'm really delighted to hear it--thank you!
This was such a helpful video. Thank you for explaining everything in a way so easy to understand. Both reading and writing poetry seem less daunting now. Thank you so much! Great video!
As the others have commented, this has been extremely helpful. ❤
Hey thanks--I'm always happy to hear a video has helped someone!
Before, I also thought poems were riddles. But then, when I discovered japanese haïkus and Ogdnen Nash in my early 20s, I finally understood how to enjoy poems, how short as they may be.
That's great! It's hard to beat a good haiku
that’s exactly how I felt too, with the first one. It’s almost haiku-esque even if a bit longer. I feel like Haikus get us into the imagery a lot more precisely because of their length and focus, more so than longer poems. Mary Oliver somehow combines both the evocative imagery of a haiku with the thoughts and feelings even when she does both show AND tell sometimes!
Thank you so much for this video. I always felt intimidated by poetry but you’ve just opened me up to a whole new world, the beautiful world of poetry. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, I'm delighted to hear it!
Love the selection of Williams’s “Dawn”; what a perfect demonstration. Excellent video!
Thanks!
I'm a poet.
The poems come from a balance in the soul.
A balance between experience and spirit.
Poems are a gift.
I really appreciate your take on poetry.
Poet to poet: thanks for the lovely addition!
You'd love Hegels take on poetry and art in general
I have a theory that children haven't had enough experiences in life to truly appreciate poetry (especially as their first experience with it is usually in a classroom). That being said, I remember writing a poem when i was a child that i was really proud of. I believe that my experience of studying it later in High School ruined it for me. I am grateful that I found your video because I have recently been wanting to try poetry again. Your video really helped me 'get it' and I feel less intimidated now about going down this path.
I love this--I think my experience was similar: I can remember some childhood poems followed by frustration in high school. I'm glad the video helped--welcome back to the fun of poetry 🙂
@@WritingwithAndrew that's very interesting to know. Perhaps my theory is a little presumptuous. Children do seem to be more in awe of the world than adults and so they should have plenty of material to work with as poetry writers. Thank you for you generous reply.
@@Aeviae No problem! I'm pretty comfortable joining you in placing the blame on classroom-induced trauma...it's too bad, but at least those bad experiences don't have to be the end of the road
This was very informative. I'll try to read poetry some more now, and write a few more.
Also your eyebrows are amazingly expressive
I've heard many people say poetry needs to be a rhyme and I know poetry does not need to have a rhyming scheme. I also hear people say that poetry needs to have metaphors for it to be poetry. These are reason why many people resist from creating poetry or reading it. You have explained poetry very well and many people get this simplistic concept of reading poetry and rather turns it into structured formats. They miss what a poet is actually trying to create is an enjoyable EXPERIENCE that is not focused on cerebral explanations or schemes of structured writings, it is simply based an experience for the poet and reader to connect with each other.
❤ I hope that poetry will be more popular because it helps with perspective and reflection in thoughts and experiences.
For Context on “The Red Wheelbarrow”:
As much as I love and agree with this video, having studied it in depth, I also feel I should inform some of the notions surrounding the ideas on WCW’s “The Red Wheelbarrow”, which actually made me fall in love with poetry in the first place.
I’ve taught a poetry class (which I was TAing but I taught this lesson) that included a discussion and dissection of this poem, which is at first glance a lovely and simple appreciation of the scene or its setting - and if all one needs or wants to get out of it, that is absolutely fine - but freights in an astonishingly great deal of subtext.
This poem deals with the American (hence RED wheelbarrow, the (blue) rain, and WHITE chickens) agrarian scene and its relationship to mankind. The wheelbarrow’s “barrow” doubles as its synonym, meaning grave. So much depends on the essential death of the ‘cogs’ or ‘wheels’ in America, decorated or ‘glazed’ by the blue of water or rain, which is literarily symbolic of suffering or misery, that is next to the ‘white’ (innocent) chickens (or people).
While this poem can certainly be enjoyed by anyone as an appreciation piece about the rural scene, the general underlying message is that it takes a lot of hard work or suffering of workers so that the common or ‘innocent’ people of America can enjoy America.
Great video, by the way! I would love to hear more.
Thanks! I mostly envision this video as a starting place, a way of bringing people into poetry. As with all things, there's always more we can do with it--and creative reading is as much a thing as creative writing.
Yours is an interesting reading of the piece, too, and a good demonstration of where a thoughtful reader can go with a piece. I'm more poet than critic, though, so I tend to distrust more complex readings: for example, at first glance, I'm not sure I can read the rain in the piece as blue based on evidence in the text (is rain ever blue except in the common sense that water is "blue"), and the leap to social and economic misery feels like a stretch in this case--but I've seen critics make more of less. I've also seen enough poets shrug when asked what their pieces "mean" that I'm happy just lingering in the moment with them. But, for others, those more creative readings are half the fun (or more)!
Thanks for the comment! It would be interesting to see if Williams ever commented on the piece. Either way, you've given me something to chew on
I love reading. I've progressively built up my collection of classic philosophy like Aurelius, Peterson, Nietzche, Solzhenitzyn, etc and now I want to expand into poetry. I'm a little worried, however, that I'll just wind up not understanding what I'm reading (quite ironic when I enjoy reading philosophy). Hopefully I'll be able to write my own poetry soon as well.
I've started off by buying Allen Poe's complete works and T.S Eliot's Selected Poems. Anything anyone can recommend for someone that's new to reading poetry?
Very cool question--T.S. Eliot is famously difficult as far as poets go. I'd probably say more contemporary poets are a good place to start (so you don't have the hurdle of older forms of the language to get over). I really like Ted Kooser, and Billy Collins is a popular one as well. I haven't read as much Collins, but I've really liked what I have read.
Please don’t tell me that’s (Jordan) Peterson?
Classic philosophy like Peterson/Solzhenitzyn....
I don't know how to explain this, but this guy has the perfect look and voice to talk about reading poetry
To me, interpreting the poem is as much part of the experience of poetry as having the experience the author meant to convey. In that spirit, I'd like to ask you in what way you think the birds could cause the sun to rise, as suggested in the poem? Or rather: what would be different in the poem if that part was left out or swapped for something else? My interpretation is that the function of this part is to show how the lyrical I is engrossed in the experience of the sunrise: in other words, the lyrical I's reason is so overwhelmed by what he sees and feels that he can't think straight. I'd be delighted to read your analysis of this part. Greetings from Hungary! :)
Yeah, great question--and I think I'd agree with your reading of the speaker's state of mind. I see a speaker who is overcome by an experience, and a writer who searches for a way to share it with people who weren't there. (Wordsworth's idea of poetry being emotion recollected in tranquility.)
I had a teacher once who said that creative reading is as much a thing as creative writing, and I think that's a healthy way to look at it. Interpreting a poem, finding what is meaningful in it, is a useful and creative practice. But I think people then misunderstand and then think that a smart person's "creative reading" is the "only correct reading," which just isn't the case. Once a poem is written, readers can and will do whatever they want with it--but they shouldn't be afraid to read it because they think they might be wrong!
@@WritingwithAndrew Hi.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. :) Interesting, so you think the speaker and the writer are separate people in this poem? Or do you mean that the two are aspects of the same person? (Since the speaker is a creation of the writer's mind.)
I agree with your teacher. I think we can draw a comparison between creative reading (and all other forms of art interpretation) and eating for pleasure. We're all free to eat the same meal the way we like it, no one can objectively tell which way is tastier: for example, some people like to eat their mashed potates first, then the meat, and some put a little of both on their fork. The taste of the meal will be a bit different with each variation, just like the effect of a work of art can vary from person to person, because people can combine the elements of the given work of art differently. The best way to eat for pleasure is the one that results in the biggest enjoyment, and the best way to interpret a work of art is the one that results in the most satisfying aesthetic experience (and both can vary from person to person). So art interpretation is much more similar to eating food than using a tool. If you have a tool, like a hammer, your possibilites are usually limited to the specialized task(s) that the tool is meant to help with. If you try to unscrew a screw with a hammer, you'll likely fail, so we can objectively say that some tools are more suited (therefore better used) for certain tasks than others. So the goal of a tool's usage is to a great degree fixed. Not so with art interpretation: if your goal with art interpretation is to have an aesthetic experience, then whatever gets you the experience (using the elements of the given work of art) works best for you. That said, I think there are some art interpretations that are richer than others: those that give the most coherent explanation of how the elements fit together. The reason for that is because the more you understand about a work of art, the greater your appreciation of it.
@@alittax Yeah, my experience with both writers and critics of poetry is that they (we?) recognize that there's a difference between the flesh-and-blood writer and the version of themselves as portrayed in a poem, the speaker. I like to think of the speaker as a persona--and it also helps because it makes talking about people's work less uncomfortably personal: "I'm just talking about the speaker--not you!"
I also like what you say about eating and tools--for sure there are some interpretations that are richer than others, but it would be hard to say that any of them are "right." At least, not without a lot of discussion--and that's literature scholars are all over the place!
@@WritingwithAndrew
That's interesting what you said about writers and their different personas. I haven't thought about it that way but it makes sense.
I think we naturally like those explanations best that explain the most elements about a work of art. If someone, for example, keeps pointing out detail after detail in a painting, the feeling that we get as the whole thing starts to make more and more sense is pleasant, and the more this continues (the more details are pointed out as a coherent interpretation), the greater this feeling of aesthetic pleasure becomes. Although it's also natural to have a favorite way of interpreting something, even though there might be one that "makes more sense," where a lot more pieces fit together. But if our favorite way leaves us feeling more of this aesthetic pleasure, then that's the one that fulfills the intended role of the given work of art the best. And I think this is where subjectivity comes into play.
@@alittax You're right--all that subjectivity comes into play, and that's what makes it fun!
If poems are _not_ riddles, if they have no secret meaning, then they are just rambling, attempts at communication.
When I was younger (around 10-13) and was writing poetry for English class, I remember absolutely loving writing poetry, and always getting commended for everything I wrote. However, growing older, I grew out of love with writing poetry, and found it harder to write poetry that I felt was great. Sure, it was more lexically complex than what I wrote at 10, but it never felt like it had that same impact. I never really understood why until now.
I was so caught up in the mire of good grades and subtextual meaning that I never realised why writing poetry was so fun to begin with. It was all about conveying an experience, not about telling a plot, or the overarching metanarrative, it was just the imagery and face value experience. Thank you for reminding me what made writing poetry as a child so fun.
Awesome--you're welcome--thanks for this great reflection!