I Do Not Enjoy Poetry.... What Does This Say About Me?

[Keith Maitland]

I've never enjoyed poetry. I've tried, honestly I have. I've forced myself to read entire anthologies of poems, only to come to the same conclusion: I don't like poems. I find it difficult to find any relatable meaning in them. And the manner in which they are written make them seem intentionally difficult read.

Now, I realize that most of you are now thinking of every possible way you could argue against me on the subject. Believe me, I've heard it all. "You have to find the meaning between the words, Keith." and, "You just read them too quickly, slow down and try to figure out what the poet is trying to say."

My point in this isn't to argue my opinion, it is to extract your opinions. I want to know why you personally read poetry. And what you think this opinion of mine says about me.

Am I a less well-read, literary person because I find it hard to appreciate poetry?

[Maeght]

I don't likeppoetry much either.

[SusanDoris]

I've never enjoyed poetry. I've tried, honestly I have. I've forced myself to read entire anthologies of poems, only to come to the same conclusion: I don't like poems. I find it difficult to find any relatable meaning in them. And the manner in which they are written make them seem intentionally difficult read.

Now, I realize that most of you are now thinking of every possible way you could argue against me on the subject. Believe me, I've heard it all. "You have to find the meaning between the words, Keith." and, "You just read them too quickly, slow down and try to figure out what the poet is trying to say."

My point in this isn't to argue my opinion, it is to extract your opinions. I want to know why you personally read poetry. And what you think this opinion of mine says about me.

Am I a less well-read, literary person because I find it hard to appreciate poetry?

No, I'm right with you! I also can't stand the dreary tone of voice in which poems are often read.
On the other hand,  I, like the children I used to teach, enjoyed Michael Rosen's poems and A A Milne's, e.g. 'The King's Breakfast' etc
Occasionally I'd find a poem that resonated but that was usually because it had rhyme and rhythm, such as 'the Listener', plus alliteration.

[Aruntraveller]

There will be others that will post much more eloquently then I am going to on this - but there are some poems to me that capture a certain mood, feeling, atmosphere so well, so succinctly; that I cannot think of another art form that does those things in exactly the same precise fashion.

I return to a minor poem, but by me much loved. Adlestrop.

I've posted it before so won't again - but really it couldn't have been done any other way, and my world is the better for it's existence.

[Shaker]

My point in this isn't to argue my opinion, it is to extract your opinions. I want to know why you personally read poetry. And what you think this opinion of mine says about me.

Am I a less well-read, literary person because I find it hard to appreciate poetry?

Incredibly hard to put into words; it's a visceral, emotional reaction to something intensely beautiful, so it's probably about as difficult - maybe impossible - as to say exactly why someone finds a particular landscape, a view, as beautiful as they do. You either feel it or you don't.

Somebody once described poetry as the best words in the best order, and there's something remarkable about reading something that someone has created which says something both true and beautiful, with the compression and concision and economy that poets strive for ... especially given how hard it is, not to write poetry, but to write it well. And it's not always the case that any poem has to mean anything either; it can simply be what's known as absolute music, which doesn't point anywhere or refer to anything outside of itself. The greatest wordsmiths from Shakespeare on down have written passages which essentially say nothing, but say it beautifully, the way that Terrence Malick films go nowhere on one level but go gorgeously.

It seems to me an entirely natural human reaction to think that people would be better off if they liked the things we like. I don't get people who say they don't like poetry any more that I get people who claim not to like music - this attitude is probably the root of the attitude that sees members of a religion try to convert those of another religion (or no religion) because it will be for their own good. Unlike the proselytisers of religion, however, I have sufficient broadness of mind to know that I'm just as liable to be on the receiving end of it. I've never liked, cared about or had the slightest interest in sport of almost any kind, for example - a dedicated sports fan could just as easily deploy that argument against me.

In the end you like what you like and you don't like what you don't like - the world is big enough for everyone. Whether an appreciation of poetry can be cultivated I don't know; I've never had to make an effort to cultivate it so I can't say. If such a thing is even possible you'd have to want to work at it, and if you don't want to, you don't.

[Shaker]

No, I'm right with you! I also can't stand the dreary tone of voice in which poems are often read.

It's a curious fact that a remarkably high proportion of poets are absolutely awful at reading their work. Why, I've no idea. Yeats and Eliot were just terrible (though Larkin IMHO was rather good). There's a reason they usually choose actors to do it.

[Shaker]

There will be others that will post much more eloquently then I am going to on this - but there are some poems to me that capture a certain mood, feeling, atmosphere so well, so succinctly; that I cannot think of another art form that does those things in exactly the same precise fashion.

I return to a minor poem, but by me much loved. Adlestrop.

I've posted it before so won't again - but really it couldn't have been done any other way, and my world is the better for it's existence.

That's it.

[floo]

I've never enjoyed poetry. I've tried, honestly I have. I've forced myself to read entire anthologies of poems, only to come to the same conclusion: I don't like poems. I find it difficult to find any relatable meaning in them. And the manner in which they are written make them seem intentionally difficult read.

Now, I realize that most of you are now thinking of every possible way you could argue against me on the subject. Believe me, I've heard it all. "You have to find the meaning between the words, Keith." and, "You just read them too quickly, slow down and try to figure out what the poet is trying to say."

My point in this isn't to argue my opinion, it is to extract your opinions. I want to know why you personally read poetry. And what you think this opinion of mine says about me.

Am I a less well-read, literary person because I find it hard to appreciate poetry?

Fine you don't like poetry, no one is forcing you to read it.

[Rhiannon]

There are poems that reflect the world to me, poems that make me dream and poems that say something about me.

The best one for the latter is Yeat's Song of Wandering Aengus.

[Shaker]

There are poems that reflect the world to me, poems that make me dream and poems that say something about me.

The best one for the latter is Yeat's Song of Wandering Aengus.

The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner always puts a bit of grit in my eye, curiously.

[john]

I like poetry. And own lots of poetry books/anthologies.

Trentvoyager and Shaker have already given a good descriptions of wot it is or can be.

For me too it is a very succinct and effective way of making a point and achieving an emotional response. The right words in the right order are as beautiful as a great painting or piece of music.

However I concede that there are a lot of crap poems out there that do not resonate for whatever reason. I like music too for the same reasons but some of it too is crap. Music has different types including, for instance, music made to make you want to dance. So too poetry, some is designed to make you remember something, washing powder, maybe. Or maybe just give you a laugh, like the famous Spike Milligan parody, The boy stood on the burning deck/Twas all ablaze but he/Twit. See it doesn't even Rhyme but it is funny.

But hey ho don't worry Kieth we are all different and see merit (or non) in different things. Personally I can see no benefit at all in believing in sky fairies and I hate football. So be your own man and don't read it. 

[john]

Incidentally POETRY of course can be mixed with other art forms;

An incident instrumental in developing my love of poetry and jazz came about by accident, I was 14 or 15 I think when a girlfriend’s parents took me to a concert featuring Laurie Lee reading his poetry to the accompaniment of Humphry Littelton making appropriate noises on his saxophone. I still have the now very beaten up small booklet of Lee’s poems performed that night.

If you look at the list of top cult albums compiled by the BBC right there at number 1 is the recording Bannana Blush by Sir John Betjeman with music by Jim Parker. There are three other CD’s in this series and I have them all;   Varsity Rag, Late Flowering Love and Sir John Benjamin’s Brittain. I thoroughly recommend these look them up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/articles/ec1a9e26-620e-4559-a2f6-d2fc243af125

There is a long tradition of poetry being set to music; Lieder songs, Jaques Brel, Jim Morrison, etc.

I also amuse myself by writing poetry of various kinds. One thing I like to do is take a picture and write a poem to accompany it. For instance, using the Rene Magritte painting of a man in a bowler hat looking at a mirror in which is reflected a man in a bowler hat with an apple where his face should be  I wrote;

I WONDER WHAT HE THINKS OF ME?

Inside I feel so tired and scared,
He doesn't look like he's ever cared.
I try to hold my head with pride
He sneers back just looking snide.
A tear runs down my face and cheek
I guess that he will think me weak.

I do not like the man I see.
The face in the mirror isn't me.

Well it kept me occupied for a bit!

I guess the thing is you have to find your own way into poetry.

[Shaker]

An incident instrumental in developing my love of poetry and jazz came about by accident, I was 14 or 15 I think when a girlfriend’s parents took me to a concert featuring Laurie Lee reading his poetry to the accompaniment of Humphry Littelton making appropriate noises on his saxophone. I still have the now very beaten up small booklet of Lee’s poems performed that night.

Lucky you! A small output but LL has always been one of my favourites - 'April Rise' doubtless being his best-known poem. If you haven't read the biography by Valerie Grove (Laurie Lee: The Well Loved Stranger) I urge you to get hold of it - a lovely book.

I guess the thing is you have to find your own way into poetry.

Funny you should mention Jim Morrison - my way in was seeing Oliver Stone's film The Doors, which I think would be around 1990 or 1991 from memory. A lot of people have slated Morrison as a dreadful poet but that's sort of beside the point - the point was that for the first time (it certainly never happened at school) the lightbulb came on and poetry came alive. And it has been alive ever since.

[Gordon]

Someone once told me that poetry was about saying with a few words much more than what the few words themselves would normally mean, or something like that. An obvious example is 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' which, for me anyway, conveys in 28 lines much more of the horror of WW1 than many of the films or documentaries I've seen.

I suspect too that poetry, and certain poems, become more or less relevant at different times in your life. I recall when one of my elderly relatives, who stepped in when my mother died when I was 8 and who providing me with a safe and happy childhood thereafter, started to show signs of dementia so the roles were reversed (I now have Power of Attorney over her affairs) and 'Follower' by Seamus Heaney (esp. the last verse) hit the nail on the head.

I recall too, when aged around 15, I first came across 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' which utterly terrified me at that age. Even now, any time I find myself walking alone and it's getting dark, and especially if there are large trees around which appear as brooding dark shapes rather than lovely trees (and I'm 65 next month), I feel uneasy and I find myself reciting in my head the bit that goes:

Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread. 

I still find this verse a tad scary!

[Shaker]

I recall when one of my elderly relatives, who stepped in when my mother died when I was 8 and who providing me with a safe and happy childhood thereafter, started to show signs of dementia so the roles were reversed (I now have Power of Attorney over her affairs) and 'Follower' by Seamus Heaney (esp. the last verse) hit the nail on the head.

Hits you right in the feels, that one    Like 'Mid-Term Break'.

[john]

Keith .... tell me this doesn't get ya.


A Child Ill
Sir John Betjamin

Oh little body, do not die.
The soul looks out through wide blue eyes
So questioningly into mine,
That my tormented soul replies
"Oh little body, do not die
You hold the soul that talks to me,
Although our conversation be
As wordless as the windy sky."

So looked my father at the last,
Right in my soul before he died,
Though words we spoke went heedless past
As London traffic-roar outside.
And now the same blue eyes I see
Look through me from a little son,
So questioningly, so searchingly
That youthfulness and age are one.

My father looked at me and died
Before my soul made full reply.
Lord, leave this other light alight
Oh little body, do not die.



 

[Bramble]

My point in this isn't to argue my opinion, it is to extract your opinions. I want to know why you personally read poetry. And what you think this opinion of mine says about me.

Short answer: because I like it. As others have pointed out poetry can do things no other art forms seem able to do. It's also very personal. There are lots of different kinds of poetry and people vary hugely in what they like and how broad their tastes are. There aren't any rules about what you should read or like but my guess is that if you keep looking you may well find something you like. Almost certainly there will be a poet who speaks to you.

It's not easy to say why one likes a certain kind of poetry, any more than it is to explain why one likes a certain kind of music. Some things just resonate, often at a level that is out of reach to the analytical mind. I developed a taste for reading poetry while still at school. I even wrote some excruciating adolescent tripe that found its way into the school magazine. I hope to God all copies have since been lost. Writing good poetry is far harder than it can appear, but trying to write it can hone ones appreciation for the really good stuff, which often seems to articulate something profound in a way one could never do oneself. I sometimes come across lines that simply haunt me. Often I don't even know why - there's just something about them that reaches the parts other words cannot reach. The words themselves can be a kind of delicious music, as in 'the silken weavings of our afternoons' (Wallace Stevens), little gems to float idly in ones mind as one goes about daily tasks. At the risk of putting you off further I'll leave you with this, from Issa:

A brushwood gate,
And for a lock -
This snail.



 

[Sassy]

I've never enjoyed poetry. I've tried, honestly I have. I've forced myself to read entire anthologies of poems, only to come to the same conclusion: I don't like poems. I find it difficult to find any relatable meaning in them. And the manner in which they are written make them seem intentionally difficult read.

Now, I realize that most of you are now thinking of every possible way you could argue against me on the subject. Believe me, I've heard it all. "You have to find the meaning between the words, Keith." and, "You just read them too quickly, slow down and try to figure out what the poet is trying to say."

My point in this isn't to argue my opinion, it is to extract your opinions. I want to know why you personally read poetry. And what you think this opinion of mine says about me.

Am I a less well-read, literary person because I find it hard to appreciate poetry?

Not everyone is good at art, either but it does not mean they cannot appreciate art.
Poetry, I do like, and I write it, too. I think it helps us see how others see the world and what goes through their minds when reflecting on life. 

Not liking poetry does not reflect badly on any one. Neither does writing or reading poetry. It is about choice and it is about personal feeling and methods.

It is foremost an expression from a person. It is interesting to me to see how someone thinks from the inside.

We can't all be poets or artists. But it never stopped us as children from painting or writing stories. Even listening to them.
Imagination is a wonderful thing and words bring comfort and they can bring war.  It says nothing about you for not liking poetry. Just as it says nothing about those who do.

[ekim]

Perhaps we should all make up one verse to a continuous poem and invite Keith to add a verse.  Here's the first verse:

I do not enjoy poetry,
In fact it's quite a bore.
I read some to my wife last night,
And all she did was snore.

[Gordon]

Here's the next;

But I wasn't disheartened, no;
You see I'm made of sterner stuff,
And it's hard to be disheartened,
When reading poetry in the buff!

[ekim]

When my wife awakened,
And saw me in the buff,
She said 'Oh no, not that again'
And ran off in a huff.

[Gordon]

So I called to her, 'do not fear'
I'm only rhyming couplets here
And then she turned, and looked so sad.
And I thought 'fuck, she thinks I'm mad'! 

[Enki]

Instead she ranted loud and hysterical,
"For heaven's sake try to be lyrical
For all that you spout are empty words
Which are no more tasteful than polished dog's turds"

[Gordon]

'You Stalinist hag', I screamed at her,
'You anti-theist mangy cur',
And then, as I inwardly grinned,
I reached for the doll, then I reached for the pins.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Keith,

And yet ironically you told us that in a rhyming couplet:

"I do not enjoy Po-etry
What does this say about me?"

Looking forward to the next lines. How about:

"Prose may be bad, but poetry is worse
Yet when I compose, it comes out as verse"?

Just a thought.