Introduction
to Poetry simultaneously rejects the rigid constraints of literary
criticism while making demands as to how a poem should be read or critiqued.
This paradox is resolved using many examples full of imagery. The beauty that
poems contain should give the reader an experience while gleaning it’s meaning
as opposed to torturous, conventional method of beating the meaning out. The
examples of imagery are rich and full, enveloping all of our senses. “I ask
them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide” brings
forth images of intense color and art. The idea that to truly appreciate something
one must hold the object up to the light, to be examined and admired in its
most illuminated colors. We are asked to search within ourselves, “or walk
inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch”, and as like one
in the dark feeling for the way to light a room, feel within our minds to the
meaning, or “light”, of a poem. In contrast to the right ways to critique a
poem, the wrong ways are neither beautiful nor pleasing but barbaric. “They
begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means” clearly
demonstrates that rigid critique of a poem denies it of its beauty. The title
in itself is ironic. Introduction to
poetry could be taken as “basic or beginning” but in fact is introducing poetry
to us as something new. We are being introduced to a whole new way to look at
something that we have seen many times before, yet never truly seen at all.
I liked your analysis of this poem. I actually did the same poem to analyze and I found some similarities between your analysis and my analysis. I liked the approach you took to your analysis. We both came up with a similar thought to the poem; however, you explained the meaning of the poem in a more elegant way. I did notice that we also interpreted some of the lines different. It was nice seeing a different perspective on some of the lines.
ReplyDeleteReading your analysis, made me see a see this perspective of what is in the poem but we don't actually see and understand. Like you had said we try to beat the meaning out of the poem, but we should really just see the beauty and making us aware of our senses; such as the example you wrote above.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your statement of rejecting the constraints of literary criticism but also demanding how a poem should be critiqued. It seems like the point of writing any kind of literature is to have some underlying, significant meaning, but we as readers go about finding the meaning incorrectly.
ReplyDelete