One of my favorite poems is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock".* One of my favorites despite having studied it in English Comp 2, American Lit (because Eliot was born in the US), and World Lit (because Eliot spent his later years in England and even gave up American citizenship to become a British subject). So even after hearing it picked apart and analyzed several times, I still like it.
Poetry analysis was my least favorite part of literature classes. I just like what I like and hate picking a poem apart until there's nothing left, no meaning. I particularly hated it in high school, college wasn't as bad.** None of my college professors made us pick a poem apart line by line like my 11th grade teacher did.
Another poet I studied in multiple classes (high school, brit lit, and world lit) was William Blake. His stuff's pretty good, too.
*There IS a wiki for everything.
**We were never expected to discuss other possibilities for the what the mushrooms symbolized in college. One kid did suggest communism. Maybe she was writing in support of the Truman Doctrine but based on our slight knowledge of Sylvia Plath what, other than depression, were we, snot nosed 16/17 yr. olds, going to think?
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
17 April 2008
Why didn't you tell me?
It's National Poetry Month. I could've spent the last 17 days subjecting you to my bad poetry.
I like attempting haiku because it is both difficult and easy to say something in such a short piece. You have to cut the idea/feeling/moment down to bare bones necessity. I've never approved of calling any very short poem a 'haiku', as is sometimes done because it is so hard to say anything in English in 17 syllables. (Isn't that kind of the point?) Then I read that actually Japanese haiku have 17 sounds (or moras for you linguists) – that just crazy ass short.
For example:
I like attempting haiku because it is both difficult and easy to say something in such a short piece. You have to cut the idea/feeling/moment down to bare bones necessity. I've never approved of calling any very short poem a 'haiku', as is sometimes done because it is so hard to say anything in English in 17 syllables. (Isn't that kind of the point?) Then I read that actually Japanese haiku have 17 sounds (or moras for you linguists) – that just crazy ass short.
For example:
Fearfully longing
For the bright springtime
My wintry heart.
For the bright springtime
My wintry heart.
Has 17 syllables (5/7/5) but 31 sounds (9/13/9). If I'm counting right, to say approximately the same thing in 17 sounds you get this:
But, at least to me, it's harder (because we don't do it much) to count sounds and much MUCH harder to actually say anything that way. I'll stick to syllables.
Fearing
Bright Spring
My heart
Bright Spring
My heart
But, at least to me, it's harder (because we don't do it much) to count sounds and much MUCH harder to actually say anything that way. I'll stick to syllables.
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