My favorite (and also first of the school year) "wow" moment came in Humanities when we read a poem by E.E. Cummings. The poem reads as:
l(a
le
af
ll
s)
one
l
iness
Reading that for the first time, I had no idea what it said, or what it meant; frankly, I didn't care. But then someone pointed out that it was fragmented, and then I got it. It was that "wow" moment Mr. Allen brought up every once in a while. Actually, it was more like an "oh" moment.
Still, after seeing that it said, l(a leaf falls)oneliness, I still wasn't very interested. Anywho, once Mr. Allen started disecting it, I started to auto-turn my ears off and go into my own world. But once he started pointing out all the "ones", I kinda got hooked.
Unfortunately, I like poetry. It's interesting. Awesome. It's just amazing to see a poem with very few words turn into a whole story, with intense meaning in every single syllable. Back to the poem itself, a bunch of stuff made it awesome: the ones, the falling motion, the oneliness, the flow with the parentheses all made the poem kick ass with a simple phrase.
Most of the class tried to claim that we looked too deeply into the poem, overworked it, overdid it, raped the poem - per say. That wasn't cool. Maybe I'll explain later. I'm tired. Goodnight.
- Seacrest Out
I agree that poetry can be quite misunderstood but it can also be the most amazing way to express oneself such as this poem. I had the same initial reaction as you but when taking the time to really analyze and look through the clues and meanings of why the author chose to make certain fragments and certain letters paired together the beauty of the falling leaf can be found if one chooses to look for it.
ReplyDeletePower of poetry, can be much more than just squiggles and that make up words, sentences, paragraphs. Language it epic and allows us to communicate in so many different ways. I love poetry have you ever written a poem?