Poetry

Friday, February 18, 2011
Look up a favorite poem, then take the last line and use it as the first line of today's post.

I would...but poetry just doesn't play a huge part in my life. I don't have a favourite, and though I know of lines from poems, it wouldn't be correct to claim the poems from which they come as "favourites". It's like saying...tell us all about your favourite model. They pop up in magazines and on tv from time to time...I either think oh...she's pretty...or oh...wow...she's a model? Some really famous ones I could even name for you! Kate Moss...Naomi Campbell...but I couldn't actually tell you anything about them. I can appreciate them...but I don't know a thing about them.

Poems are much the same for me. They pop up every now and then and I either get it or I don't. I either like it or I think it's a waste of good paper and ink. Usually the latter. Call me and uncultured swine if you will. Personally I prefer a good story that can keep me entranced for hours, a well composed piece of music that can evoke a mood so easily just playing in the background or a beautiful painting or photo to hang on the wall and be admired.

I wouldn't go looking for poetry, it usually finds me in whatever guise it chooses and I can appreciate it for the few moments that it is being read (by me or someone else...) but it's a bit of a flash in the pan experience. I wouldn't actively try to find it again, I just have no interest in a few abstract images painted in words for whatever reason.

Oh some can be fiendishly clever and some are marvellous in putting accross their point, it's just not something I would actively seek out. If I want to stretch my brain and flex its muscles, I'd rather read something factual, whilst relaxing with a good novel in which I can participate with the anticipation of the climax is indeed a fine thing. I find poetry, unless you are writing it yourself, to be a very passive experience, one which attempts to draw the reader in with its feelings and moods but ultimately excludes them.

But that's my opinion anyway. Millions of others actively enjoy poetry every day and have a much more positive and enjoyable experience of it than I do. It's not that I don't see the point as some would claim. I see the point, I just don't relate to it.