Who thinks poets were on crack?

[Chris]

I'm studying for my English exam...and guess what I have to study poetry .

Now I've never understood -any- poems ever (I'm a rather clever chap but don't have a lot of creativity). The way they place their words are so abstract I get totally lost. Also a reference to a certain word could be anything. Yes, our teacher does go through the poem and the meaning becomes more clearer...however I think the teacher has a memo to the questions we go through in class and she doesn't really understand it herself.

[scotty777]

um... many poets over history (like artists) have gone to extreme measures to make abstract poems. the would starve themselves for weeks until they would hallucinate, or they would simply take drugs, to which they would wright there stories off. There's a rumor that most poems are just the biggest load of crap, but it's not what the writer was intending, it's how people interpret the poem.

to fully understand a poem, you must use your imagination to it's fullest, and coz it's an english paper, you must substantiate your answer with 10 or so points. So just try find a common theme, like if the poem is slow paced and dark your theme could be evil, if it's fast paced, and there's mention of a bright sun, it's more of a happy poem. But remember, poems are open to any ones interpretion so, what your thoughts of it are, may differ from the writers, so simple add points and they can't mark you down

[Forest Law]

um... many poets over history (like artists) have gone to extreme measures to make abstract poems. the would starve themselves for weeks until they would hallucinate, or they would simply take drugs, to which they would wright there stories off.

wow
did not know that

[Chris]

Yeah - I'm firmly in the camp that all poems "are a load of crap". I do find it mildly amusing that there are "strict" memos for contextual questions on poems...how do we really know what the poet when he said...'a darkened prayer' or whatever.

[jabulani]

Yeah - I'm firmly in the camp that all poems "are a load of crap". I do find it mildly amusing that there are "strict" memos for contextual questions on poems...how do we really know what the poet when he said...'a darkened prayer' or whatever.

A Clerihew for you:

Rooney, Dominic
Is a little bit thick
Maybe some flagellation
Will improve his imagination.

Seriously though, writing off the realm of poetry as "a load of crap" is more a comment on you than on poetry. Your world exists for you through language - if you can learn to appreciate its range and power your world will be significantly richer.

[Moederloos]

I have never understood the inability to understand poetry. It's like looking at a painting and just seeing paint - or going on a tour of the Drakensberg and remarking "look at all dem rocks everywhere".

As to the drugs - yeah - many of the poets did use them. Xanadu as one example was reportedly written under the influence of one or other drug (too lazy to google it now).

[noxibox]

There were no strict rules for interpreting poems, plays or prose when I was at school. That's what was so great about the exams on these topics - you could say whatever you liked as long as you could back it up. No need to study or even to have read the material prior to the exam.

Xanadu is believed to have been written under the influence of opium as I recall.

[dablakmark8]

SO what about shakes,was he to under the influence.

[JBFRobisher]

Some mod
The sod
Has got me beat -
My limerick he did delete!

[scotty777]

LOL! But i took art in high school, and before you can get down to doing the art itself, the teach told us how to look at the painting for longer then 5 seconds, look at the date it was made(this gives clues as to what the painting is about historically) and the use of colours, of which this things can all be used in poems, things like colours are all in the language the poet uses. I'm sure they'll give you a date for when the poem was written OR he the poet died, these all give clues as to what he/she is trying to say. And if this still doesn't help, then simply, make crap up, but make sure that what you making up is backed up by some random uses of words, or anything thats in the poem

[BTTB]

Some mod
The sod
Has got me beat -
My limerick he did delete!

You're a poet and you don't know it.

[Alan]

You're a poet and you don't know it.

[Moederloos]

Petals unfold
nectar revealed
new life
from two formed

[dablakmark8]

?

[dablakmark8]

there are many women that say i am a poetic person.We should have a thread of your poems.