But that's precisely the reason I like it. For me it's terrible for all the right reasons and none of the wrong ones. And, as I said, I wanted my first ever blog post to be something I could always improve on. The blame for that poem, if blame must be laid, lies firmly with whoever put a bunch of Spike Milligan books on the bookshelves when I was a child.
I don't understand poetry at all by the way. I've written a few arrangements of words on the page and called them poems since that first one. Back in 2000ish I even sat an undergraduate course in Poetry writing, for which I scored a final mark of "A+". That didn't mean any of it was publishable of course, and looking back on those poems now I tend to agree with the people who told me so at the time. That doesn't mean that I won't at times publish the odd few verses here if and when the mood takes me.
If you did ask me what I thought poetry was, however, I would say that any poem is a sort of mnemonic. Like Roy G. Biv reminds us the order of the colours of the rainbow; like "first class goods do an excellent business" tells us in which order to place sharps in a key signature, a poem acts like a mnemonic aid to clearly call to mind an event, an image, a feeling, or a state of mind.
Of course this function of poetry which I (have decided to) call mnemonic is more subtle and complex than the simple memory aids we remember from science and music classes. The triggers for memory or understanding in poetry come from the combination of sounds in the chosen words, the particular images evoked by metaphor and sometimes the coherence or lack of coherence of the language used. As with mnemonics as we understand them, without any key to understanding a poem may be meaningless to anybody except its author.
This reminds me. My poem needs a better title. Does anybody have a suggestion?
There. Having disavowed any understanding of poetry I have gone on to attempt to explain it. I'm afraid this is what you will come to expect of me.
All the best
The Gedle
I don't understand poetry either. I just know that I like a poem, or I don't. I liked your poem, but I liked the title even better. So I won't suggest a new one.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite poet is Longfellow. Have you read any of his?
I remember my parents had the collected works but it is a long time since I looked at that book. I like bits of different poets.
ReplyDeleteMy poem, by the way, was missing a verse. I was wondering why I had to adjust the last verse. Have amended