By Erin Kirsten Stein
Arizona Daily Wildcat
November 6, 1997

Pedantic Poetics

Arizona Daily Wildcat Erin Kirsten Stein

"Scorn not the sonnet" - Wordsworth.

Did you like poetry in high school? Did you enjoy reading in iambic pentameter?

Did you relish picking apart poor defenseless poems piece by metered piece until nothing was left but a few alliterations and a rhyme scheme?

I didn't think so.

I'm majoring in poetry and I hated studying it in high school. What does that tell you?

Point is, poetry should be read, not raped.

I'm getting a little impassioned here, let's back up.

First, to all you English professors out there, I am not saying poetry should never be studied for its craft. Now that I am older and wiser I can find the value in studying the scansion employed by a poet. But I don't think poetry should be introduced to students as the sum of so much assonance.

Students hate poetry because they are not allowed to enjoy it. The wonderful poems of Wordsworth, Dickinson and Keats were not written to be studied. They were written to be enjoyed, to pass along a message of social import, or as an exercise for the poet 's own enjoyment.

It's ridiculous and counter-productive to base early study of poetry on stylistics.

After a poem is read, it should be allowed to sit with a reader, to reverberate within them. Poetry needs to sink in, not be scanned for analysis. Often, in the classroom, this important period of impact is cut short.

"OK class, what does this poem mean? What is the rhyme scheme?"

Why didn't audiences mind watching "Dead Poet's Society" - a movie drenched in poetry? Because the words were given time and space to be appreciated.

For the reader, poems are emotional and experiential. And that experience is different for each reader. When you read a poem, you have your own set of beliefs and past experiences that lead you to identify, or not identify, with certain ideas in the poem. Your personal context can establish a relationship with a poem, an appreciation for the feeling or concept expressed in the work.

What if your interpretation is different from someone else's? Does that make one of you wrong?

No.

Teachers always teach the "correct" interpretation of a poem, and it is understood to be absolute. In reality, ANY interpretation is valid. What is taught is merely the most accepted theory as to what the poet meant when he/she wrote it. But to enjoy and appreciate a poem you do not have to know exactly what was going on in the poet's mind. However the poem touches you, the feelings you get from it, even if you hate it, they are all correct interpretations. If you read it again you will find new ideas and explore symbolism, but those further interpretations are not any more valid.

Poems can be read at many different levels, all of which are "correct."

The other problem with teaching poetry is that teachers expect students to like and appreciate all the "masters." But often, students have no context for reading Shakespeare or Milton and they don't like them.

That's OK.

Not everyone needs to like Shakespeare. You can appreciate the craftsmanship without liking the result.

Poetry is abstract stuff, but English teachers are forever trying to mold it with logic. By doing that, much of its magic is lost.

A poem can communicate to people when other routes fail because it is so immediately emotional.

Poetry therapy is being used to treat abused and troubled people. Someone may not want to discuss their negative experiences with a friend because that friend was never abused - they couldn't understand. But a poem can bring the negative experience to the fore and offer the realization that others have suffered the same injuries.

Reading poetry is an unweaving, a decoding, but not of what the poet wove or ciphered. It is an unraveling of the reader's own context.

Poetry should be explored and appreciated in younger classrooms and the nit-picky deconstruction saved for advanced levels of education.

Students should read poetry for pleasure, not torture. Many poets expound the tumultuous feelings of young people and their poems would be beneficial to our "troubled youth."

It's too bad those youth think "ode" is a dirty word.

Erin Kirsten Stein is a senior majoring in creative writing, journalism and general fine arts studies.