Welcome to “Poetry Explained. Clearly!” To collaborate in what we are about to explore together only requires that you care about poetry. That you are willing to let it affect you, let it enter into your imagination, so that you come to understand how a poem grows, what its roots are, what nourishes it. Through explication, we will explore structure, form, and poetic “tools,” as well as the architecture of poetry: concept, design, execution. This guide hopes to promote a better understanding of how to enter into a relationship with poetry, whether as a reader or a writer.
I use the term “explication” pointedly.
“Explicate” means to explain or interpret. Its Latin meaning is especially revealing: “to unfold.” And that is what we will be doing. The poet takes the elements of poetry and folds them together into a finished poem; we will be looking at the finished poem and trying to unfold it back to its elements so that we may better understand it, not unlike dissecting–or unfolding– a frog in Biology class, better to understand its anatomy and what makes it “tick.” So we will be “dissecting” poetry, though that sounds a bit too clinical. The term that I like to use is “deconstruction.” Though this term has some specific meanings as it relates to literary studies, we will be using it to apply to what I have just discussed: the poet constructs the poem; we deconstruct it to get at the core. Then, when we read it again– having assimilated all the nuts and bolts into our swarming minds and hearts–we see the finished “building” in all its beauty.
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When I started this blog, I wasn’t sure what my focus would be; I finally settled on Perceptions. , starting with an emphasis on Poetry, as it enables us to experience a moment when the poet captured a specific experience, a particular vision they (I will use this plural throughout the posts instead of the clumsy “he/she”) wanted to convey. As we experience the poem, that vision is embedded in our brains (literally, through neurons) so that we (our perceptions) are altered, changed from what we were before we read/heard the poem. It is a marvel, that our experiences are not limited to what we have encountered with our senses directly, but that the unlimited perceptions of poets (and of all artists) are available to us. What a wonderful world. And so that others can enjoy these poetic perceptions as fully as possible, potentially enormously expanding their lives, some of us are privileged to have the opportunity to share our relationship with poetry . As with most things, the more we know about something, the fuller we can understand it.
To further emphasize the Benefits of sharing perceptions when reading poetry, some of the posts will be structured as a classroom discussion, with give-and-take between the “teacher” and the “students.”
All of that being said, I look forward to interacting with you through these posts. So please don’t hesitate to share your opinions/ reactions/ questions in the Comments section. Once again, Welcome.
I hope you will subscribe so that you will receive each post in this guide in order.
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Subscribing only means that you will receive a notice when I publish a new post.
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(Note: You can view most poems on the website, Poetry Foundation.)
(Note: My Poetry Recordings Playlist: At the very bottom of the post Is a recording. To view my entire playlist of poetry recordings, hover over “1/18” in the upper right corner, then click on ‘My Poetry Recordings Playlist:´and make selection.)
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