Hello friends (and haters)!
Poetry: a love language to a writer, a classic toxic relationship to me. I am on poetry’s good side when it comes to writing it; I am able to become vulnerable in ways my friends wish I would be. However, poetry gets on my nerves when I have to read and analyze it since I do not live inside the poet’s brain, which makes me fear that I am interpreting everything completely wrong. Although poetry is art and art allows unlimited room for interpretation, the mere act of not knowing something is unbearable. I live to know, but is that really living?
I have to admit, reading and writing about Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” was a beautiful experience— maybe not as beautiful as the lover described, but close enough. Although, I was still hesitant to write about it. Analyzing poetry is one thing, having to construct a coherent, strong argument about it is a part of a whole different territory— a much more intimidating one. This experience, however, has filled me with pride. I started writing about poetry in academic settings since high school, and during that time, it had never occured to me to read it through a queer lens due to the simple fact that queerness was never a topic that was discussed in any of the poetry units, let alone my English classes. Now, here I am as an English major at a public university in California, who is studying to become an English teacher, and I am able to take a step back and ask: “Hey, why have we never questioned if the narrator in Shakespeare’s sonnets is queer?” Even better, I am able to write my own poetry, automatically making me a queer poet. I was able to share this moment with my class, where I opened up about the end of a queerplatonic friendship that shaped my life. That moment in itself is poetry.
In my future teaching, I do not want to make poetry a dreadful experience while still acknowledging that I do not have control over my students’ individual experiences with poetry. Through my approach, I would make them write poetry first so they have familiarity with what the brain of a poet is like. I want them to experience it first hand before they write about poetry. I would make it a fun unit that hopefully will stick with them for a long time. Afterall, the art of poetry exists within everyone.
Hey, Chris! I definitely agree with your thoughts on writing poetry vs writing about poetry. I love writing poetry, but writing ABOUT poetry is not really my thing. Of course, I like a good deep dive into a poem, but I like to do that in my head and not necessarily on paper, especially for a grade jaja. Like you, I also tend to get into that mindset of wanting to know what the author intended in their words. Even though in theory I agree that once a poem leaves the author, it is open to limitless interpretations, I still want to know the one the author intended. As for your interpretation of Shakespeare's sonnet, I like how you thought to interpret it from a different lens than most. Whether our interpretation is the "canon" one or not, I think that looking at poems through new points of view shows great creativity.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your own poem last week. It takes courage to stand in front of others and share something so vulnerable. I enjoyed hearing you express yourself. I look forward to possibly reading/hearing more of your work! :)