Poetry is...

Another meme from the blogosphere:

What's the first poem you remember reading/hearing/reacting to?
I remember reading Sylvia Plath's “Poppies in October.” I was at a bookstore, and was flipping through a poetry anthology, when my eyes happened to scan that particular page. Plath's words forced me to read that short poem from start to finish right then and there. Although I was terrified by the images, those words held me captive. I was also in awe. I had often felt such terrible beauty, such fragility in the world. The closing lines seemed to emanate from my very soul, reflect my own questioning:

O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.

I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and....
The first poem I remember having to memorize in school was E.E. Cummings's “Hist Whist.” I loved the way my tongue formed those ghostly sounds, like the snapping of branches on a dark, misty night. ( I just looked it up on the internet, and I have no idea how I could have had that memorized at age seven.) I loved memorizing poems, and had memorized quite a few on my own accord through the years. Parts of T.S. Eliot's “Little Gidding,” multiple poems by Theodore Roethke, and others by Cummings are among my favourites.

I read / don't read poetry because....
I adore poetry. I am reminded of E.M. Forster's epigraph for Howards End: “Only connect....” My beliefs and feelings seem to gain conviction when I find them reflected in others, and nowhere can I find such connection than in poetry. It links me with humanity across time and geography. I could safely say that not a day goes by when I don't read, recite, or think about poetry.

A poem I'm likely to think about when asked about a favourite poem is....
I have so many favourite poems, that it's hard to choose. Plath's poems fill me with awe and dread in equal proportions. Roethke's comfort and calm me. Cummings's make my heart skip a beat. However, I must “cheat” and say that Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies contains every emotion possible. (I say that I'm “cheating” because the elegies are really a collection of ten poems.) I do wish though that I didn't have to read Rilke in translation. As much as I try to find the most authoritative translation, the one closest to meaning and feeling to Rilke's original, I'm afraid that my reading would never be complete. One more reason for me to take up German. (My first reason for wanting to learn German was so that I could read a beautiful art book I had picked up at Musee d'Orsay in Paris. In my frenzied raid of the gift shop, I had grabbed the German version instead of the English. I know, it's a silly reason for wanting to learn a whole new language, but you have not seen me pore over the book for hours at a time.)

I write / don't write poetry, but....
I used to write a lot more poetry, but now I hardly ever do. My journals used to be full of poetry, but somehow, the poet in me is lost. She's wandering the world, trying to find her way home. In the meantime, she's busy observing the world, taking both literal and mental snapshots and saving them.

My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature....
There are certain poems that I return to time and time again because I feel as though I need them. I feel as though reading them somehow makes my blood flow through my veins, makes me complete. While fiction often makes me see my world differently, or confirms my values and beliefs, poetry validates my voice, my being.

I find poetry...
...everywhere. In different forms, it is in the laughter of a friend, in music, in painting, in the land and in the sky.

The last time I heard poetry....
I have the best job in the world. I discover new poems all the time, and try them on my students. Admittedly, the last poetry unit I designed for my class met with more complaints than anything. However, I just started Macbeth today with my students, and the response was unanimous: They loved it. To hear the bard's poetry issue from these northern adolescents so far removed in time and space from Elizabethan England had me on cloud nine. My students themselves are also poets in their own right, even as they complain about having to read and analyze poems. They love reading me their work, and I love hearing it all.

I think poetry is like....
Poetry is like the mysterious force that makes our hearts beat, that makes us dance, sing, live. It's as inexplicable as life and love. It just is....