FOUR CARDINAL RULES FOR READING POETRY:
A. READ SLOWLY!
Poetry is the most condensed form of human utterance,
so we can't get it reading fast. In a culture now cursed by its addiction
to speed, it can be hard to slow down, but it's essential that we do so if
we're to get the most from poetry. SLOOOOOOW WAAAAAAY DOOOOOOWN.
B. READ REPEATEDLY!
We can "get" an editorial or an essay or a newspaper
article on a single reading, but no poem worth its salt will yield
its treasures on only one reading. As with any work of art, repeated
attention pays great dividends. Don't think you're even beginning to approach the
outskirts of the suburbs of the remotest experience of a poem until you've
read it at least half a dozen times, the more the merrier.
C. READ ALOUD!
Sound is the flesh of language. To read a poem silently
is like listening to music by reading a score. We don't do that, right? In
like manner, we can't expect a poem to come fully alive if we read it
silently. Whenever you can, READ POETRY ALOUD!!! People got their poetry orally
for thousands of years up until the invention of the printing press in
1455. We've only been reading silently a very short time, relatively speaking.
There's a 2nd reason for reading aloud, which is that we'll stumble over a word
or phrase or passage that we don't understand. I.e., if we don't
understand it, we won't know how to read it, & that's always valuable information.
Those awkward moments are sure signs we need to ponder that word or phrase
or passage. So you have two good reasons for reading poetry aloud whenever
possible. And here's a 3rd: if you don't read aloud, THE DEBIL WILL GITCHA!!!
D.
Remember that your goal is NOT discovering hidden meanings or cracking a
difficult code or finding symbols or unlocking keys or any of those other
ghastly things high school teachers tortured generations of students with.
Your goal, always, is pleasure, linguistic fun, the thrill of seeing a great
master of language perform to the best of her abilities.
ONE CARDINAL TIP FOR READING POETRY:
One of the best & most infallible ways into a poem is through the speaker, so
every time you encounter a new poem, remember that you're meeting a person who
either has something to tell you or who is saying or thinking something
you're privileged to overhear. The better you get to know the speaker, the
more you'll understand the poem, so keep asking yourself about the speaker-
just as you would in meeting a new & intriguing person at a party. What is
this person like? Why is this person speaking? What event(s) or emotion(s)
have prompted the person to speak? What is this person's mood? Serious?
Playful? Frivolous? Profound? Sarcastic? Ironic? Naïve? What kind of language
does this person use? Colloquial? Highfalutin? Pretentious?
Vulgar? Academic? Bureaucratic? If this person has an agenda, what is it? Etc
etc etc… Try to get as much inside the speaker as possible until you can
even feel what it's like to be this person. One of the many glories of poetry
is that it allows us, as few other things do, the experience of being inside
the skins of other people, often people amazingly different from ourselves.
Thus we gain in sympathy & empathy & in our knowledge & experience of the
world. Our lives thus become richer, which is surely part of what Wallace
Stevens meant by saying that "Poetry helps people live better lives."