“Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.” Kahlil Gibran
Reading poetry is a challenging enterprise. I have scoured the vast resources of the internet in search of some simple tools to make the initial encounter with poetry a little more pleasurable.
Websites
I found the following “The 11 Basic Steps to Reading a Poem” here.
Step 1: Read through the poem to get a sense of it.
Step 2: Identify the sentences and independent clauses (circle the periods, exclamation points, question marks, and semicolons). For some reason, people always forget that poetry is made up of complete sentences.
Step 3: Read a few lines to figure out the meter (figure out how many stresses there are in a typical line).
Step 4: Note the rhyme scheme (look for a pattern).
Step 5: Read the poem out loud. Try to follow the rhythm. If you do this you’ll hear where the poet plays with the rhythm. And you’ll hear the rhyme scheme.
Step 6: Look up any words you don’t understand.
Step 7: Re-read the poem out loud.
Step 8: Mark off any sections in the poem. These sections may be speeches given by a character, discussions of a particular topic, changes in mood, or a new stage of an argument.
Step 9: Re-read the poem.
Step 10: Figure out the tone — the emotion — of the poem.
Step 11: Re-read the poem.
A similar checklist approach to reading poetry can be found here.
An excellent three-tiered approach based on skill-level can be found here.
Books
The Poetry Foundation has excerpted the first chapter of How to Read a Poem by Edward Hirsch here. The 16 sections of the book deal with 16 different ways of thinking about a poem. My favorite section is Give a Common Word the Spell. I love the way poetry makes me think about words and language in a new way.
I recently purchased Rhyme’s Reason by John Hollander as a treatise on poetic form. Thus, far I have been unimpressed by the book’s organization but somewhat pleased with the content.
I also own Harold Bloom’s The Art of Reading Poetry but have not yet delved into it.
Finally, I have heard Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook touted as a must for all poets and poetry readers. It’s on my wishlist.
Any other suggested poetry resources?
Buy Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse
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