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Poetry, it's meaning and intepretation.

Illmatic

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Well I studied a lot of poetry in high school and the teacher would find all these abstract connections and realize small details about a poem that are so abstract.

I was wondering when these poets write them do they actually incorporate all these different meanings to it? Or does everyone have a different interpretation to these poems? Like when a teacher goes 'Robert Frost has clever done.....' I think to myself 'did Robert Frost really do that on purpose'?
 

Catoptric Cistula

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Most likely much of it has multiple meaning when being incorporated into word format. If anything abstract is being conceived it is often due to disparate meaning, attempting to form a cohesive basis for reality. At least that has been the case with anything I write.
 

SilkRoad

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There are different ways to come at this. For instance, there are many different forms of literary criticism and interpretation. New Criticism (because it was new once...) basically looks at a work only on the basis of close reading/analysis of the text itself, without incorporating societal influences, the influence of the poet's life, etc. Freudian criticism, feminist cricitism, etc speak for themselves.

I write poetry, and read it extensively, and I can confirm that it tends to encapsulate a multiplicity of meanings, literal and figurative, etc etc. Often these don't really emerge for me until the poem is more or less complete (I mean, poems that I am writing myself.) It is truly an unconscious process in many ways. But the meanings are there. Sometimes I might more or less consciously incorporate references to other writers I admire, sometimes they slip in but it's basically unconscious. Etc. I think this is more or less the process of many poets. Often while writing poetry, what is going on off-stage is more important than what you are consciously doing. (Although you can tweak it later! Especially with the structure and interplay of the words. I'm thinking more of meanings on the unconscious level.)

A lot of people unfortunately say that they're put off poetry by the way they have to study it. They don't like the over-analysis. I think that's a shame. For me, to really enjoy poetry you need to strike a balance between learning to analyze/unpack a poem - because then you will get much more out of it, even if interpretations vary - and simply coming at it enthusiastically and enjoying the possibilities of language. I had the advantage of loving literature already but in uni I had some excellent instructors who took this sort of combined approach to reading poetry.
 

Illmatic

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So it must come naturally.

I have to do a poem for an assignment and I want to really push myself and get a really good work for my piece of work. But I just can't do it. Like if I write something it'll be too introverted like something only I'll understand. Like I want to write shit that has to be analyzed to gain meaning but I also want to make it so people can think about it and then be like 'Ahhhhh I get it' kinda shit.


I always wonder if the poet meant a whole new thing from what people interpret.
 

SilkRoad

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So it must come naturally.

I have to do a poem for an assignment and I want to really push myself and get a really good work for my piece of work. But I just can't do it. Like if I write something it'll be too introverted like something only I'll understand. Like I want to write shit that has to be analyzed to gain meaning but I also want to make it so people can think about it and then be like 'Ahhhhh I get it' kinda shit.


I always wonder if the poet meant a whole new thing from what people interpret.

Sometimes the poet actually tells people what they meant, so that spells it out a bit more. :) But...I have also had others look at my poems and comment on them. Sometimes they'll say "well, it seems like this" and I know that's really not implicit in the poem, at all, from my perspective. But maybe I can see why they would think that, and that's interesting too. Other times, I'll be like "well, that intention wasn't there...but yes, I think some of that must have come through from me unconsciously." And maybe I didn't even notice it till then. It's fascinating.

Do you have an assigned topic for the poem? (even a vague one - ie. "relationships", "cities", etc.) If not, perhaps try to assign yourself one and work from there - like, decide to write about a place that you love or are interested in, and take it from there. Or just start writing, whatever comes to mind, and even if you think it's crap at first, you will have something to work with, to go on. You can take a few good bits, or tweak what you have.

Also, I think reading great poetry is so essential to writing your own. Try the likes of W B Yeats, Keats, T S Eliot, Seamus Heaney, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, etc. It might get something flowing. But I speak as someone who really loves poetry, I admit. :)
 

Stanton Moore

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I don't want to interpret poetry. I want to just experience it.
I have studied music theory, counterpoint, all of that, and it's hard not to let that knowledge get in the way sometimes. I don't want to analyze everything like that. It takes from the magic.
 

King sns

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Well I studied a lot of poetry in high school and the teacher would find all these abstract connections and realize small details about a poem that are so abstract.

I was wondering when these poets write them do they actually incorporate all these different meanings to it? Or does everyone have a different interpretation to these poems? Like when a teacher goes 'Robert Frost has clever done.....' I think to myself 'did Robert Frost really do that on purpose'?

Well, I think the art in some poetry is to leave a lot of the meaning up to the reader's imagination. So that the reader can be interactive with the poem and apply their own thoughts. "Thought provoking." I think that to some extent, poets are aware of many potential interpretations of their own words, despite the original meaning. Can be open ended and vague while still being beautiful. That's the art.

(Nice for the teacher to add her own opinions, but given the above, probably better to leave that up to the student.)
 

SilkRoad

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I don't want to interpret poetry. I want to just experience it.
I have studied music theory, counterpoint, all of that, and it's hard not to let that knowledge get in the way sometimes. I don't want to analyze everything like that. It takes from the magic.

I genuinely believe, though, that some knowledge of the technique, intention, context, etc behind art will almost always enhance enjoyment. Maybe it has to be something you're passionate about and then it just kind of becomes integrated, almost seamlessly. Maybe it's about getting the balance right.

I just know that with poetry I'm grateful that I have a bit of an instinct (an "instinct" which was at least partly learned) for interpreting, because it adds a lot. Music perhaps provides more direct access, in a sense, than poetry. Most often, people say to me "Oh...it would be nice to enjoy poetry, but I don't understand it, so I don't try." The end. A real shame.
 

JAVO

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I don't want to interpret poetry. I want to just experience it.
...
I don't want to analyze everything like that. It takes from the magic.

I genuinely believe, though, that some knowledge of the technique, intention, context, etc behind art will almost always enhance enjoyment.

A child approaches
The beautiful whole

In time
it
is
split
and only pieces

Atoms appeal
And how they assemble
And how the assemblies assemble

Mind eventually puts it all back together
Integration is understood
Mind beholds the beauty

But in the heart
A child approaches once again
 

iwakar

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Well I studied a lot of poetry in high school and the teacher would find all these abstract connections and realize small details about a poem that are so abstract.

I was wondering when these poets write them do they actually incorporate all these different meanings to it? Or does everyone have a different interpretation to these poems? Like when a teacher goes 'Robert Frost has clever done.....' I think to myself 'did Robert Frost really do that on purpose'?

It is sooooo subjectively interpreted. Unless a poet is part of a well-publicized movement or deeply involved in a well-publicized philosophy that they are highly vocal about, or specifically allude to their own work(s) as meaning >this thing here< anyone claiming to have a monopoly on the veracity of a poem's meaning is full of shite. I'm a poet and everything I write is so tinted with personal meaning that I'd laugh at the idea of some "scholar" setting down the law of interpretation on my work long after I'm dead and gone. Which is not to say that I have a problem with anyone reading my work and getting something different from it. Such is the eternal relevance of producing and consuming art etc. etc.

I know academic institutions have to start somewhere when introducing students to poetry and interpretation, and chances are they'll have more historical and biographical knowledge on the author than the students --so I get that... but why some professors or anthological resources insist on a particular interpretation of a specific poem, or a specific line which can never be completely definitive, is beyond me.
 

fairwinds

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Well I studied a lot of poetry in high school and the teacher would find all these abstract connections and realize small details about a poem that are so abstract.

I was wondering when these poets write them do they actually incorporate all these different meanings to it? Or does everyone have a different interpretation to these poems? Like when a teacher goes 'Robert Frost has clever done.....' I think to myself 'did Robert Frost really do that on purpose'?

I'm still in school and I enjoy analyzing poems. I think applying your own horizon of understanding and trying to get behind the poet's intended meaning is equally important for a good interpretation. Like with any text, everyone has their own preunderstanding they subconsciously bring along when reading a poem... or a text in general. So it's only natural there are different ways to interpret something but this doesn't mean interpretation can be completely random... I think interpretation in the end should be a fair compromise between your own view and what you can safely say about the author's (what you can observe and prove in the text).

I don't want to interpret poetry. I want to just experience it.
I have studied music theory, counterpoint, all of that, and it's hard not to let that knowledge get in the way sometimes. I don't want to analyze everything like that. It takes from the magic.

Hm, for me a better understanding of a poem is what really enables me to enjoy it. What makes poetry distinctive from other froms of literature IMO is that you can express a lot without using much words... it's very compact. I see where you're coming from, but I think if a form of literature is worth interpreting, it's poetry.
 

Kurt.Is.God

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I'm trying to get what you mean by this.

If the words sound nice, or if the imagery is nice, or if it conveys a feeling (all things which are more often than not immediately obvious to me), I guess I can appreciate it too--is this what you're going at? You care more about these immediate elements than about the way the theme is woven into them? But I read mainly for the poet's ways of carrying out their theme THROUGH images, or feelings, or the sound of words. So I guess it's just a difference in preferences.

Also, I get most of it the first time I read it, so usually that first time is the STRONGEST I feel for a poem when I read it. I'm a sucker for novelty. When I go back an analyze it, it's just elaborating on that appreciation. In that sense, too, I guess I'd rather leave the text mysterious.

Then I hate learning about the technique involved in the craft. I hate the teacher pointing out to me stuff like "she could only have fit this section here" or "here's why he chose these words". I care about exposing the meanings. Everything else just gets tedious.
 

fairwinds

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I'm trying to get what you mean by this.

If the words sound nice, or if the imagery is nice, or if it conveys a feeling (all things which are more often than not immediately obvious to me), I guess I can appreciate it too--is this what you're going at? You care more about these immediate elements than about the way the theme is woven into them? But I read mainly for the poet's ways of carrying out their theme THROUGH images, or feelings, or the sound of words. So I guess it's just a difference in preferences.

Also, I get most of it the first time I read it, so usually that first time is the STRONGEST I feel for a poem when I read it. I'm a sucker for novelty. When I go back an analyze it, it's just elaborating on that appreciation. In that sense, too, I guess I'd rather leave the text mysterious.

Then I hate learning about the technique involved in the craft. I hate the teacher pointing out to me stuff like "she could only have fit this section here" or "here's why he chose these words". I care about exposing the meanings. Everything else just gets tedious.

I'll just assume this was directed at me ;)

Not being a native speaker, I have a hard time explaining myself sometimes, so forgive me if my previous post wasn't clear to you.

I also hate it when the teacher tries to force down his interpretation upon the class as if there's absolutely no way he could possibly be wrong, making me hate a poem. But I like reading a poem several times, detecting anomalies in the rhythm maybe that underline the content nicely, discovering not so obvious stylistic devices, lexical fields, comparing two poems of the same topic and seeing in what ways they are similar and in what ways they are different and why... Basically, the poems I like most are those that don't reveal everything the first time you read it. Of course the atmosphere, the feeling a poem carries is important. But if I can figure out what triggers that feeling, I can appreciate it more than during the first read.
 

Vasilisa

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There are times, especially during the experience of art and its creation, that we have to be patient, accept uncertainty, and allow ourselves to be pulled by some experience unknown. Images convey this kind of aliveness. Thats why its moving. Thats why poetry is powerful to me, experiencing the images.


I still don't know how to work out a poem.

A poem needs understanding
through the senses.

The point of diving in a lake

is not immediately to swim to the shore

but to be in the Lake,
to luxuriate in the sensation of water.

You do not work the lake out.

It is an experience beyond thought.

Poetry soothes and emboldens
the soul to accept mystery.


I Love mystery.

I found your fairy princess
on the wall in my room.


And you could make her out?

She wears a butterfly frock.
 
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Kurt.Is.God

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I'll just assume this was directed at me ;)

Not being a native speaker, I have a hard time explaining myself sometimes, so forgive me if my previous post wasn't clear to you.

I also hate it when the teacher tries to force down his interpretation upon the class as if there's absolutely no way he could possibly be wrong, making me hate a poem. But I like reading a poem several times, detecting anomalies in the rhythm maybe that underline the content nicely, discovering not so obvious stylistic devices, lexical fields, comparing two poems of the same topic and seeing in what ways they are similar and in what ways they are different and why... Basically, the poems I like most are those that don't reveal everything the first time you read it. Of course the atmosphere, the feeling a poem carries is important. But if I can figure out what triggers that feeling, I can appreciate it more than during the first read.

Oh, darn, I'm sorry. It was directed at the starter of the thread.
 

spiderfrommars

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In my experience, nah. I've never really written a poem for which there was one right interpretation, in fact I wait to see what the audience thinks before fully deciding what a poem is about. (There have been exceptions, but those were too subjectively focused to possibly be "correctly" interpreted by someone who didn't know me– maybe even someone who did.)

This is my artistic philosophy: there's not a right way to interpret a poem. I think art is about the interaction between creator and audience, a synthesis of their minds: the audience takes what is in front of them and interprets it subjectively, based on their own background. So I guess technically there's a "wrong" way to interpret, particularly when serving an agenda through art, but I don't think there's a "right" one. The artist could not have created something with only one interpretation, because audience members A and B are bringing totally different ideas to the table. This is just what I think, though, my artist friends all think something subtly different.

I don't think there's anything wrong with studying technique, though– and I don't want to imply I don't use technique. But I often do it without knowing why. I juxtapose two words because I find the combination compelling. As a poet, I am a small child. On the other hand, there's a lot I do consciously. And I think there's a lot Frost does consciously. We can't know for certain which bits he did, of course, but it's worth assuming– especially in a class, where you're seeing what you can learn from him– that a lot of it was conscious.
 

Clownmaster

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Kurt.Is.God

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In my experience, nah. I've never really written a poem for which there was one right interpretation, in fact I wait to see what the audience thinks before fully deciding what a poem is about. (There have been exceptions, but those were too subjectively focused to possibly be "correctly" interpreted by someone who didn't know me– maybe even someone who did.)

This is my artistic philosophy: there's not a right way to interpret a poem. I think art is about the interaction between creator and audience, a synthesis of their minds: the audience takes what is in front of them and interprets it subjectively, based on their own background. So I guess technically there's a "wrong" way to interpret, particularly when serving an agenda through art, but I don't think there's a "right" one. The artist could not have created something with only one interpretation, because audience members A and B are bringing totally different ideas to the table. This is just what I think, though, my artist friends all think something subtly different.

I think that if you get that out of a meaning the author didn't intend, then fine. But I do think whatever the author intended most often provides the most cohesion and beauty to the work. And I think building a poem around a definite and intentional theme is the best way to approach it, even if you don't quite understand the theme yourself.
 
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