Read poetry for inspiration. Chicago, Illinois, United States About Blog The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. Whether the poet is in the room or not, you, as the reader and interpreter of the poem, can contribute to the poem. But if you look hard enough, you will discover good poetry that you will fall in love with. (No seriously, they have their own book club you can join. Critiquing poetry is about understanding and analyzing a poem.Once you've come to an understanding of the meaning of the poem, you can begin to respond to it. That brand of comedy, you might think, can only seem superficial by comparison with poetry. People understand poems differently. I find that usually this is a case of, "When you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." This handout will help you break down a poem into its key elements and get you started on writing a thesis. Before you break the poem apart, identify its basic content. [14] X Research source Pick up an anthology of poetry and work your way through it, or get a book of poetry by someone who uses rhythm in a way that you like. You have to engage your feelings when you read a poem or you haven’t read the poem. I often feel something more that happy, sad, or angry. The stuff you read in school was unwieldy. Reading poetry is not simply about understanding the rhyme scheme of an Alexandrian sonnet or being able to write a paper on the theological conceits of the metaphysical poets. It’s also one of the chief reasons people believe poetry is difficult. Literature (/r/literature): Like Books but with a focus on "deeper discussions of plays, poetry, short stories, and novels." Especially great if you're into literary criticism, history and theory. A lot of the poems you come across don’t grab your attention. And it's huge.) A poem is first and foremost an expression of emotion. Summarize. Talk about books you've read! The more poetry you read, the more exposure you will have to different ways of incorporating rhythm, and this will help you to develop as a writer. Understanding Poetry #5: Metrics. Due to my upbringing, I've learned to bottle most emotion - that doesn't mean I don't feel. In any case, before you write, you need a solid understanding of the poem or poems you’ll be analyzing. Start talking about iambic pentameter or dactylic trimeter and you’ll often reduce a … That’s so beautiful, and I think we would all do well to learn from each other. I get it. Books : Reddit's book club. Metrics (the language of poetic rhythm) can add rich new layers to our understanding of poetry. The Poetry Foundation's literary blog for poetry and related poetry news. Read poetry: Too many young and new poets don’t read poetry. 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