It started at:

“Teacher’s Interpretation…My Interpretation…Decent Grade.


…& Author’s Meaning.” 

We showed it to our AP Lit teacher, and he decided to add his own revisions. 

- cliche-blog-title

Poetry Anthologies Foe People Who Don’t Like Poems

(via housingworksbookstore)

theparisreview:

A bitter pill
doesn’t need
to be swallowed
to work. Just
reading your name
on the bottle
does the trick.
As though there
were some anti–
placebo effect.
As though the
self were eager
to be wrecked.

—Kay Ryan, “Bitter Pill”
Art Credit Robin Cracknell

Understanding Poetry by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard PhD.

To fully understand poetry we must first be fluent with it’s meter, rhyme, and figures of speech. Then ask two questions:

1) How artfully have the objectives of the poem been rendered?

2) How important is that objective? 

Question 1 rates the poems perfection. Question 2 rates it’s importance. Once these questions have been answered determining the poem’s greatness becomes a relatively simple matter.

If the poem’s score for perfection is plotted on the horizontal of a graph, and it’s importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of it’s greatness.

A sonnet by Byron might score high on the vertical, but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearian sonnet on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great. As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating method. As your ability to evaluate poems in this manner grows, so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry.

-dontyouhatepants

Remember this for your poetry final.

ehalcyon:

This was inspired by Emily’s submission to ilovecharts.  Mine is not nearly as elegant, so I’ll explain a little.

A poet tries to put something into words.  Sometimes that something is beyond words - for me at least.

Poetry is up to interpretation though.  What a poet writes and what the audience reads isn’t always the same.  It doesn’t mean the reader is wrong.  It also doesn’t mean that the reader is right - particularly when someone thinks way too hard about it.

Also, some poems don’t mean anything at all.

Seriously.

via Emily, a poet

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is.

Poetry, math and <3 all rolled up into one venn diagram. :)

Heady.

Between What I See and What I Say…by Octavio Paz