Reading Responses 2/20/11

Chapter 8: Form and Structure

One thing I found interesting in the chapter was the breaking down of the poem “Aubade” and his repetition of the word “no”. The first time I read the poem, I really did not pay that much attention to his repetitive use of the word (guess I should have read it a tad more thoroughly). The book lists five possible meaning of the overuse of the word “no”. I found this all interesting because I like searching for the underlying meaning(s) in texts. I appreciate when it takes a few times to read it and also when it can be interpreted to have several different meanings. The book says that instead of just ignoring the “no’s” (like I did the first time) we should “actively engage the sign, wrestle with its multifaceted contours with respect to culture, and manufacture multiple meanings with the poem.” Poetry is way more interesting when it is more than just fluff.

The most interesting poem in the chapter is Trista’s. I loved looking back to see how her poem developed. I have somewhat used this method before with Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott”, which is basically my favorite piece of poetry ever. Instead of really looking at the style of writing though, I stole his imagery and morphed it into my own words and it became something really different, but it got me started so it was really beneficial to me.


 Chapter 9: Voice

I enjoyed the poem “Landscape with Saxophonist” in this chapter. It was in the category “leaping away from logic,” which is a technique I want to try and practice more. I like the line that compares blowing the saxophone the big bad wolf blowing down the little pig’s house. The poem has several different images that aren’t exactly plausible. For instance, “The discord and stridency set off avalanches.” The book says that the author “deliberately overstates the effects of the sax in orders to ironize long-established assumptions about cause and effect, rationality, and reason, positivism and the drive toward final explanation.” When I read that sentence, the reasoning behind the way the poem was written became a little clearer to me. I find it very clever and enjoyable to read.

Another line I liked in this chapter was “every rule of poetry writing is as good broken as upheld.” This really is why people enjoy reading and writing poetry some much—it’s something that allows complete freedom with little to no restrictions on what can be created.