The Meaning Behind Poems

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I'm extrememly sensitive to poetry as far as rhythm, rhyme, and form, but can't for the life of me figure out metaphors in tha vast majroity of poems. I also tend to mess up my guesses because I mix up tenses and plurals, not because I can't tell the difference but simply because I misread them. ((No, I do not have a reading problem.)) Anyone here actually good at figuring out the meaning behind poetry?

BTW, I write cryptic poetry myself, but not usually based around a metaphor, and if it is around one specific metaphor, it's obvious what I mean. The cryptic stuff, I don't expect anyone to get- half the time I HOPE nobody gets it.

Anyway...

It is what it is.

I hate when people tear apart poetry and art and music to "uncover the metaphors."

It just is.

Yes - at least, good enough to ace English classes by figuring out which of a million possible interpretations any particular professor is looking to hear.

I can look at it in both modes - the bullsh** analysis mode, where you're coldly tearing apart every nuance according to the unwritten rules of an English class - and the emotion mode, where you read the colors as they are, where the metaphors are just shades of a global theme.

I prefer a combination of the two, I try to draw on the strengths of both.

P.S. Love your sigs, Serissa

Thanks to the latter, and to the former, I mean poetry written by friends who can actually TELL me that I've missed the point of the poem. I get that response a lot (in more polite ways).

LOL, that might be more their fault than yours, if they're not good enough poets to get their message across. Plus there are a ton of different styles of poetry, some are more hidden behind metaphors than others. What did you think of the one Vetivert posted in this forum a little while ago?

I was thinking about this just the other day: I've got a degree in English literature but most of the time I don't understand poetry, I generally find it quite obscure. I like poetry that's quite earthy and direct, and if it doesn't rhyme and have a good rhythm then I tend to think it's rubbish.

I tend to not like most poetry. I can read my own, but only to analyze and improve upon it. I actuall mixed a few very raw poems together, changed some rhymes, gave it a rhyme scheme, added some verses, and voila! A poem! I can read some poetry that isn't mine, as long as it's not boring stuff like:

The trees are green
Green like money
Money is evil
Trees are evil
This poem sucks
The end.

A lot of poems by highschoolers are like that.

Quite liked it; I have a thing for sestinas, it seems, or I've only come across good ones. I left a comment there. I think I picked up the metaphor/meaning in THAT one, at least.

These are just my thoughts here, I apologize if they're not very good. I think that when someone writes a poem, it definately has a particular meaning to them, but, unless they state it explicitly, once the poem leaves their hands, that ceases to be its only meaning, and the meaning becomes whatever meaning the person who reads the poem draws from it. That is, I don't think there's ever one correct meaning/point of a poem-there is the meaning the author intended, but that's very difficult, if not impossible, to find. So I usually don't worry about finding any one correct answer, but try to find out what it means to me-that, to me, is it's meaning, and I think there can be many. There are many different layers and elements of a poem, so to me there are many ways to draw meaning, whether it's the emotions/images you draw from the words and the way it sounds or-and I'm certainly not saying you have to do this-from analysis of the way the rhythm, rhyme, and other literary devices conveys ideas/meaning. I understand why people find that approach annoying, it's just that I like to analyze things so I find that this method helps me sometimes in understanding poetry, and I am very interested in the relationship between a poems parts and its whole, so it's just a personal preference. I don't think there should be a lot of pressure for someone to find a correct meaning in a poem; it's a personal experience I think, and it's there for you to enjoy or inspire or make you think or feel

I'm interested in English, especially fiction, but I just can't get my head around poetry. I can usually tell a good poem from a bad one (mostly having to do with the number of cliche phrases in bad ones). But after that, most of the ones I recognize as written well are obscure to the point of being just a bunch of clever verbiage, meaning nothing. William Carlos Williams's shorter poems are big on that sort of thing. I guess I subscribe to the idea that word skill should only be used to back up a solid story.

With that said, Jabberwocky rocks.


Edit:

Wow, Bill. White chickens. I dig it.

Quoted For Truth.

I like a poem which uses metaphor but is still an awesome poem even if you don't get that "extra layer".

I'm usually pretty good with extended metaphor. The little, almost random, ones I miss more often. But I always "get" my own metaphors!

thank you, serissa. explanations available, at no extra charge

"Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered weak and weary,
over many a volume of ancient lore,
there came a tapping,
at my door,
'tis merely some late night visitor,
I said,
'tis merely this and nothing more"

I never could figure what what he was bloody writing about ! !! !

He was establishing a mood of desperation and mystery.

Thanks ! ! I always thought he was writing about a stupid bird ! !!