I've been thinking about my relationship with poetry a great deal recently. I've read poetry, studied poetry, written poetry (badly), taught poetry (somewhat less badly), and I am fascinated by how the most common route for adults into poetry is through writing it.
I know poetry publishers who receive submissions from writers who are genuinely astonished when it is suggested that they might like to read and even (good heavens) buy the work of other poets.
To my mind, reading poetry is a creative act in itself, because poetry is so dependent on the ambiguities of language. Reading poetry is co-creation, and I think more needs to be done to recognise, celebrate and promote this. (For example, in England, the Arts Council does not consider readers as "audience" or participants in the arts.)
I find that as I walk, lines of poetry I didn't know I knew float through my mind. (my father used to say he didn't learn poetry, poetry learned him). In particular, when I think of politics, lines from WH Auden flood in. Thinking of the current mess in Downing Street, I hear... "Caesar's double bed is warm/ As an unimportant clerk/ writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK/ On a pink official form...' (Fall of Rome).
I'll leave it there for now, but would be interested in hearing more about why people read poetry. (I have a project brewing ...)
This is very interesting! I've already had a couple of emails about poetry in different parts of the world. (Nothing more exhilarating to me than hearing from people in Mexico or South Asia and to know that in spite of the pandemic we're connecting across the world.) Seems like you and I have more to talk about, along with flowers.
I think it is very interesting and coincidental that you talk about the waste land and then after that put some lines from Elegy in a country churchyard.At one stage TSE mentioned that he wanted to write a poem as good as Elegy in a country churchyard. This was before 1922.
I've been thinking about my relationship with poetry a great deal recently. I've read poetry, studied poetry, written poetry (badly), taught poetry (somewhat less badly), and I am fascinated by how the most common route for adults into poetry is through writing it.
I know poetry publishers who receive submissions from writers who are genuinely astonished when it is suggested that they might like to read and even (good heavens) buy the work of other poets.
To my mind, reading poetry is a creative act in itself, because poetry is so dependent on the ambiguities of language. Reading poetry is co-creation, and I think more needs to be done to recognise, celebrate and promote this. (For example, in England, the Arts Council does not consider readers as "audience" or participants in the arts.)
I find that as I walk, lines of poetry I didn't know I knew float through my mind. (my father used to say he didn't learn poetry, poetry learned him). In particular, when I think of politics, lines from WH Auden flood in. Thinking of the current mess in Downing Street, I hear... "Caesar's double bed is warm/ As an unimportant clerk/ writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK/ On a pink official form...' (Fall of Rome).
I'll leave it there for now, but would be interested in hearing more about why people read poetry. (I have a project brewing ...)
This is very interesting! I've already had a couple of emails about poetry in different parts of the world. (Nothing more exhilarating to me than hearing from people in Mexico or South Asia and to know that in spite of the pandemic we're connecting across the world.) Seems like you and I have more to talk about, along with flowers.
I think it is very interesting and coincidental that you talk about the waste land and then after that put some lines from Elegy in a country churchyard.At one stage TSE mentioned that he wanted to write a poem as good as Elegy in a country churchyard. This was before 1922.