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Why can't I like Poetry ?

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John Cooper Clark and Micheal Rosen were the first couple of poets that i enjoyed but when Edgar allen Poe writes in verse his writings are among the best ever

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Ive tried hard over the years to read and appreciate poetry and ive decided that you need a very special sort of soul to understand it.

 

The closest I can get to this is with stuff that usually starts off with "There was a young fellow from..."

 

Id like to be able to appreciate poetry but Im too much of a pleb.

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a teatcher once told me people who dont like poetry often havent been taught it properly, havisham carol ann duffy for example is excellent

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a teatcher once told me people who dont like poetry often havent been taught it properly, havisham carol ann duffy for example is excellent

 

Well, I started the thread, and I still do NOT like poetry. I was taught it properly, as I went to a private school, where we had poetry thrust at us, even if we didnt like it.

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myybe you dont like it because you dont want to like it (no need to get stropey)

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Well, I started the thread, and I still do NOT like poetry. I was taught it properly, as I went to a private school, where we had poetry thrust at us, even if we didnt like it.

 

Perhaps that's the problem - is having it thrust at you being taught it 'properly'? It's certainly not how I was taught it (properly and at a state school), by passionate and inspirational teachers but who let us find our own way.

 

I find it difficult to accept your statement that you don't like poetry across the board, simply because poetry is so varied, and a great deal is little different to prose set out in a particular format, it certainly has the same qualities, and you clearly enjoy good prose. What do you like about prose that you don't find in poetry?

 

My own favourites, that I could (and have) read for hours and hours, and now enjoy reading to my son at bedtime, include:

 

Simon Armitage (All Points North is a particular favourite, disturbing number of parallels with my own life). Very real, observational, down to earth, northern, etc.

 

Seamus Heaney (partly, but far from only, because of the social/political context to much of his work). His work is so fluent it's as if he's just reeled it of, but you can see how painstakingly it has been constructed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgS5XyNuhKM

 

Dylan Thomas, I've got a anthology beside me which includes about fifteen 'favourites'! Can't really explain why, and hate some of his work, but the rest just leaves me astounded each time I read it. Of course, you've got to read it out loud, and slowly, which can make you look like a bit of a pillock on the number 52!

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Dylan Thomas, I've got a anthology beside me which includes about fifteen 'favourites'! Can't really explain why, and hate some of his work, but the rest just leaves me astounded each time I read it. Of course, you've got to read it out loud, and slowly, which can make you look like a bit of a pillock on the number 52!

 

Fair comment RedWizard:thumbsup:

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try some haiku - not formularised 575 but real haiku - or haibun - they are so unpoetic in terms of western style - with objects plants animals becomimg the poetry - that they open up new ways of thinking - this said - i love wordsworth!

 

KC

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Perhaps that's the problem - is having it thrust at you being taught it 'properly'? It's certainly not how I was taught it (properly and at a state school), by passionate and inspirational teachers but who let us find our own way.

 

I find it difficult to accept your statement that you don't like poetry across the board, simply because poetry is so varied, and a great deal is little different to prose set out in a particular format, it certainly has the same qualities, and you clearly enjoy good prose. What do you like about prose that you don't find in poetry?

 

My own favourites, that I could (and have) read for hours and hours, and now enjoy reading to my son at bedtime, include:

 

Simon Armitage (All Points North is a particular favourite, disturbing number of parallels with my own life). Very real, observational, down to earth, northern, etc.

 

Seamus Heaney (partly, but far from only, because of the social/political context to much of his work). His work is so fluent it's as if he's just reeled it of, but you can see how painstakingly it has been constructed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgS5XyNuhKM

 

Dylan Thomas, I've got a anthology beside me which includes about fifteen 'favourites'! Can't really explain why, and hate some of his work, but the rest just leaves me astounded each time I read it. Of course, you've got to read it out loud, and slowly, which can make you look like a bit of a pillock on the number 52!

 

exactly

 

(GL Note::.....initial single word answer too short to define the Quote Box. This Note was placed to redefine the Quote Box for other readers of this thread :))

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Thanks for your links Marc. I will look them up when I have time, and read them properly.

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there from TheRedWizard it was suppost to be a quote (sorry TheRedWizard)

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marc1990, I have edited Post 21 to reinstate your intended Quote Box. :)

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