# How do you enjoy poetry?



## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

What I mean is, what do you personally do with poetry?

The obvious thing all poetry lovers do is read it to themselves. But maybe before that, is was read to you, by a teacher or parent. Here are pretty much all the ways I have incorporated poetry into my life and also things I have seen other people doing, which I might do one day as well, who knows:

Read poems alone, and make notes (or not)
Read poems aloud to a friend or family member
Memorise poems and recite aloud to friend/family (if they are interested in listening that is)or at a poetry event/open mic
Incorporate poems into fictional writing
Make paintings/sculpture/ other art work inspired by poems
Write your own poetry
Write the words of favourite poems or lines/phrases in beautiful writing e.g. Calligraphy
Participate on a poetry forum, and/or create your own 
Read poetry criticism 
Listen to people reading poetry e.g. Tom O'Bedlam on youtube; or spoken word recordings; poetry events
Watch or get involved with the making of short films/animations inspired by poems.
Set poems to music
Listen to poems set to music
Join a poetry club

Sometimes I feel despondent that something I love so much is hard to share. It feels like such an insular thing, but a very intense thing. And now that I'm not studying literature anymore and didn't want to be a literature teacher I don't have to analyse poetry in seminars and in essays, but I miss it. So, what do you personally do with poetry? And what ideas can you think of that someone could do...doesn't matter if it seems outlandish..


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Reading them aloud, or even memorizing them (I print them and put them in the shower -- half a stanza a shower!) is great. I love to "perform" ones that lend themselves to very extreme and melodramatic approaches -- i.e., Byron's Ode to Napoleon, which I do similarly to Schönberg's Ode to Napoleon. It's always fun. Took me a long time to memorize the full thing, but 'tis done.

I inquired on Reddit which one I should memorize next, but didn't get many responses. Coleridge's _The Pains of Sleep_ seems excellent to me. I could perform some of the lines so laughably over-the-top:

Desire with loathing strangely mixed
On wild or hateful objects fixed.
Fantastic passions! maddening brawl!
And shame and terror over all!​
Or I could impersonate Satan:

Me miserable! which way shall I flie
Infinite wrauth, and infinite despaire?
Which way I flie is Hell; my self am Hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threatning to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav'n.
O then at last relent: is there no place
Left for Repentance, none for Pardon left?​
_The Raven_ was recommended, but the long lines are difficult to memorize, I've found.


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## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

For good ones to perform...how about The Lady of Shalott, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, or The Madness of King Goll? Also perhaps a bit of Shakespeare, like Hamlet's famous soliloquy, Mercutio's Queen Mab speech or the prologue to Romeo and Juliet.


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## mirepoix (Feb 1, 2014)

How do I enjoy poetry? The best way I can answer that question is by saying that I enjoy poetry as a new and exciting form of expression to discover and explore. It's fair to say that right now I know bugger all about it.

I've memorised only two poems (so far) which are 'A Nuptial Sleep' by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and 'she being Brand... (XIX)' by e.e. cummings, both of which my girlfriend likes me to read to her aloud.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Reading them aloud is the way I most enjoy them. Of course, teaching a poem to a willing-to-learn class is the absolute pinnacle of enjoyment, but that's passed now, so it's back to reading them aloud, and having a perfect quotation stored in my mind with which to greet a new scene or situation. 

Oh, I forgot - singing them, in the case of traditional ballads, is even better than reading aloud.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I personally find reading aloud to be the best way to enjoy poetry. No matter how old the words are, they come alive when read off the page!

I also like to analyze/discuss poems, but only after my first read through. If I'm analyzing as I read it, I feel that I'm not really enjoying it as much.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Reading aloud is definitely great, although I usually don't (I do read a lot of French and German prose aloud, to practice my enunciation). I also enjoy hearing it sung in classical music. I have chosen numerous recordings of works because I like the poets. I enjoy words, but have never stayed committed to writing, but often think I should.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

I am constantly searching for poetry that I can set to music. I've set Coleridge's _The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan_; Frost's _Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening_; and Dickinson's _Will There Really Be a Morning?_ (This last one has also been set by Ricky Ian Gordon and Andre Previn. God knows, I am not putting my own music in the same echelon as theirs!)

Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" is a big favorite of mine. If I could find a text similar to Agee's prose, it would be enough to make me start composing again!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Cosmos said:


> I personally find reading aloud to be the best way to enjoy poetry. No matter how old the words are, they come alive when read off the page!
> 
> I also like to analyze/discuss poems, but only after my first read through. If I'm analyzing as I read it, I feel that I'm not really enjoying it as much.


I agree with this!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I've written a bunch of poetry over the years (most of it pretty terrible) and read a lot more than that. I enjoy the sounds of words, in both English and other languages, and if I'm listening to lieder, I will make special note of how the lines are set, both in terms of how the music works with the meter of the poem and in terms of how certain images are reflected.


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Poetry is in my life
I read it, to myself
I try to write it, in the haiku style
I love listening to it, usually recorded
My favourite, at the moment, is Sylvia Plath (there are some good BBC recordings of her reading her own writing, along with Ted Hughes)
and Dylan Thomas, again there are some good recordings of Thomas out there.
However this will change, as the wind changes


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I like my Poetry with a Pint of Guinness in my right hand and my lovely wife sitting on my left. Your mileage may vary.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Recently we discovered the Russian poet Bulat Okudzhava, who has composed songs of his own poems. Once you begin to understand the spiritual depth inside his uncomplicated poetry, his songs will become your companions for life. It's a great pity that his plain Russian (it is just as effortless as the poetry of Pushkin, with whom Okudzhava can be compared) becomes so awkward and wrought in the English language. At least the English translations I read until now are unspeakable. At present I'm translating his poems (with the help of my wife) into Dutch.


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## Giordano (Aug 10, 2014)

I used to read a lot.
I have always enjoyed writing.
I don't pay attention to what it may be called.

What happened to the vocabulary game thread....?


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## Levanda (Feb 3, 2014)

As much I like poetry most Russian poems but I am little lazy to read, so often I do with coffee rest to listening for half an hour poetry. On youtube channel Pearls of Wisdom huge collections of poetry. So relaxing, beautiful words.
http://www.youtube.com/user/PearlsofWisdom


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

I would like to share a poem.

I saw Benjamin Zephaniah last night say that his favourite poem was one by Adrian Mitchell:
"The reason that most people ignore most poetry 
is because most poetry ignores most people"

The best poetry I have read recently is by Pedro Salinas - _My Voice Because of You_


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I prefer poems set to music, reading them seldom give me any mental input..

/ptr


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I am going to be reading this thread, because I don't have a good appreciation of poetry. But recently, I discovered William Blake, a truly fascinating individual, and I liked some poems of his I heard, so I could see myself getting deeper into it if I both put forth the effort, and knew where to start/how I best absorbed it.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Poetry is something I delve into alone. If I find something that speaks to me, I try to figure out why. And I'm a notator; I'll take a poem and write my thoughts all around it. So I'm more of a reader than a speaker. 

My problem is, since poetry is heightened speech, by the time I've thought about and lived with something enough that it becomes part of me, it's difficult to convey all that to someone else, so it's kind of a lonely endeaver. Of course, I have the same problem with classical music.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Never been a poetry person though the poems of Robert Service are quite fascinating, such as The Cremation of Sam McGee. Also have an appreciation of the poems of Edgar Guest, such as Home. Hmm, wrote a few limericks on composers in a thread for such at this site (would be fun to bring that thread back up). Also like poetry in songs of Bob Dylan and Neil Young among others.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
........Not shaking the grass.

- Pound

I don't know why I love this little gem so much, but I do.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Some Rumi with Debussy's piece as an accompaniment. The music is beautifully synced with the poetry, along with great visuals.


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## Giordano (Aug 10, 2014)

Also by Rumi

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam or Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Can't deny some great Coleridge.

A couple patches from Kubla Kahn:

...The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!...

...And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

A little recitation of these last few lines by Kilmer's Holiday.


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## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

clavichorder said:


> I am going to be reading this thread, because I don't have a good appreciation of poetry. But recently, I discovered William Blake, a truly fascinating individual, and I liked some poems of his I heard, so I could see myself getting deeper into it if I both put forth the effort, and knew where to start/how I best absorbed it.


I don't think there is much more to say on this particular thread, but if you're interested in a proper poetry thread, then we could make a thread like - last poem you read or a weekly poem...something like that (those ideas were stolen from literature network - but it's a bit dead there anyway) and we could discuss our ideas on the poems...


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Musicforawhile said:


> I don't think there is much more to say on this particular thread, but if you're interested in a proper poetry thread, then we could make a thread like - *last poem you read or a weekly poem*...something like that (those ideas were stolen from literature network - but it's a bit dead there anyway) and we could discuss our ideas on the poems...


I was treating this thread as that anyway, haha.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I'd like to know more about poetry. I do like a lot of it, and feel I don't understand a lot of it as well as I would like to (ie - Shakespeare). 

I've had a long interest in mythology and some of that crosses over into poetry such as Virgil, who I'm a great fan of. I generally just read it alone.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Musicforawhile said:


> I don't think there is much more to say on this particular thread, but if you're interested in a proper poetry thread, then we could make a thread like - last poem you read or a weekly poem...something like that (those ideas were stolen from literature network - but it's a bit dead there anyway) and we could discuss our ideas on the poems...


Hey, you are on literature network! Cool, so am I. It is a bit dead there though...

I did read a few poems the other day, thanks to having been inspired by this thread. They were "music poems" in an anthology I purchased which seems to be well known, called 'Good Poems' by Garrison Keilor. I don't know how good they are, but I read them until I felt I had gleaned something from each of them.


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## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

Clavichorder, that sounds really interesting, I'd like to read those. I didn't make the thread yet, as I was still thinking about it. Maybe you could post one of those poems on the thread I'm going to make now and there is also a music poems thread in the group Tavern on Truth.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

^^^I certainly would post one in said thread.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

An excellent poem is The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe.


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## Doulton (Nov 12, 2015)

I love poetry and I love classical music. I know nothing academic about them beyond what one might learn in Music Appreciation 101. The only thing I can say is that my father used to speak in streams of poetry--doggerel, but in meter. And he played the soprano sax--a lot of jazz, Big Band, and classics that had been a bit big-banded. I think it's just in the blood? It's not simply nostalgia, but cause it has stuck through many decades. This morning I listened to some Mozart quintets and thought that there is nothing more exciting than this: access to music.

I would love to take part if anyone starts a poem forum.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

I read poetry of all kinds with pleasure, and write it intermittently through gritted teeth. Occasionally, a piece gets itself published. I nod politely in acknowledgment of its achievement and resume the unequal struggle.


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