Poetry

 

 

It doesn't take a scholar to write poetry, nor does it take a literature major to understand it. To understand and write poetry you just need a pen, some paper, and your emotions to guide you. I use to believe that I loathed poetry. That was until I learned that poetry doesn't have to be confined to the chivalrous poems of love that we read in old knight tales and Valentines Day cards. Poetry can be heart aching, painful, and be used to describe emotions that haunts our every day lives, I enjoy that pure raw poetry.

In the poetry packet we were assigned to read I felt myself drawn to the poem Where It Passes, Untouchable. "The print of my palm would be the shape of blood", this line depicts my favorite aspect of poetry. I love symbolism and am quite intrigued when writers use them in unusual ways that still make complete sense. Beyond that the greatest symbols that inspire me are that of our own human anatomy. The most common symbol derived from our bodies tends to be, in my opinion, blood. Symbolically blood can be a beautiful thing, or a treacherous image. My favorite instances where blood is used symbolically is to depict love, whether it was the loss of, or gaining of love.

 

Though I can't determine what blood symbolizes, if anything, from the passage in our packet, I can't help but fancy the statement. Instead of saying his blood is the shape of his palm he intentionally flipped it. Why? Sometimes I just like to not try and read between the lines and just say that it sounded poetic or they left it to intentionally confuse us, thus making us spend more time reading to decipher there words. That's why I love poetry, it is so wide open for individual interpretation.

 

The other line that caught my eye from another poem, which the name of is presently escaping me , was "when silence turns to summer". I interpreted this as a great example of symbolism. I believe either a silence was being broken, or most likely Winter was ending and Summer was beginning. But those are just two of millions of possible interpretations. In all honesty the line reminds me of the lyrics in the music I favor, which is just another form of poetry. Poetry is truly all around us, you just have to learn to see it and truly appreciate it.