Space to Think, 2015
Have you ever gotten into your third or fourth reading of a poem and realized, although you liked it enough to return to it, you never really understood it, and your returns might not have been for pleasure, but for understanding? And as you continued reading and felt yourself slide into that perfectly shaped space the poet carved out of this world for you, did part of you rejoice in it being precisely what was meant to happen, while another part sunk down deep, dwelling on how close you came to missing it?
yes. and i'm glad to be in such good company.
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DeleteYes. And you put it so beautifully--"slide into that perfectly shaped space the poet carved out of this world for you"...perfect.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Kristen.
DeleteYes. Just .... yes.
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DeletePoems that I love, I understand on some deeper level, not the mental. it's that inner knowingness, so hard to express.
ReplyDeleteWhen I go back again and again to a poem, it sometimes reveals more of itself to me.
ah, the power of a poem, language distilled.
It's a beautiful thing.
DeleteReading your post and these comments, I am feeling the fellowship that comes with the recognition of kinship in another's face. Spot on.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Deletenot once, but many times. I allow myself to read a poem at least 3 times usually... there is savoring that goes into each pass, and subtleties caught, and secret nuggets hidden along the way by the author... I like that hunt and search and pleasure in finding them!
ReplyDeleteI recently read a blog post about a woman trying to find a poem she had read in the past. She was craving the words of the poem at that particular moment in her life and was desperate to return to them. I understand that feeling.
DeleteThe post: https://mollyspencer.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/one-by-one/
Deleteinteresting thought!
ReplyDeleteThanks.
DeleteFor me, it's not a poem I return to but moments in life, replaying memories from my point of view, from another's, trying to figure out what happened and what it meant and why it lingers.
ReplyDeleteMoments in life. Oh yes. I return to them far more often than poems, yet on many occasions it is a poem that takes me back to one of those memories.
DeleteI am not a poetry reader perhaps for this very reason...rarely does it seem like I completely understand them. But this sentiment...coming back to things trying to grasp their true meaning...it happens to me over and over again. Of course the question I have is when do we truly know? Perhaps this same poem, you'll come back to it in a decade and the 'understanding' then will be completely different?? Things I wonder.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, Rachel, so many poems just wash over me without my truly grasping their meaning. It's like appreciating a bird or plant or tree without knowing its proper name, still gratifying, just in a different way. You are so right about never truly knowing. As we change and time passes, we return to poems, novels, movies, cities, natural landscapes, even people, and see them in an entirely different way than we did the first time around. I guess it leaves us with the knowledge that we'll never grow bored. ;)
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