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Why Poetry
An impassioned call for a return to reading poetry and an incisive argument for poetry’s accessibility to all readers, by critically acclaimed poet Matthew Zapruder In Why Poetry, award-winning poet Matthew Zapruder takes on what it is that poetry—and poetry alone—can do. Zapruder argues that the way we have been taught to read poetry is the very thing that prevents us from enjoying it. In lively, lilting prose, he shows us how that misunderstanding interferes with our direct experience of poetry and creates the sense of confusion or inadequacy that many of us feel when faced with it. Zapruder explores what poems are, and how we can read them, so that we can, as Whitman wrote, “possess the origin of all poems,” without the aid of any teacher or expert. Most important, he asks how reading poetry can help us to lead our lives with greater meaning and purpose. Anchored in poetic analysis and steered through Zapruder’s personal experience of coming to the form, Why Poetry is engaging and conversational, even as it makes a passionate argument for the necessity of poetry in an age when information is constantly being mistaken for knowledge. While he provides a simple reading method for approaching poems and illuminates concepts like associative movement, metaphor, and negative capability, Zapruder explicitly confronts the obstacles that readers face when they encounter poetry to show us that poetry can be read, and enjoyed, by anyone.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published August 15, 2017
About the author
Matthew Zapruder
30 books110 followersMatthew Zapruder is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Father’s Day, as well as Why Poetry, and Story of a Poem. In 2000, he co-founded Verse Press, and is now editor at large at Wave Books, where he edits contemporary poetry, prose, and translations. From 2016-7 he held the annually rotating position of Editor of the Poetry Column for the New York Times Magazine, and he was the Editor of Best American Poetry 2022. He lives in Northern California, and teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s College of California. His forthcoming collection of poetry, I Love Hearing Your Dreams, will be published by Scribner in September, 2024.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 243 reviews
May 3, 2023
Defining poetry is a thankless job, but Matthew Zapruder, given 226 pages, pulls it off with aplomb. Leavened throughout are example poems and his own thoughts on them, as well as a little bit of memoirish recollection of his experiences as a poet, a student of poetry, and a teacher of poetry.
You might add "Matters" to the title and be just as satisfied. It's one man's try at the riddle. It does, but WHY it does, is not so easy to wrangle with.
So far I've riffed not once but FOUR TIMES on parts of this book. If you want to go deep (as in the Hail Mary route), here are the links, the first on the only tool you'll need to "get" poetry (per Zapruder), the second on how poets make the ordinary "strange," the third on what we mean by poetry readers getting "joyfully ambushed," and the last on John Keats' famous endorsement of "negative capability" in poetry:
https://www.kencraftauthor.com/?s=the...
https://www.kencraftauthor.com/?s=mak...
https://www.kencraftauthor.com/?s=joy...
https://www.kencraftauthor.com/?s=the...
You might add "Matters" to the title and be just as satisfied. It's one man's try at the riddle. It does, but WHY it does, is not so easy to wrangle with.
So far I've riffed not once but FOUR TIMES on parts of this book. If you want to go deep (as in the Hail Mary route), here are the links, the first on the only tool you'll need to "get" poetry (per Zapruder), the second on how poets make the ordinary "strange," the third on what we mean by poetry readers getting "joyfully ambushed," and the last on John Keats' famous endorsement of "negative capability" in poetry:
https://www.kencraftauthor.com/?s=the...
https://www.kencraftauthor.com/?s=mak...
https://www.kencraftauthor.com/?s=joy...
https://www.kencraftauthor.com/?s=the...
December 22, 2017
Like Ben Lerner’s The Hatred of Poetry, this aims to refute the widespread belief that poetry is difficult and based on a hidden meaning that must be unearthed. Instead, Zapruder argues, it’s about the reader making their own connections in a sort of dreamlike state, such that the rhyming might not (just) be between sounds but between concepts you hadn’t thought to link before. He talks about form and content, and gives plenty of examples, mostly from American poetry—ranging from Whitman and Dickinson to Ashbery, Bishop and Stevens. Although I think this is more likely to appeal to people who already read and love poetry than it is to make new converts, it’s a convincing extended essay as well as a good introduction to the breadth of twentieth-century poetry.
November 23, 2017
I loved this book so much I put it down for a week six pages before the end so that I wouldn't have to be finished with it! Zapruder's work is beautifully written, enjoyable just for the pleasure of its prose, but it also is a helpful guide to enjoying poetry. Also, it is a powerful pitch for the preciousness of poetry as a creator of an imaginative space that we need in which to bridge the differences between us. Never has a healing space like this been more needed than today. This is a lovely response to the question, Why Poetry? Because we need it to expand our lives, our hearts, our imagination, and our lives.
Want to read
February 13, 2020Why indeed. No answers forthcoming.
December 21, 2020
Why Poetry is the book I'd been hoping Poetry Will Save Your Life would be. The more poetry I read, the more curious I get about how it works, and I'm happy to say this book provided some answers. Among the many interesting points Zapruder puts forward, he maintains that the most crucial thing about poetry is the connections it makes. These can be connections of theme, of language, of sound—but the connections are what make a text poetry and not just prose broken up into short lines (sorry, Rupi Kaur). Zapruder uses some great poems to illustrate this point, and he does the same to address one of his other main points, which is that good poetry is accessible. Sure, it may have more sophisticated language than some prose does, but it's generally not hard to understand. Most memorably, Zapruder explicates a few lines of "The Wasteland"—a poem people tend to point to when they claim poetry is pretentious and impenetrable. Zapruder convincingly shows that not only is "The Wasteland" a beautiful poem and a masterpiece, it's honestly not that hard to figure out. As a reader of poetry and someone who wishes more people read poetry, I appreciated this more than I can say.
In addition to teaching me a lot about poetry, Why Poetry also introduced me to some great poets and poems I wasn't familiar with. It also had some fascinating memoir elements; not enough to distract from the main purpose of the book, but enough to entertain me and keep me wanting more. I loved pretty much every page of Why Poetry. I know there are some readers who are determined to see poetry as inaccessible, and those readers will probably decide Why Poetry is similarly difficult to read. But if you're curious about poetry and have an open mind, why not check out Why Poetry?
In addition to teaching me a lot about poetry, Why Poetry also introduced me to some great poets and poems I wasn't familiar with. It also had some fascinating memoir elements; not enough to distract from the main purpose of the book, but enough to entertain me and keep me wanting more. I loved pretty much every page of Why Poetry. I know there are some readers who are determined to see poetry as inaccessible, and those readers will probably decide Why Poetry is similarly difficult to read. But if you're curious about poetry and have an open mind, why not check out Why Poetry?
August 28, 2017
Recently, collections like Patricia Lockwood's MOTHERLAND FATHERLAND HOMELANDSEXUALS, Juan Felipe Herrera's NOTES ON THE ASSEMBLAGE, SPRING AND ALL by William Carlos Williams, THE AFTER PARTY by Jana Prikryl, and Najwan Darwish's NOTHING MORE TO LOSE have challenged my poetry-reading skills. They play with forms, subject matter, and style to such a degree that, at times, I felt like the poetry was "too smart" for me, or that I just didn't "get it". This shouldn't be the case, but I know that it was mostly due to the poor poetry studies in my youth. So, I was genuinely pleased when I found WHY POETRY, by Matthew Zapruder.
Zapruder is an award-winning poet, teacher, and general Johnny Appleseed of poetry. In his book, he is on a mission to spread the love of poetry through an increased understanding of its aims, forms, styles, and other major components. He is most interested in investigating how great poetry uses language to create a poetic state of mind in the reader. As a young child, he was enraptured by poems like Henry Wordsworth Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha" and W.H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" but never seriously considered poetry as a career path until he had almost finished a PhD in Russian. So, he understands his students' apprehension or disinterest in poetry, but is full of techniques and insights that he shares in WHY POETRY. Each chapter features a different component of poetry that he wants to communicate, then he provides some personal anecdotes or historical facts surrounding its use, and then breaks down a few poems, or fragments of large poems, to illustrate how that component was utilized. This analysis is something I found most helpful, especially when it comes to matters of form, which is the area in which I feel the most uncertain.
In the first chapter, Zapruder brings the reader into his history and early experiences with poetry. He analyzes a fragment of Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" and talks about how reading that poem was a watershed moment for him. At the time, he didn't understand exactly why he connected so much with the poem, but over time and re-reads, as well as with his growing education in poetry, he was able to talk more coherently and specifically about what Auden was doing in the work, and why it was so engaging.
Chapter 2 talks about one of the most important parts of poetry, really of language itself - the use of words. The author emphasizes that readers of poetry should take the poet's words at face value, at least initially. Think about why the poet chose the words that she/he did, and all the possible literal meanings those words might have. Sometimes this takes a little dictionary/internet research, but if it enhances your understanding and appreciation of the poem, then it's time well spent. Chapter 3 builds on this topic, with the author deeply analyzing a portion of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself", Wallace Stevens' "Tea at the Palaz of Hoon", and a section of Brenda Hillman's "Death Tractates". Most of the language is used literally, and any figurative associations are coincidental to the main idea of the poem. It's only through close and thorough review, guided here by Zapruder, that you can begin to see significant examples of non-figurative language used to great poetic effect.
The fourth chapter moves into the more figurative and less straightforward aspects of poetry. Once you have a good grasp on how to read the literality of poetry, you're ready to move into the odd. As a student of the Russian language, the author references a not-easily-translatable Russian word "ostraneniye" which means something like "defamiliarization" or (my personal favorite) "strangeifying". This is in contrast to those aspects of daily life we go about in almost a robotic fashion, where everything is habitual and routine. Poets strangeify the world through paying attention to those things, and not letting them become too automatic, and seeing them in ways the rest of us might not expect. In this chapter, the author looks at the poems "Suicide's Note" by Langston Hughes, an unnamed poem of Emily Dickinson, and Antonia Machado's "At a Friend's Burial".
Chapter 5 looks at how poems are structured, and some of the reasoning for using a rhyming scheme or not. The author, early in his poetry-writing life, bought one of those massive THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY collections, and discusses what the experience was like of reading it. For him, it felt that the act of writing poetry "can be a kind of seemingly impossible communion, with someone far away in time and space" which is kind of a beautiful thing to think about. Even after the poet is long gone, if her/his poetry speaks to something that means something to someone, it's like that poet is living on in concert with the reader. One of the poems that Zapruder dissects is William Carlos Williams' short, untitled poem about the "red wheel barrow". The author writes that "The line breaks and filmic way this ordinary scene is parceled out to our consciousness by the mechanism of the poem slows us down long enough for us to see once again what has become too familiar. That is the 'message' of the poem"; it's such a complicated yet simple work, because there is nothing of significance, but in the end everything is of significance because it is noticed. He also talks about how it is far less common for modern day poets to work in a rhyming structure, partially because it feels quaint and outdated, and partially because it affects the emotions and perceptions of the reader in ways the poet might not intend.
The sixth chapter focuses on the frustrations that many readers have with trying to "get" the meaning or intention of poems. Chapter 7 examines the tendency of modern poetry to jump around seemingly at any moment and without cause but, upon reflection and analysis, those jumps might not be so random at all. It's also highly unlikely that poems have only one specific message to convey. As the author writes, "the poem places us in a state of heightened importance, with a sense that everything matters intensely at the moment it is being experienced". Internal consistency isn't of much importance across the entirety of the poem, as long as the essence of the work is so. Neither are the other conventions of literature, such as plot, logic, characters, settings, etc. These are of only slight interest to the poet. With poetry, embrace the strangeness.
Chapter 8 explores the subsection of poetry that focuses on politics and/or political themes. The author contends that, if you are a person who cares deeply about issues like gender, the economy, race, and environment, then the poetry you write, if you allow it to flow naturally onto the page, those topics will find themselves in your poetry without having to try to hard to fit them in. Because the political world is almost always a strange place, poets should not be afraid to defamiliarize terms that politicians regularly toss around, in their work.
Chapter 9 extends the author's analysis and explanation around the "jumping" that can happen in poetry. In particular interest is poetry that reads almost like stream of consciousness or dreams in that there are tenuous or thin threads connecting the poem's content from one line to the next, but over the entirety of the work there is seemingly nothing in common - called "associative movement". The author uses Robert Hass' poem "Meditation at Lagunitas" to explore this kind of poetic movement.
The tenth and eleventh chapters dive deeply into the use of symbolic language in poetry, and the different occasions where one might choose to employ it or not. Chapter 12 shares in the author's coming to realize that just as clay is a medium for a sculptor, or watercolors are for a painter, that words and language are the medium in which a poet works.
The thirteenth and final chapter explores the ways that poetry moves and changes us, sometimes without us being able to articulate exactly why or how it happens. The author explains that, "a poem is like a person. the more you know someone, the more you realize there is always something more to know and understand". So that sense of not quite understanding a poem just means that there is more and more to come back to and make meaning and connection.
As someone who has read some poetry and wondered what the heck was happening, or if I just wasn't smart enough to understand it, I found WHY POETRY extremely comforting and helpful. It's a crash course in poetics, led by a professor who is kind, knowledgeable, and funny. I feel more of a sense of confidence in now when I read poetry collections, that however I'm feeling is appropriate and valuable. It also instilled a deeper sense of analysis that will allow me to see more deeply into some of the constructs and construction of poetry. If you are interested in trying some poetry reading of your own, but have a bad taste in your mouth from poetry lessons in your school days, I would highly recommend giving Matthew Zapruder's WHY POETRY a try.
Zapruder is an award-winning poet, teacher, and general Johnny Appleseed of poetry. In his book, he is on a mission to spread the love of poetry through an increased understanding of its aims, forms, styles, and other major components. He is most interested in investigating how great poetry uses language to create a poetic state of mind in the reader. As a young child, he was enraptured by poems like Henry Wordsworth Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha" and W.H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" but never seriously considered poetry as a career path until he had almost finished a PhD in Russian. So, he understands his students' apprehension or disinterest in poetry, but is full of techniques and insights that he shares in WHY POETRY. Each chapter features a different component of poetry that he wants to communicate, then he provides some personal anecdotes or historical facts surrounding its use, and then breaks down a few poems, or fragments of large poems, to illustrate how that component was utilized. This analysis is something I found most helpful, especially when it comes to matters of form, which is the area in which I feel the most uncertain.
In the first chapter, Zapruder brings the reader into his history and early experiences with poetry. He analyzes a fragment of Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" and talks about how reading that poem was a watershed moment for him. At the time, he didn't understand exactly why he connected so much with the poem, but over time and re-reads, as well as with his growing education in poetry, he was able to talk more coherently and specifically about what Auden was doing in the work, and why it was so engaging.
Chapter 2 talks about one of the most important parts of poetry, really of language itself - the use of words. The author emphasizes that readers of poetry should take the poet's words at face value, at least initially. Think about why the poet chose the words that she/he did, and all the possible literal meanings those words might have. Sometimes this takes a little dictionary/internet research, but if it enhances your understanding and appreciation of the poem, then it's time well spent. Chapter 3 builds on this topic, with the author deeply analyzing a portion of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself", Wallace Stevens' "Tea at the Palaz of Hoon", and a section of Brenda Hillman's "Death Tractates". Most of the language is used literally, and any figurative associations are coincidental to the main idea of the poem. It's only through close and thorough review, guided here by Zapruder, that you can begin to see significant examples of non-figurative language used to great poetic effect.
The fourth chapter moves into the more figurative and less straightforward aspects of poetry. Once you have a good grasp on how to read the literality of poetry, you're ready to move into the odd. As a student of the Russian language, the author references a not-easily-translatable Russian word "ostraneniye" which means something like "defamiliarization" or (my personal favorite) "strangeifying". This is in contrast to those aspects of daily life we go about in almost a robotic fashion, where everything is habitual and routine. Poets strangeify the world through paying attention to those things, and not letting them become too automatic, and seeing them in ways the rest of us might not expect. In this chapter, the author looks at the poems "Suicide's Note" by Langston Hughes, an unnamed poem of Emily Dickinson, and Antonia Machado's "At a Friend's Burial".
Chapter 5 looks at how poems are structured, and some of the reasoning for using a rhyming scheme or not. The author, early in his poetry-writing life, bought one of those massive THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY collections, and discusses what the experience was like of reading it. For him, it felt that the act of writing poetry "can be a kind of seemingly impossible communion, with someone far away in time and space" which is kind of a beautiful thing to think about. Even after the poet is long gone, if her/his poetry speaks to something that means something to someone, it's like that poet is living on in concert with the reader. One of the poems that Zapruder dissects is William Carlos Williams' short, untitled poem about the "red wheel barrow". The author writes that "The line breaks and filmic way this ordinary scene is parceled out to our consciousness by the mechanism of the poem slows us down long enough for us to see once again what has become too familiar. That is the 'message' of the poem"; it's such a complicated yet simple work, because there is nothing of significance, but in the end everything is of significance because it is noticed. He also talks about how it is far less common for modern day poets to work in a rhyming structure, partially because it feels quaint and outdated, and partially because it affects the emotions and perceptions of the reader in ways the poet might not intend.
The sixth chapter focuses on the frustrations that many readers have with trying to "get" the meaning or intention of poems. Chapter 7 examines the tendency of modern poetry to jump around seemingly at any moment and without cause but, upon reflection and analysis, those jumps might not be so random at all. It's also highly unlikely that poems have only one specific message to convey. As the author writes, "the poem places us in a state of heightened importance, with a sense that everything matters intensely at the moment it is being experienced". Internal consistency isn't of much importance across the entirety of the poem, as long as the essence of the work is so. Neither are the other conventions of literature, such as plot, logic, characters, settings, etc. These are of only slight interest to the poet. With poetry, embrace the strangeness.
Chapter 8 explores the subsection of poetry that focuses on politics and/or political themes. The author contends that, if you are a person who cares deeply about issues like gender, the economy, race, and environment, then the poetry you write, if you allow it to flow naturally onto the page, those topics will find themselves in your poetry without having to try to hard to fit them in. Because the political world is almost always a strange place, poets should not be afraid to defamiliarize terms that politicians regularly toss around, in their work.
Chapter 9 extends the author's analysis and explanation around the "jumping" that can happen in poetry. In particular interest is poetry that reads almost like stream of consciousness or dreams in that there are tenuous or thin threads connecting the poem's content from one line to the next, but over the entirety of the work there is seemingly nothing in common - called "associative movement". The author uses Robert Hass' poem "Meditation at Lagunitas" to explore this kind of poetic movement.
The tenth and eleventh chapters dive deeply into the use of symbolic language in poetry, and the different occasions where one might choose to employ it or not. Chapter 12 shares in the author's coming to realize that just as clay is a medium for a sculptor, or watercolors are for a painter, that words and language are the medium in which a poet works.
The thirteenth and final chapter explores the ways that poetry moves and changes us, sometimes without us being able to articulate exactly why or how it happens. The author explains that, "a poem is like a person. the more you know someone, the more you realize there is always something more to know and understand". So that sense of not quite understanding a poem just means that there is more and more to come back to and make meaning and connection.
As someone who has read some poetry and wondered what the heck was happening, or if I just wasn't smart enough to understand it, I found WHY POETRY extremely comforting and helpful. It's a crash course in poetics, led by a professor who is kind, knowledgeable, and funny. I feel more of a sense of confidence in now when I read poetry collections, that however I'm feeling is appropriate and valuable. It also instilled a deeper sense of analysis that will allow me to see more deeply into some of the constructs and construction of poetry. If you are interested in trying some poetry reading of your own, but have a bad taste in your mouth from poetry lessons in your school days, I would highly recommend giving Matthew Zapruder's WHY POETRY a try.
September 9, 2017
I liked this book in a lot of ways -- a couple are the author's story of how he found poetry and it became essential to his life -- and the author's "defense" of poetry. The chapter he explicated some famous poems is also very engaging and beautifully and thoughtfully done. A lot of it is complete BS, in my opinion, but it's 4-star BS and worth reading because Zapruder, a successful poet, serves as an excellent "defense" attorney for the subject of poetry.
The problem for me, however, is this: the book is described as "an impassioned call for a return to reading poetry and an incisive argument for poetry’s accessibility to all readers." This book, however, won't be read (at least not all the way to the end) by people who don't like poetry or find it inaccessible. Why would they? This book is for poets and poetry lovers and the legions of MFA students and academics who have to explain their poetry to family and friends who think writing it, let alone reading it, is a waste of time. And, in that way, it's not a defense of poetry's accessibility to all readers. It's a justification for poets writing inaccessible poetry. After all, it's the reader (not the poets), Zapruder says, that needs to change, to relearn everything, from how to read poetry, to accepting the confusing and embracing the paradoxical and uncomfortable feelings that can come along with it. It's the readers fault it's hard to read -- but that's because they were not taught to read properly in school. I'm sure that's not what people who have trouble understanding poetry want to hear. It's exactly what they thought all along since they hated reading it in school -- it's their fault, not the writer's.
Another thing that bothers me is offering up Keats and Shakespeare and Whitman and all these great dead poets as examples. These are the same poets who are the reason most readers got turned off of poetry in school in the first place -- because it wasn't accessible and made them feel dumb for not "getting it." Zapruder further wants the readers to accept that meaning may not be found in poetry. There's nothing to get (except the-nothing-to-get-ness, which should be embraced). I just think, if a person not interested in poetry hears this argument (or justification), it's not going to fly. Why not use some poems right out of today's publications, which would have no interest in publishing Shakespeare and Keats were they alive today. Why? And this is the problem: Because the poems published today in the New Yorker and other top journals are just as difficult and inaccessible to readers without experience, knowledge and the love for poetry.
Again, the writing in Why Poetry is truly wonderful, the concept is commendable, it's engaging and written simply and confidently, and there is so much here to enjoy -- if you love poetry, write poetry, teach poetry, study poetry or if, like the author, poetry is already essential to your life.
The problem for me, however, is this: the book is described as "an impassioned call for a return to reading poetry and an incisive argument for poetry’s accessibility to all readers." This book, however, won't be read (at least not all the way to the end) by people who don't like poetry or find it inaccessible. Why would they? This book is for poets and poetry lovers and the legions of MFA students and academics who have to explain their poetry to family and friends who think writing it, let alone reading it, is a waste of time. And, in that way, it's not a defense of poetry's accessibility to all readers. It's a justification for poets writing inaccessible poetry. After all, it's the reader (not the poets), Zapruder says, that needs to change, to relearn everything, from how to read poetry, to accepting the confusing and embracing the paradoxical and uncomfortable feelings that can come along with it. It's the readers fault it's hard to read -- but that's because they were not taught to read properly in school. I'm sure that's not what people who have trouble understanding poetry want to hear. It's exactly what they thought all along since they hated reading it in school -- it's their fault, not the writer's.
Another thing that bothers me is offering up Keats and Shakespeare and Whitman and all these great dead poets as examples. These are the same poets who are the reason most readers got turned off of poetry in school in the first place -- because it wasn't accessible and made them feel dumb for not "getting it." Zapruder further wants the readers to accept that meaning may not be found in poetry. There's nothing to get (except the-nothing-to-get-ness, which should be embraced). I just think, if a person not interested in poetry hears this argument (or justification), it's not going to fly. Why not use some poems right out of today's publications, which would have no interest in publishing Shakespeare and Keats were they alive today. Why? And this is the problem: Because the poems published today in the New Yorker and other top journals are just as difficult and inaccessible to readers without experience, knowledge and the love for poetry.
Again, the writing in Why Poetry is truly wonderful, the concept is commendable, it's engaging and written simply and confidently, and there is so much here to enjoy -- if you love poetry, write poetry, teach poetry, study poetry or if, like the author, poetry is already essential to your life.
September 16, 2017
There were a hundred bright spots in this eloquent book: beautiful, essential quotes about poetry from the greatest poets themselves. These were a shortcut straight to the heart of poetry. There were other bright spots of Zapruder's own clear explanations of the mysterious power of poetry. It's just that as a whole, it failed to carry the reader along with elegance and enthusiasm, and failed to provide much in the way of a conclusion at the end.
For a truly elegant book on poetry that is as poetic, moving, and inspired as the poem it contains, read Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination. It is the best book defending and explaining poetry that I have ever read (and, what's more, it includes poems from all eras, not just contemporary poetry.)
Nonetheless, I flagged a hundred bright spots to keep as treasured quotes from Zapruder's work and I truly benefitted from my time in his company. He gave a lot of courage to an aspiring amateur poet, and for that I am grateful. I loved how he embraced the mysterious machinery of poetry but still took care to explain to those who are less wise to its ways. But to claim that your books explains "why poetry" exists and is useful, then to end with such a nihilistic understanding of the universe was a real let-down, and the book didn't carry me with its own momentum so much as I forced myself to keep trudging through it in the hopes of encountering more bright spots of insight from Zapruder and his many favorite thinkers.
For a truly elegant book on poetry that is as poetic, moving, and inspired as the poem it contains, read Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination. It is the best book defending and explaining poetry that I have ever read (and, what's more, it includes poems from all eras, not just contemporary poetry.)
Nonetheless, I flagged a hundred bright spots to keep as treasured quotes from Zapruder's work and I truly benefitted from my time in his company. He gave a lot of courage to an aspiring amateur poet, and for that I am grateful. I loved how he embraced the mysterious machinery of poetry but still took care to explain to those who are less wise to its ways. But to claim that your books explains "why poetry" exists and is useful, then to end with such a nihilistic understanding of the universe was a real let-down, and the book didn't carry me with its own momentum so much as I forced myself to keep trudging through it in the hopes of encountering more bright spots of insight from Zapruder and his many favorite thinkers.
August 8, 2020
Zapruder's Introduction was one of the best I've read—clear, relatable, and full of purpose. In his text, he makes many points throughout that reminded me greatly of Brooks and Warren's Understanding Poetry or Lewis's Experiment in Criticism, yet he seemed unaware of this fact. I enjoyed reading poems and poem studies new to me but didn't like tiny bits of arrogance that slipped in.
August 18, 2017
Matthew Zapruder's book of poetry Come On All You Ghosts is one of my favorites. His work is associative, surreal, fun, smart, blue.
This book is amazing. As an English teacher and poet, it spoke to me on many levels. I plan on using excerpts for my AP Literature class this Fall. Zapruder artfully and convincingly breaks down presuppositions that many have about poetry and then teaches the reader about how he doesn't need to teach the reader how to love poetry.
Most importantly, for me, is Zapruder's argument/belief that poetry is not one of life's accessories or ornaments. Poets are not to be wheeled out at inaugurations and national tragedies. Poets and poetry give us an alternative and ESSENTIAL headspace free from the utilitarian, capitalist, banal use of language and the commodification of everything in our world. Poetry is the anti-Trump. It lets us bask in ambiguity, in complexity, it lets us FEEL what it FEELS like to know it's okay to not know.
If you have ANY interest in starting to read poetry OR you are an English educator, this book is a must.
This book is amazing. As an English teacher and poet, it spoke to me on many levels. I plan on using excerpts for my AP Literature class this Fall. Zapruder artfully and convincingly breaks down presuppositions that many have about poetry and then teaches the reader about how he doesn't need to teach the reader how to love poetry.
Most importantly, for me, is Zapruder's argument/belief that poetry is not one of life's accessories or ornaments. Poets are not to be wheeled out at inaugurations and national tragedies. Poets and poetry give us an alternative and ESSENTIAL headspace free from the utilitarian, capitalist, banal use of language and the commodification of everything in our world. Poetry is the anti-Trump. It lets us bask in ambiguity, in complexity, it lets us FEEL what it FEELS like to know it's okay to not know.
If you have ANY interest in starting to read poetry OR you are an English educator, this book is a must.
October 16, 2017
If you have to ask this question, you probably aren't interested in reading this book.
And if you are simply curious as to the answer to this question, you might be able to write a better book.
And if you are simply curious as to the answer to this question, you might be able to write a better book.
October 22, 2019
"To live morally, to avoid self-delusion and even monstrosity, we have to think about what we are saying, and to avoid euphemism and cliche."
I have a lot more quotes that I wrote down, but that one seems to be the most important. I agree with Zapruder wholeheartedly. Whatever else he wrote on the subject is great, and I enjoyed it, but this was the heart of the matter. The significance of poetry is accuracy of perception in everyday life, and this is crucially important to the whole of humanity. We think through language. So our words order our thought, which order our lives, our behaviours, our relationships. In this way, poetry influences life, whether we recognize its influence or not.
I have a lot more quotes that I wrote down, but that one seems to be the most important. I agree with Zapruder wholeheartedly. Whatever else he wrote on the subject is great, and I enjoyed it, but this was the heart of the matter. The significance of poetry is accuracy of perception in everyday life, and this is crucially important to the whole of humanity. We think through language. So our words order our thought, which order our lives, our behaviours, our relationships. In this way, poetry influences life, whether we recognize its influence or not.
May 4, 2018
There are contradictions in Zapruder’s ideas which he would, I imagine, be the first to admit. He posits that poetry is available to everyone, but poetry isn’t easy, it makes demands to which only those with a dedication to the word would submit. The poems the general reader likes and understands without needing to reference a body of knowledge are those that are either rank with the appeal of sentiment or deceptively transparent as much of Frost pretends to be. While Zapruder laments the close readings and reductionist practices that he says make students hate poetry, he employs these very techniques to examine many of the poems he uses as examples. The academic approach continues to govern not the comprehension of poetry so much as its architecture. If an author retreats to Emily’s “body turned cold” way of experiencing the validity of a poem, then he has a very brief book, if he has one at all. So when as Zapruder does here, you look at the ways poetry works, you end up writing a manual, and like all such tracts, it verges into instruction and the mechanics of construction—things the casual reader, the one who claims to hate poetry, would dismiss as being outside his area of interest—and rightly so. As a car owner, you may wish to simply enjoy driving or the usefulness of how this transportation gets you places you need to go. You don’t necessarily want to learn the workings of the engine or how the computerized console evolved. The same with poetry. Zapruder would do better admitting these are essays for the poetic adventurer—the serious reader that he himself evolved into, though like many such, he didn’t have an initial grounding in semantics—though maybe as a Russian language major, he actually did. To be honest, I wanted to enjoy this book more than I do. It’s too reminiscent of so much academic writing about poetry by better critics like Tony Hoagland or Helen Vendler. Further, Zapruder has a tendency to wax over-enthusiastic about how poetry enriches a life. Of course it can, but so do many of the related arts. The short story can equal poetry in offering an epiphany that can be life changing and can also be as subtle and mysterious as any poem. Using Ashbery to illustrate close reading—an academic activity—but not one likely to convince the average reader of the need to add poetry to his reading list, is an error. Make no mistake, this is an informed book for the working poet, but I think the way it is being sold to non-specialists is more than a little misleading.
September 14, 2019
Un saggio affascinante che esplora le grandi domande sul cosa sia o non sia poesia, riuscendo a dare un'interpretazione solida dei "misteri" poetici. Numerosi sono gli esempi concreti di composizioni, talvolta superflui (a mio avviso) ai fini della dissertazione; inutili anche alcuni riferimenti dell'autore alla propria vita personale.
March 30, 2020
A beautiful and impassioned book about the ways poetry speaks to us, how to read it and why it is essential to our humanity. Zapruder includes many of his favorite poems as examples and inspiration (some poets that were new to me and are now on my reading list-Thank you, Mathew Zapruder!) I anticipate that his discussions about what makes poetry "work", about the essential ways poetry "wanders", and the ways it is unique from other forms of writing will add awareness and pleasure to the way I read poetry. Loved it!
May 6, 2019
"I have a confession to make: I don’t really understand poetry." For over twenty-five years, I have heard this said, over and over in slightly different ways, but friends, family, colleagues, strangers I met in bars and at dinner parties, on planes -- so many people, practically everyone who found out I was a poet. Clearly, there is something about poetry that rattles and mystifies people, that makes them feel as if there is something wrong. Maybe the problem is with them as readers... or maybe the problem is with poetry itself. why don't poets just say what they mean? why do they make it so hard?
... How poetry creates the poetic state of mind in a reader is the central question of this book. It happens through the form of the poem, which guides the mind of the reader. It happens through leaps of association. And it happens as the poem explores and activates and plays with the nature of language itself.
This is a great introduction to poetry, but difficult to summarize. Zapruder starts by arguing that poetry isn't as esoteric as people believe. The first couple of chapters are about how poetry is different from other kinds of writing and about meaning in poetry. Some of the other chapters are essays on specific concepts (such as chapter 10 on metaphor) but much of this book examines specific poems.
There is a good interview with the author here: https://thecreativeindependent.com/pe...
a partial list of the poems discussed:
Moore, Marianne: Poetry
Keats, John: To Autumn
Auden, W.H.: Musee de Beaux Arts
Machado, Antonio: At a Friend's Burial
Neruda, Pablo: The Enigmas
Dickinson: I Felt A Funeral In My Brain/Hope is the Thing With Feathers
... How poetry creates the poetic state of mind in a reader is the central question of this book. It happens through the form of the poem, which guides the mind of the reader. It happens through leaps of association. And it happens as the poem explores and activates and plays with the nature of language itself.
This is a great introduction to poetry, but difficult to summarize. Zapruder starts by arguing that poetry isn't as esoteric as people believe. The first couple of chapters are about how poetry is different from other kinds of writing and about meaning in poetry. Some of the other chapters are essays on specific concepts (such as chapter 10 on metaphor) but much of this book examines specific poems.
There is a good interview with the author here: https://thecreativeindependent.com/pe...
a partial list of the poems discussed:
Moore, Marianne: Poetry
Keats, John: To Autumn
Auden, W.H.: Musee de Beaux Arts
Machado, Antonio: At a Friend's Burial
Neruda, Pablo: The Enigmas
Dickinson: I Felt A Funeral In My Brain/Hope is the Thing With Feathers
September 3, 2020
This book is great (especially the chapter on nothingness) but the afterword is really what got to me. It was published in 2017 but feels much more prescient now as we get closer to the 2020 election. Then Zapruder ends with O’Hara’s “A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island” and it damn near made me cry.
June 28, 2018
What a beautiful little book. I'll admit, poetry has frequently intimidated me. Even poems that I love, I have often felt that I didn't really understand them. This book helped me to realize that I do in fact, "get" poetry. That it isn't beyond me. It is also inspiring me to write poetry again...something I haven't done in 20 years.
December 28, 2020
For context, I'm someone who's only exposure to poems was through a standard high school curriculum. Recently I've wanted to deepen my understanding of poetry, and in looking for a resource to fulfill that need, I thought what I needed was a book that would systematically go through the "theory" of poetry, its various forms, its history, etc. Although "Why Poetry" didn't give me the introduction I was looking for, it was the introduction I needed.
"Why Poetry" provides a framework for thinking about poetry that sheds all the negative misconceptions one has about approaching and appreciating poems. In short, the author thinks of poems as little machines, engineered by their poets, to take their readers into a "poetic state of mind" - a sort of dreamlike state where beauty is the highest value, logical contradictions make sense, and wisdom is deeply understood at an experiential level.
The book puts very little emphasis on the the more mechanical aspects of form (e.g. length, rhythm, rhyme, etc.) and instead focuses on the different purposes of poems (hence the "Why Poetry" title). It has chapters on denormalization, associations, politics, narratives, and nothingness.
One chapter that stood out to me was Chapter 6: The One Thing That Can Save America. Its focus is on appreciating poems that aren't explicitly "about" anything. These types of poems have always frustrated and confused me, so getting the inner thoughts of a professional poet analyzing their beauty was especially delightful.
I'll end with a final thought on a quote from early in the book:
I find the comparison between poems and prayer apt. But it got me thinking that perhaps religion's most famous prayers can be thought of as a subset of great poems (e.g. The Lord's Prayer). Perhaps in the future we'll all have a poem that we recite to ourselves regularly, not to satisfy the desires of a divine being, but to reach that secular "poetic state of mind" where beauty, compassion and wisdom are fully realized.
"Why Poetry" provides a framework for thinking about poetry that sheds all the negative misconceptions one has about approaching and appreciating poems. In short, the author thinks of poems as little machines, engineered by their poets, to take their readers into a "poetic state of mind" - a sort of dreamlike state where beauty is the highest value, logical contradictions make sense, and wisdom is deeply understood at an experiential level.
The book puts very little emphasis on the the more mechanical aspects of form (e.g. length, rhythm, rhyme, etc.) and instead focuses on the different purposes of poems (hence the "Why Poetry" title). It has chapters on denormalization, associations, politics, narratives, and nothingness.
One chapter that stood out to me was Chapter 6: The One Thing That Can Save America. Its focus is on appreciating poems that aren't explicitly "about" anything. These types of poems have always frustrated and confused me, so getting the inner thoughts of a professional poet analyzing their beauty was especially delightful.
I'll end with a final thought on a quote from early in the book:
It could be said the relationship of poems to what we intuit but can never fully say makes them like prayer, that unending effort to bring someone closer to the diving, without pretending the divine could ever be fully known or understood
I find the comparison between poems and prayer apt. But it got me thinking that perhaps religion's most famous prayers can be thought of as a subset of great poems (e.g. The Lord's Prayer). Perhaps in the future we'll all have a poem that we recite to ourselves regularly, not to satisfy the desires of a divine being, but to reach that secular "poetic state of mind" where beauty, compassion and wisdom are fully realized.
September 30, 2017
This book is thoughtful, pleasant, but probably redundant and unnecessary... Or maybe I've lately read too many books ABOUT poetry rather than OF poetry?
February 1, 2019
Re-read! I think this is my favorite book.
March 22, 2021
There are, perhaps, too many books out there on how poetry: how poetry works, how to write poetry, how to read poetry, etc. Yet Zapruder’s book sets itself apart already by its title: Why Poetry —why we read poetry, why poetry affects us, why poetry is important, and occasionally, why poetry does and does not work.
As a professor with experience introducing people to poetry, Zapruder knows exactly where to start. The book begins, “‘I have a confession to make: I don’t really understand poetry.’ For twenty-five years, I have heard this said, over and over…” He knows that, too often, people misperceive the reason behind reading and writing poetry and because of that, they simply avoid it. Their inherent assumption is that poetry is something decorative but also cryptic… and that poems are supposed to be broken down and, ultimately, understood. Sadly, this is largely what we were taught in high school. (“They teach poetry as a problem, rather than a joy…” -Liz Lochhead) For most people, therefore, it simply seems like unnecessary work to sit down and try to understand something so deliberately abstruse.
But Zapruder immediately disarms those who question whether they properly know how to read poetry by arguing that humans, simply by being human, already know how.
Why read poetry if your only focus is to understand what is “actually” being said? There’s very little joy in that. (Unless, perhaps, you’re a pretentious littérateur and overly insecure, feeling the need to look down on people who you believe are less intelligent and well read than yourself). Stop being so insecure and trust yourself: you are smart. In fact, your initial apprehending and intuitive associations may be more intelligent than your rational brain thinks. Maybe try reading poetry without trying so hard. Maybe try reading poetry for the experience of it, for the joy of the images that come to your mind or the sound of the flow of words as they roll off your tongue or pass through your ears. Let go of control and let the poem happen to you.
But I digress.
This books doesn’t waste it’s time focusing largely on the mechanics and techniques of poetry as much as the concepts behind it and the way poetry fits within the human psyche and human experience. Zapruder picks from a number of other books and letters on poetry by other poets (Frost, Rilke, Keats, Emerson, Valéry, Williams, Hugo, Moore, Merwin, Stevens, Yeats, etc) and pulls all their wisdom together. Indeed, the central strength of this book is Zapruder’s ability to gather, curate, and synthesize the insights of those who know the importance of poetry at the deepest level, the greatest and well-known poets who chose to share their beliefs on “why poetry…”
It functions as (almost) an anthology of writings about poetry by poets. But it does so in a way that will intrigue the uninitiated and draw those who are well-versed further in.
At its lowest points the book sags into memoir-ish moments and makes the mistake (in my opinion) of conflating the author’s personal experience with the broader, more universal aspects of why poetry works …if you let it. Particularly, there are a few moments of subjective sentimentality which were not very rousing in regards to the power of poetry (musings on Lagunitas, bookstores in Berkeley, Ashbery’s influence on him, poetry readings with his dad); I can see why Zapruder would include them but they, ultimately, don’t add much to the book. That is not to say all of his personal insights aren’t helpful; his emphasis on writing generously (with regard to clarity) is especially enlightened and instructive. One of the many gems to be found here for anyone interesting in writing in general.
All in all, this is the best book I’ve found on the subject of poetry. It’s accessible, clear, chock-full, helpful, interesting, and enjoyable.
As a professor with experience introducing people to poetry, Zapruder knows exactly where to start. The book begins, “‘I have a confession to make: I don’t really understand poetry.’ For twenty-five years, I have heard this said, over and over…” He knows that, too often, people misperceive the reason behind reading and writing poetry and because of that, they simply avoid it. Their inherent assumption is that poetry is something decorative but also cryptic… and that poems are supposed to be broken down and, ultimately, understood. Sadly, this is largely what we were taught in high school. (“They teach poetry as a problem, rather than a joy…” -Liz Lochhead) For most people, therefore, it simply seems like unnecessary work to sit down and try to understand something so deliberately abstruse.
But Zapruder immediately disarms those who question whether they properly know how to read poetry by arguing that humans, simply by being human, already know how.
Why read poetry if your only focus is to understand what is “actually” being said? There’s very little joy in that. (Unless, perhaps, you’re a pretentious littérateur and overly insecure, feeling the need to look down on people who you believe are less intelligent and well read than yourself). Stop being so insecure and trust yourself: you are smart. In fact, your initial apprehending and intuitive associations may be more intelligent than your rational brain thinks. Maybe try reading poetry without trying so hard. Maybe try reading poetry for the experience of it, for the joy of the images that come to your mind or the sound of the flow of words as they roll off your tongue or pass through your ears. Let go of control and let the poem happen to you.
But I digress.
This books doesn’t waste it’s time focusing largely on the mechanics and techniques of poetry as much as the concepts behind it and the way poetry fits within the human psyche and human experience. Zapruder picks from a number of other books and letters on poetry by other poets (Frost, Rilke, Keats, Emerson, Valéry, Williams, Hugo, Moore, Merwin, Stevens, Yeats, etc) and pulls all their wisdom together. Indeed, the central strength of this book is Zapruder’s ability to gather, curate, and synthesize the insights of those who know the importance of poetry at the deepest level, the greatest and well-known poets who chose to share their beliefs on “why poetry…”
It functions as (almost) an anthology of writings about poetry by poets. But it does so in a way that will intrigue the uninitiated and draw those who are well-versed further in.
At its lowest points the book sags into memoir-ish moments and makes the mistake (in my opinion) of conflating the author’s personal experience with the broader, more universal aspects of why poetry works …if you let it. Particularly, there are a few moments of subjective sentimentality which were not very rousing in regards to the power of poetry (musings on Lagunitas, bookstores in Berkeley, Ashbery’s influence on him, poetry readings with his dad); I can see why Zapruder would include them but they, ultimately, don’t add much to the book. That is not to say all of his personal insights aren’t helpful; his emphasis on writing generously (with regard to clarity) is especially enlightened and instructive. One of the many gems to be found here for anyone interesting in writing in general.
All in all, this is the best book I’ve found on the subject of poetry. It’s accessible, clear, chock-full, helpful, interesting, and enjoyable.
February 3, 2020
I finished my "Why Poetry" while my family watched the Super Bowl. I opened a bottle of wine and finished the book that I first began two Christmases ago after my husband bought it for me. I love this book. I usually reserve using the word "love" for people and not things. However, I love this book, a non-fiction book at that.
Matthew Zapruder puts himself and his experiences into this book. He describes poetry as the beautiful element it is that fills the nothingness when we allow silence. Poetry is not unattainable symbolism but reality touched by the divine, not quite definable. It remains unanswered which keeps up coming back to it and reunites us with our imaginations.
I did not love the political parts ( the political chapter and the last 3 pages of the afterword ) though I also could have cried at Trump's election. I thought these parts tried to attach a usefulness to poetry that the rest of the book tried to deny. However, this was not enough for me to refrain from giving this book a full and unabashed 5 stars.
If you love poetry, hate poetry, don't understand poetry, you should read it.
There are many wonderful quotes from this book, but I will include this one about poetry. "What it means is what it does." I could not help but draw parallels to the Lord's Supper with this. Though Zapruder professes not to be religious, he does recognize a veil lifted to reveal the Divine.
This book resonates with me as I believe that poetry does something to you, rather than you doing something to it such as picking it apart and analyzing it. As Zapruder so beautifully illustrates time and again in his book - space, silence, nothingness, and close observation will allow the poetry to do its work with you.
I really enjoyed the poems included as illustrations of Zapruder's points. I want to look for all of these poetry collections that I do not already own. Zapruder included Emily Dickinson in the beginning and towards the ending of his book and she is my favorite poet so this further allowed me to trust his writing!
Please read Why Poetry. If you hate tearing poems apart, if you believe that poetry can reach our deep imaginations, please read!
Matthew Zapruder puts himself and his experiences into this book. He describes poetry as the beautiful element it is that fills the nothingness when we allow silence. Poetry is not unattainable symbolism but reality touched by the divine, not quite definable. It remains unanswered which keeps up coming back to it and reunites us with our imaginations.
I did not love the political parts ( the political chapter and the last 3 pages of the afterword ) though I also could have cried at Trump's election. I thought these parts tried to attach a usefulness to poetry that the rest of the book tried to deny. However, this was not enough for me to refrain from giving this book a full and unabashed 5 stars.
If you love poetry, hate poetry, don't understand poetry, you should read it.
There are many wonderful quotes from this book, but I will include this one about poetry. "What it means is what it does." I could not help but draw parallels to the Lord's Supper with this. Though Zapruder professes not to be religious, he does recognize a veil lifted to reveal the Divine.
This book resonates with me as I believe that poetry does something to you, rather than you doing something to it such as picking it apart and analyzing it. As Zapruder so beautifully illustrates time and again in his book - space, silence, nothingness, and close observation will allow the poetry to do its work with you.
I really enjoyed the poems included as illustrations of Zapruder's points. I want to look for all of these poetry collections that I do not already own. Zapruder included Emily Dickinson in the beginning and towards the ending of his book and she is my favorite poet so this further allowed me to trust his writing!
Please read Why Poetry. If you hate tearing poems apart, if you believe that poetry can reach our deep imaginations, please read!
March 12, 2018
This book took me a long time to get through. I read it very slowly because I don't "get" poetry. A lot of the problems I have with it are covered by the author. There's plenty of example poems that Zapruder walks the reader through to help them understand how to read a poem better. It was very helpful, although I wouldn't say I am completely confident in my ability to understand poetry now. But I do plan to read more poetry to practice my new poetry-reading skills now that I've finished this book.
October 24, 2017
I love the "Poetry for the People" attitude and the argument that the only reason people shy away from poetry is because it is being taught completely wrong. Zapruder goes through chapter after chapter explaining this - the meanings, the reason, the metaphors, the reality of poetry and does it simply and wonderfully. My only wish is that he would have included many more contemporary poets and examples of their poetry -- there are so many wonderful ones - Billy Collins, Ted Koozer, Dorianne Laux, Li-Young Lee, Divid Shumate, Yusef Komunyakaa, Tony Hoagland, hell even my favorite Jane Kenyon! And many even newer amazing poets I'm just discovering.
May 20, 2024
A wonderful companion for anyone who loves poetry. This book helps one to understand poetry - it's form and aim. Being a novice myself, 'Why Poetry' seems like a lighthouse shedding light enabling my boat to find the right direction. ❤️
December 24, 2020
like Ben Lerner’s “the hatred of poetry”, but for people who don’t hate themselves
January 29, 2019
I love this book because it comes very close to describing the draw of poetry to myself, a poet. It is refreshing for words to describe an indescribable feeling. This is, after all, why I love poetry.
Shelved as 'gave_up'
October 6, 2020I. Just. Couldn't. I'm not qualified to rate this because I couldn't bring myself to read it. I'm an English major. I've done my fair share of literary analysis. I had heard good things about this book. My experience with poetry, at least poetry that is being "studied" is that it requires research and outside knowledge to "get" it. We're homeschooling this year and there are some poems in the curriculum. It hasn't really been a joyful experience to present the poems to my kids. They don't see the value in them—heck I don't see the value in them. They're old and confusing. I had hoped this book might give some ideas for a more organic approach to understanding poems at face value and enjoying them without the deep dive into their meaning. What I saw in the chapters I read and skimmed seemed more of what I encountered in my studies—figuring out what poems mean takes work. And I don't currently enjoy that kind of work. As for my kids, I've grabbed some fun kid poetry books, most recently "Where the Sidewalk Ends." They're eating it up. They read it on their own. They beg us to read more. This is the experience with poetry that I want them to have: topics that are interesting to them, entertaining formats and subjects, clever, fun language and rhymes, etc.
May 21, 2020
Overall very enjoyable and well-written book. Felt immediately connected to Zapruder’s analysis of what makes poetry vital to me and to the world. Lagged a bit towards the middle but snapped off a fantastic ending. Equal parts personal and wide-reaching, I would recommend this to anyone who has some inkling that their poetry education has been offered with clumsy hands interested only in nitpicking the incorrectly assumed “hidden message” of poetry. May the truth of this medium free your imagination and open your mind to the infinite power of language.
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