Exploring+Poetry

= = =Exploring Poetry =

 Poetry.... poetry...... ugh... poetry....

Yeah, I know. Not many people like it. One of the reasons we don't like it though is because we don't take the time to understand it. Understanding poetry takes a long time. There are some poems that can take as much time to read and comprehend as a novel.

"Ugh... I hate poetry because it's stooopid and it doesn't make any sense."

I hear you. There are many poems I feel this way about as well. But!!! I also know that I don't like them because I don't understand them. This unit is about how to make meaning from the words that are put side by side on a piece of paper.

Making meaning is something we do all the time when we read a book or a news paper article or even advertisements. If we don't know what the words are, or if we don't pay enough attention to what we are reading, it isn't going to make sense and our immediate reaction is to say that it's "stooopid" Poetry is so very different from other types of reading. Poetry is personal. There is no right or wrong to it. It just is. If we bring to it what we know about ourselves and the world around us, we make meaning of the words and we make them our own. No other form of literature is like this.