Poetry Packet Response

Overall I found the poetry packet to be pretty diverse. The formats and subject matter of the poems varied enough that it was a wholesome resource to learn from. However, I'm not a huge fan of poetry. I don't like not knowing what the hell the author is trying to say. That being said, I find some poetry generally interesting to read purely because of the words. Poetry seems to be unique in a way that allows the writer to arrange words into sequences that are simply interesting to read; even if this arrangement has no meaning. Or maybe it all has meaning but the reader has to dig really deep to find it and even then it's only speculation. Exhausting. Maybe I'm being unfair and simply ignorant of how poetry is supposed to work. I hope I learn something about it so I can really appreciate poetry.

The first poem I found the most interesting to read. Geology of Water by Reginald Shepherd had a lot of interesting scientific vocabulary. A previous knowledge of basic geology is required to fully understand some of the lines. The general meaning of the poem is kind of lost on me. I might speculate that the poem is talking about time but I'm not too sure. I also really like the poem called In The Tree. It gave off a serene and calming mood that I found really pleasant. Again, I'm not too sure about the meaning but my best guess is the effect of the changing weather on the mind or possibly dreams. The Shakespeare Sonnets were generally uninteresting to me but the in class debate and comments we made were pretty interesting and the ideas were certainly still relevant.

I think I have come to the conclusion that the poems that tell more of a story are more interesting to me. The poem titled Tell Me What You Know About Dismemberment told sort of a story with vivid and gruesome detail that really caught my attention and played with my emotions. It sort of made me want to act on the problem but still I'm not entirely sure what reaction to the poem is appropriate. The Scent of Verbena poem was also interesting to read because it was also a story. In general I found the poetry packet to be a confusing, yet interesting resource.