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John Ciardi: How does a poem mean?

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geo

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John Ciardi: How does a poem mean?

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I'll admit that I've never really been a huge poetry enthusiast. Part of the problem is that my eyes tend to glaze over when confronted with a poem as my brain tries frantically to make sense of it. Turns out I've been doing it all wrong! I recently read a poem by Ciardi recently (Suburban) and strangely enough, actually liked it. And so during a Google search I came up with the following excerpt from Ciardi's book, How Does A Poem Mean? I ended up buying the book and I'm really enjoying it. Ciardi has helped me get poetry.

The first chapter is here which includes a detailed analysis of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. This is old hat to all you poetry people, I know, but I think you will like this. Check it out.

http://blog.babson.me/wp-content/upload ... Ciardi.pdf
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Re: John Ciardi: How does a poem mean?

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Geo: Excellent article, thanks for posting it.

A comment on two items from the article:

"The language of experience is not the language of classification." and "The grand power of poetry is its interpretive power."

Combining these two together, that is, the language of experience and interpretive power, I think brings us toward understanding how poetry can have a powerful impact on the reader, sometimes in just a few lines. But to experience this impact we can't let our western-trained analytical brains, which look for constituent parts and logical meanings in a technocratic way, get in the way of the experience. The experience is a product of the whole and is not only greater than the sum of the parts but is actually a different thing than the sum of the parts. Poetry brings the power of imagery to bear on highly complex, perhaps even imponderable matters, and helps us make sense of what otherwise could be beyond explanation and understanding.
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Re: John Ciardi: How does a poem mean?

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That's so well put, giselle. Referring back to geo's old fear of poetry, part of it, I feel, comes from the way poetry is approached in school. It is the most imaginative of literary forms, but in classes, in my experience, it tends to be approached in the most unimaginative ways. There's some poetry-oh, boy, we can test them on rhyme schemes, meters, and technical terms. We can show them how to crack codes of symbolism. That all leaves me a bit cold.

From what I've read of Robert Frost, he was a great teacher of poetry who didn't go in for all those dreadful analytics.
Last edited by DWill on Thu Oct 27, 2011 10:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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geo

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Re: John Ciardi: How does a poem mean?

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I have always loved certain kinds of poems but never really became practiced in reading poetry. It helps to think of it as a performance and to just let it sit without worrying about the layers of meanings. Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening is a great place to start. It's immediately accessible and can be enjoyed for its own sake—its rhyme, rhythm, and wonderful pastoral imagery. The last line, repeated, just makes you stop and start rethinking what you just read. It's just about a perfect poem to my way of thinking because it works so well on different levels.

I don't believe I was exposed to that much poetry growing up except for Robert Louis Stevenson's A Garden of Verses and, of course, a multitude of children's books that are essentially written in poetic form. In school they probably started talking about rhyme schemes and meter and all that technical stuff and my brain probably turned off. As DWill said, this approach has probably turned many a student off. And, of course, the same applies to fiction.

After English Class
By Jean Little

I used to like "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."
I liked the coming darkness,
The jingle of harness bells, breaking--and adding to
--the stillness,
The gentle drift of snow. . . .
But today, the teacher told us what everything stood for.
The woods, the horse, the miles to go, the sleep--
They all have "hidden meanings."
It's grown so complicated now that,
Next time I drive by,
I don't think I'll bother to stop.

(Little, J. (1986). Hey world, here I am! Toronto: Kids Can Press.)
Last edited by geo on Fri Oct 28, 2011 10:05 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: John Ciardi: How does a poem mean?

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Sopranos clip . . .

"Asshole Robert Frost"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk_ddfiFkGQ
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Re: John Ciardi: How does a poem mean?

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A little story about english teachers and accessibility of poetry -

When I was in high school I had an english teacher, a certain Mr. Kellow, who had his idiosyncracies and whether you liked english or not, was difficult to ignore. Mr. Kellow was a big guy and bit on the bombastic side but he could be oddly quiet too. He was also the high school hockey coach and I think quite a few of the hockey players were in his class so he could ensure they got through the course and could stay on the team.

Mr Kellow had announced that our next english class would open the poetry segment of the course and I think there was a bit of eye rolling around the class. When we arrived that day there was music playing and Mr Kellow was sitting at his desk, just staring straight ahead if I recall. He didn't say anything and the music went on for few minutes and then the song ended and he shut the machine off. Then he stood up and said 'that was poetry' quite loudly and sat down while we looked at each other and pondered what just happened. After some nervous tittering he went on to teach the class using the song and he likely delved into 'analytics' and 'meaning' but I don't remember that part, being like Geo, I'm sure my brain turned off.

What I do remember is reading over the song lyrics on my Led Zep album covers and others bands too with a new appreciation .. were these songwriters and musicians 'poets' ? I hadn't thought of them that way before. And I do think that music has given me a way to access poetry, to experience the meaning of poetry, in the way that John Ciardi is referring too, rather than too much focus on particulars and analytics.

For the record, this is the song that Mr. Kellow played:

Sound of Silence
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered in the sounds of silence

Simon and Garfunkel
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Re: John Ciardi: How does a poem mean?

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I have heard Billy Collins speak about poetry several times now and I really like how he aproaches poetry and how speaks about it.

Introduction To Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.


Billy Collins
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Re: John Ciardi: How does a poem mean?

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Thanks Saffron, that's a great 'poem on poems' from Billy Collins. It must be frustrating for poets to see their work treated like that, quite reductive .. I recall an interview with John Lennon where he reflected on similar sentiments about all the interpretations of Beatles music - he was less than diplomatic and used very colourful language, it was quite amusing.
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Re: John Ciardi: How does a poem mean?

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I really like the Billy Collins poem. And I always dig Paul Simon's work.

I signed up for a poetry class way back in college, but I ended up dropping it. I recall the professor used his own book of poetry as the text and that bothered me somehow. Also, I think one of the first poems we discussed was about masturbation which was just a tad awkward for me. But, more importantly, I remember very distinctly one day discussing Paul Simon's song, My Little Town. This guy was poking fun at the lyrics, although I can't remember exactly why. It's a great song.


My Little Town

In my little town
I grew up believing
God keeps His eye on us all
And He used to lean upon me
As I pledged allegiance to the wall
Lord I recall
My little town

Coming home after school
Flying my bike past the gates
Of the factories
My mom doing the laundry
Hanging our shirts
In the dirty breeze

And after it rains
There's a rainbow
And all of the colors are black
It's not that the colors aren't there
It's just imagination they lack
Everything's the same
Back in my little town

In my little town
I never meant nothin'
I was Just my father's son
Saving my money
Dreaming of glory
Twitching like a finger
On the trigger of a gun
Leaving nothing but the dead and dying
Back in my little town
Last edited by geo on Fri Oct 28, 2011 8:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: John Ciardi: How does a poem mean?

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The guy was plain ignorant. How could he not at least appreciate, even if not like, the lyrics to Simon's song? There's a concentrated imagery in it that you usually don't see even in pieces not set to music.
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