Poetry and Me

My memory is hazy, but I think the first poem I ever encountered was in a Shel Silverstein book an elementary school teacher had introduced to me during reading time. The collection, topped with a silver book jacket (if my memory serves me right), was relatively breezy, and I remember skimming through them within a few days. I loved the relatively ease of reading them, the interesting drawings that accompanied them, the laughs I shared with classmates as I shared the ridiculous ones, and the pattern poems; in short, I loved all of them. Elementary school poetry was lighthearted and fun, filled with puns and limericks that mattered little in the grand scheme of things.

It was a while until I encountered poetry again. In middle school, I found Ellen Hopkins's Crank, a collection of poems recounting addictions to meth, a sharp turn from the lighthearted Shel Silverstein books I had enjoyed in elementary school. I'm not even sure how I discovered her books in the first place, but that encounter certainly changed my perception of poetry. No longer was poetry filled with jokes and funny stories; I learned that poetry could convey more "adult" emotions, whether they were ecstacy, pain, or indifference. 

In high school, before this year, I think the only real exposure to poetry was in ninth grade, when we went over some really basic poetry analysis. I think that the classroom setting brings in another perspective to poetry. Like reading books for class, reading poetry in class never really felt like I was enjoying it; I was reading solely to analyze and complete assignments, not to enjoy and take in the poetic beauty. At the beginning of junior year, the only exposure to poetry was during the American literary tradition unit, furthering my perception of poetry as almost antiquated and dull. 

I think this year has definitely helped shape my view of poetry in a positive light. Even though the poems we read and analyze are the same kinds of poems that I might've deemed as boring a year ago, I've really enjoyed the poetry we've covered so far. Part of it might be growth in emotional maturity, but I think another big portion is how we've covered poetry (along with lots of other units): we've all have had enough experience with analyzing literature, and other English classes have already laid the foundations to analyze such poetry, so we spend less time on what exact steps we should take to analyze poetry and instead focus more time on the poetry itself. Thus, the "boring" poetry units before this year were certainly necessary, but I think that this current unit is equally as necessary because in a way, it helps correct one's perception of poetry.

Side note: During elementary school and somewhere between first and eighth grade, I also read and memorized poetry for Chinese school, but I've never really considered it to be part of my experience with poetry. I think part of it was that covering poetry in Chinese school was more for learning the language itself than analyzing the poetry, but in retrospect, it's strange that I've always considered it separate from the poetry I've covered in "normal" school. Perhaps part of it also has to do with the historical alienation of non-Western art?