There are four mantras I will be repeating throughout this module.
The first is that the way a poem is made determines what that poem makes happen.
The second is that not one of the formal properties that characterise poetry (lineation, metre, rhyme and so on) enter individual poems with a pre-determined set of meanings; instead, they acquire their meanings and contribute to the overall work of the poem through their interaction with all the other elements that go into the making of that poem. This explains why different poems can use the same devices to different effects.
The third is that poetry is better thought of as a dynamic activity that requires the participation of a reader than as a static object that is supposed to be admired from a distance. The words of a poem are like notes printed on a sheet of music. Poetry – like music – only happens and acquires meaning when it is performed by a reader. This explains why no two readings or interpretations of the poem are ever entirely the same, or why the same poem ever quite means the same thing on two different occasions.
The fourth and final mantra is that because poetry requires the participation of a reader and engages the thoughts and feelings of a reader in the real-time process of generating its own meaning, it is not only readers who perform poems, but poems too that perform their readers. And they do this by playing upon that reader’s thoughts, feelings, expectations and hopes. This also explains why the same poem never quite means the same thing on two different occasions, even when it is read by someone who is in all other respects the same person – the same reader – in both instances.
These statements may all look rather abstract and perplexing right now, but they should become clearer as we proceed. It is in any case one of the goals of this ‘Introduction to poetry’ unit that we come to recognise their importance and acquire a preliminary sense of how they operate in individual poems.
In the section ‘What is poetry?’ we accordingly begin by providing a definition of poetry that highlights its principal characteristics and forms the basis of our exploration of poetry throughout this module. After that, in ‘Basic strategies of analysis,’ we will see how by considering the differences between poetry and prose we can hone in on those features of a poem that make the experience of reading it very different from the experience of reading a prose work that in all other respects might seem to say the same thing. Finally, in ‘The power of poetry and the pleasure of interpretation,’ we will look at some concrete examples of how individual poems use techniques that belong to poetry alone to generate their distinctive effects. In doing so, we will also there highlight once again the very important point that the more closely we attend to the formal properties of a poem – i.e. the way it is made – the more likely we are to open up the poem to a greater (rather than a lesser) range of responses to that poem – i.e. we will enhance our awareness of the range and possibilities of what it can make happen.
Once you have completed this introduction to poetry unit, you may either return to the front page of this poetry module or proceed directly to the next unit: Elements of poetry.