Reading Poetry

“Although I don’t tell my students this, I would encourage people to read poetry quickly. I always read it much more quickly than I read prose. I’ve never underlined a book of poetry in my life. I don’t think a poem is meant to be understood in the way that an essay is meant to be understood. I could read extremely slowly, pen in hand, and pick everything apart, but then, instead of beginning a relationship with a thing, I’m ending it. The best poems stay with you your whole life, and that relationship changes as you reencounter the poem. And part of what keeps that relationship alive is not trying to comprehend the poem. And besides, if the poem is truly successful, it will always defeat your comprehension. Partly because a truly successful poem will have defeated the comprehension of the poet as the poet wrote it, and so it is going to be unresolvable.”

— Shane McCrae via Image