How to Read (and Even Enjoy) Poetry

Poetry has an undeserved reputation for being difficult and confusing. But the truth is that you don't have to figure poetry out--you just have to read it. In this video, we talk about what poetry is, and we read a poem together with the goal of enjoying it rather than deciphering it.

Poems in this Video

0:00 Introduction
1:35 What Poetry Does
4:36 Why I Love "The Red Wheelbarrow"
6:07 Reading a Poem
9:14 Conclusion

[ericcalvi]

"Life isn't a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced" -Soren Kierkegaard

[MrBooomin]

I suddenly feel the urge to write a poem about how I feel like I’ve been missing out on poetry

[rixatrix]

In high school, I remember wanting so badly to grasp Shakespeare better. And the more I stopped trying to make sense of each word and just let the whole of it paint a picture in my mind, the more I understood what was happening. It’s so counterintuitive—to just let language wash over you and trust yourself to understand on another level. It’s like trying to hold a bubble, which ruins it. You can only watch it shimmer in the air until it’s gone.

[azor_ahai]

"Painting is poetry that's seen rather than felt and poetry is painting that's felt rather than seen."
~Leonardo Da Vinci

[AnglosBeef]

My poetry professor in university would say that poems give you feelings where words fall short. A shared experience is the perfect way to describe it

[ReissTube]

I have a Bachelors of Arts in Creative Writing, took poetry classes, and not once was the genre of poetry been clearly articulated. Always technique, never the purpose. It was always presupposed. I appreciate how clearly you intro-ed this and makes me want to re-export them genre more

[franklklemencic]

78 years old and I have just learned tor the 1st time that poetry and literature are not impossible test questions to labor over until you finally have enough days into English class to move onto the next grade. Thank you for introducing me to a whole new world of enjoyment!!

[LaneBeScrolling]

Thank you for this video, it’s really alleviates the anxiety of “getting a poem right.”

And, fittingly, the first poem in the Library of Congress poetry collection that you linked is “Introduction to Poetry, ” by poet laureate Billy Collins;

“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.”

[raginiraj]

This is the best explanation of poetry I have come across up till now. I have been really struggling with understanding what the poet meant but your perspective takes the pressure of “analysing” off. Thanks!

[nightowl]

You just openened up a whole new world for me, thank you so much! I always thought that poetry is "just too difficult for me" and couldn't enjoy it because I thought I would just always miss "the actual meaning". You stopped the poetry gatekeeping for me🥺

[Mr]

As a teen I always appreciated poetry but I never got it, I never understood “why”. You have rekindled a lost joy for poetry that & thank you for that!😁

[bertiekirkwood]

So glad YouTube randomly recommended this to me. You are an excellent communicator and I particularly love that photograph analogy for poetry. Off to go read some poems now!

[johnrollyson]

This is, by far, the best redemptive explanation on reading poetry i have come across the internet. We always discuss it like this during literary workshops. It is great that it is expressed here too, as it helps many appreciate poetry more.

[chopin]

As a poet I agree. Writing a poem is one of the great pleasures of life. Imagine how Frost felt when he wrote Birches. He must have felt great.

[Tim]

Art is a mirror.
It teaches you who you are.

[ryanfix]

I learned more in 11 minutes than years of language arts classes in high school and college. I think this will help me to not only enjoy poetry more, but also movies, music, and visual arts. Thank you,

[geoffreycanie]

I used this to help introduce my grade 11 class to our unit on poetry in which we are reading the poems of Wallace Stevens. They found it very helpful - especially because they'd (unfortunately) been taught to do the exact opposite of the points you make here. Thanks!

[martin]

Spot on! It's truly unfortunate that the way poetry is generally introduced to kids in school typically involves a painfully tedious exercise in meticulously "decoding" the puzzling symbolism employed and then formulating a conclusion about what it "really means" according to a particular method of analysis or some interpretation deemed to be "correct." If there was ever a way to rob poetry of its myriad enchantments, then methodically dissecting it in such a sterile and formulaic way would be a hard one to beat.

[cla_rence]

I'm autistic and as a child 19th century french poetry was my special interest. I could spend hours reading and memorising poems because I loved the ambiance it created around me. It felt like with a few words the poets could give me emotions to feel and landscapes to contemplate and experiences to ponder. Suffice to say I didn't have me many people to share my love of poetry with.
I'm so happy to see more people getting into reading and writing poetry! It's a fun outlet for creativity and there's something so special about keeping a few verses with you that describe a special day, a nice holiday, a beautiful sunset.

[sammurphy]

I have studied literature up to university level but I have always been trying to decode or unravel the meaning of poems, especially shorter ones, which has often been a frustrating experience and meant that poetry has been my least favourite type of literature. I wish someone had told me this years ago. Hopefully this will give me a new way of reading and appreciating poetry. Thank you Andrew.