{"id":2093,"date":"2011-03-12T01:08:07","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T07:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/?p=2093"},"modified":"2011-03-12T01:08:07","modified_gmt":"2011-03-12T07:08:07","slug":"understanding-poetry-is-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/?p=2093","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Poetry Is Hard."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s some random ramblings about my thought processes: I find it interesting how my &#8220;poetry brain&#8221; works.<\/p>\n<p>As someone who goes by a name that includes &#8220;poet&#8221; right in there, and who is writing a ton of poetry for her thesis, one would assume I can do poetry. I can read it, and think about it, and enjoy it. I totally can, too. That is something I am capable of. However, I find that, even more than most types of media, I can&#8217;t do that stuff with poetry if I am the least bit tired.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, okay, give me a novel when I&#8217;m tired, and it&#8217;s going to be very slow going reading it, sure. I may nod off. But when I get done reading it, I can still tell you about it, and at least somewhat break down themes and things the author is attempting to do, and maybe even give a close reading or two of what I&#8217;ve read. I&#8217;m not going to say it&#8217;s going to be my best work ever, of course, but I can at least come up with something passable, that shows I&#8217;m the kind of crazy person who almost has a Masters degree in this shit.<\/p>\n<p>However, today, I was trying to read and write a review of a book of poetry. I was feeling a little out of it and exhausted, but I was there to work, so I was trying to get it done. I would read the same poem three or four times, and if I didn&#8217;t nod off in the middle of it, I would get through and not understand a damn thing about it. I would have no clue what I just read. I&#8217;d read it again, and be unable to find the meaning in the words once again. I attempted to write a review, but I couldn&#8217;t say anything worthwhile about what I had just read. It was worthless effort.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t the first time it has happened, either. I just have so much trouble with poetry when I can&#8217;t focus, the kind of trouble I simply don&#8217;t have when analyzing other mediums.<\/p>\n<p>I really wonder what it is about poems that makes this happen to me. Is it because I have to be able to hold the whole poem in my head to be able to see the connections, whereas something like a short story is a narrative line, and I don&#8217;t have to keep specifics, just generalities? That doesn&#8217;t sound like an implausible reason. Maybe it&#8217;s because poetry is so image-heavy, and when I can&#8217;t focus, I can&#8217;t create the images clear enough to see the reason why they&#8217;re there? That also could be it. <\/p>\n<p>I really don&#8217;t know. I just know that poetry is something I really have to be in a state of mind conducive to thinking to be able to consume. You&#8217;d think I&#8217;d have figured out some other way to do it by now, but I haven&#8217;t, really. Oh well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s some random ramblings about my thought processes: I find it interesting how my &#8220;poetry brain&#8221; works. As someone who goes by a name that includes &#8220;poet&#8221; right in there, and who is writing a ton of poetry for her thesis, one would assume I can do poetry. I can read it, and think about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2094,"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093\/revisions\/2094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}