A Look into Poetry Language

This week we were discussing poetry. To start though, it is completely not my thing. It is not like I dislike poetry as a whole, it is the whole part of the figuring out the imagery and what the author is presenting within the text. Speaking of imagery, though, how language is used is really important. We discussed some in class, for example from Where It Passes: Untouchable the line: "Blood powdered my fingers, speckled my cuffs" send chills down my spine when I read it. I imagine that, the blood on the fingers like powder, and it being on the person's cuff as well. You see that language is important when trying to bring a whole new meaning to it.

Language is how we speak and interact, however, in poetry there are words that are overused (or cliche. These are the words that appear the most within most poems. Things like love, sky, rain, my broken heart, appear a lot when reading. Though, the words stated above (and there are more), can still be used in a different way of describing it. With the use of other language, then we can indirectly say these words, and still have the same meaning.

This is where poetry becomes not my thing. Interpreting what the author is meaning For instance I will talk about Where It Passes: Untouchable (because it is one of my favorites from the Poetry packet). At first when I read it, I thought that whoever was the person was trying to obtain a certain level that their friend was on. Afterwards, I thought about how it could mean that they were trying to tear them down. It did not cross my mind that the narrator was betrayed by someone because I was thinking that the narrator was the one trying to do the betraying.

Another example was with Geology of Water, at one point it starts talking about someone drowning and I was just so thrown off (though lovely imagery)! It took a few (or more) times to figure out that in a way the author was trying to personify the water. Making it move, like the water drowning itself with waves, and so on. I'm still not entirely sure about the whole meaning, though I hope that it is close. Or with In the Tree, a classmate of mine mentioned that the person could be an actual tree and I just kind of stared blankly off into the distance for a moment. Then it clicked. The title was about a tree, even if it did not mention a tree per se. We never see the tree, we are just assuming that it is there.

Now, we are at a point where we write our own poetry, our own imagery. Analysis is not over forever, it'll continue even in our own writing. As someone mentioned before to me (I think it was my mom), write to write and keep going. Don't let anything like some sort of imagery hold you back. I think there was also a mention of people will understand to! Like the author(s) of Geology of Water, Where It Passes: Untouchable, and In the Tree I will have some examples to go back to when making my own imagery.