What's the deal with poetry?

>I just want to read a poem and go "I liked that. That's lovely!"

in the poetry critique threads
i'll read one and think
>wow that's nice
but i never comment
so each user
can find their own sound

I like Shelley

Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber,
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and live.—I look on high;
Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl'd
The veil of life and death? or do I lie
In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep
Spread far around and inaccessibly
Its circles? For the very spirit fails,
Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep
That vanishes among the viewless gales

Or Keats

Now Morning from her orient chamber came,
And her first footsteps touch'd a verdant hill;
Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame,
Silv'ring the untainted gushes of its rill;
Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distill,
And after parting beds of simple flowers,
By many streams a little lake did fill,
Which round its marge reflected woven bowers,
And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers.
[...]
And all around it dipp'd luxuriously
Slopings of verdure through the glossy tide,
Which, as it were in gentle amity,
Rippled delighted up the flowery side;
As if to glean the ruddy tears, it tried,
Which fell profusely from the rose-tree stem
Haply it was the workings of its pride,
In strife to throw upon the shore a gem
Outvieing all the buds in Flora's diadem

>people actually think this
and no you havent

The best comparison I can make is that it feels like my whole life people have been recommending me To Kill A Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby and the end result is I don't like novels because novels are dull.

But Slaughterhouse 5 is out there. Catch 22 is out there. House of Leaves is out there.

I just don't know where to get started.

Never read them before this very moment. Both fine, more interesting thematically than most (the imagery in Ozymandias is quite powerful) though neither SOUNDS terribly nice to my ears.

There are a few I know that I like. I like Jabberwocky because it's lighthearted and fun. I like If by Kipling. I've enjoyed Ovid but only for the stories... I think the poetry lost something in translation.

How do I sift the wheat from the chaff even if I were to find something that were to my taste?

>But Slaughterhouse 5 is out there. Catch 22 is out there. House of Leaves is out there.
was it jus tb8 all along?

I like rhyming. I know it's quite a narrow, childish view by the standards of "serious" poetry people but I'll say it right out: Poetry needs to rhyme to sound nice to my novice ears, and maybe I'm too inexperienced to get it but I don't want to read something that doesn't sound nice.

There's different ways to appreciate poetry. You can appreciate it as a craft, admire the skill and creativity that goes into constructing a poem, but you can also just enjoy the aesthetics of it. And in the latter way, it is very subjective. There's no law that says you have to enjoy Robert Frost in order to enjoy poetry. I'd say you just haven't found the poetry you enjoy yet.

Is this one to affected? I like it desu pure aesthetics

Then the music touched the gates and died;
Rose again from where it seemed to fail,
Stormed in orbs of song, a growing gale;
Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,
As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale,
The strong tempestuous treble throbbed and palpitated;
Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,
Caught the sparkles, and in circles,
Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,
Flung the torrent rainbow round

They're fun, easy reads. I laughed at least twice. And I didn't want to profess that I'm a genre fiction baby, but it's all out there now.

Except house of leaves. The format is gay but I liked the story of the navidson film so much that I stuck with it. And obviously I didn't laugh.

I enjoy rhyme as well. I like alliteration and assonance, I enjoy meter. But more than anything I love it when somebody finds a delightfully novel way to describe something familiar. If they manage that with some of the literary devices I mentioned, I'll probably love their poetry.

That's what I'm trying to say. I don't know how to find anything good because I've apparently got SUCH pleb-tier tastes that the sort of people who write poetry sections of textbooks don't feel any particular interest in catering to me or telling me how to find something I like.

im sorry to say it but its true. i have been published. it is also true that i intentionally misspelled the word "its". and poetry is just a game to trick people into liking something. that doesn't mean it isn't with value. it's a fun game. a game that can bring joy to things. but let's not elevate it over chess or any other game. but let us neither make it something we give up for cell phones and other similar shiny trinkets

also i am ashamed of poetry it is something that is looked upon as low value. my father deep down probably hates poetry. my friends are not interested in poetry. nobody is interested in poetry. not even me. but still it is fun to publish things out there.

I don't really know how to advise you. I majored in English while I was in college so I ended up reading a lot of poetry from various different eras and styles and eventually I just found stuff I enjoyed. But I was in a situation where I had to read poetry regardless of whether or not I enjoyed it, for you it will be hard to motivate yourself when there's no reason for you to pursue poetry.

The only advice I can give is to find prose you enjoy reading and then dissect it to figure out why you like it. You mention that you've had a good English education so you should be able to understand the parts of speech and literary devices that go into making prose fun and readable.

You're a moron who doesn't feel the first thing about poetry, but that is not uncommon and is probably why you got published

Building a good ear for sound is kind of hard to describe. There are other ways to make a "pleasing" sounding poem other than rhyme and you have to be aware of them to notice them. Things like consonance, assonance, and alliteration are more obvious devices.

Heres a Keats sonnet about sonnets:

If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
By ear industrious, and attention meet:
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound with garlands of her own.

The first line has an assonance in "by/rhymes" "sonnet sweet" is an alliteration, the t from sweet carries over into "Fetter'd" and "spite," and so on, so the poem itself because a nice interwoven sandal of sound and rhymes.

I have a feeling you're reading poetry too quickly. Read poems slowly and out loud, and read it over and over again over days until you have parts of it memorized and the subtleties will reveal itself to you.

Pic related is also a helpful work, which close readings of great poems from many different eras of English literature.

but i'm winning the game, at least. and as much as i like galaga, which is a game and a real and authentic thrill far move than reading poetry, it is only fun if i do well for a while. or being the most popular person on social media. or being the most despised person ever. there are so many games you could play if you wished to

You sound about 17, and it's not worth the effort to even wonder if you're lying

Poetry at its best is the best writing because it uses ALL the resources of the language (i.e. not just the intellectual meaning of the words but the musical possibilities as well).

The older I get the less-inclined I am to read anything except poetry because it gives you the most in the shortest space of time.

But this is only if it's actually POETRY, and GOOD poetry at that.

Most of what gets called "poetry" these days isn't poetry, it's either just verse, or it's not even verse, just short lengths of pretentious prose chopped up unevenly.

Unless you're entirely dead inside there will be SOME poetry you will either like right away or come to like with only a little bit of work.

Public school obviously kills people's interest in poetry as it kills their interest in everything else. There's nothing worse than being given something and told how moving it is - we just get irritated that we're being expected to feel something we don't.

It's hard to recommend stuff without knowing who you are and what prose you have read and liked.

Here are few suggestions. They are all fairly modern (20th century) because that's usually more accessible.

If you like any one of these, then get the complete works of that author.

Dylan Thomas, O Make Me A Mask -- ya gotta keep your shields up against the world!
Dylan Thomas, Not From This Anger -- his girlfriend has just refused to have sex
Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill -- as a child he stayed on a farm in the holidays and he misses it

Robinson Jeffers, Hurt Hawk -- Jeffers likes hawks and foxes and wolves and things that kill things

Ted Hughes, Jaguar -- Ted Hughes visits a zoo and sees a Jaguar that doesn't like being in a cage

Philip Larkin, Ape Experiment Room -- Larkin HATES cruelty to animals

Charles Bukowski, The Genius of the Crowd -- Bukowski doesn't like people much and certainly not in large quantities

Angelou.

Jesus Wept.

a) Shoot any teacher who tries to substitute racial self-abasement for poetry.

b) Read Dylan Thomas.