How do I into poetry?

>PEROTY

>Why memorize it when you can just read it?
are you really this fucking dumb? if you are going to write seriously about it, you want it in your dreams the structure you want to draw comparison to....other ways he shifts tone. You want to sleep on,.contemplate it,e etc,,,

You can't truly understand poem until you've memorised it. There's a sense of inevitability with great poetry. If you just read it in your head this isn't obvious. If you read it aloud it becomes more obvious. It only really becomes unavoidable when you have the whole poem in your head and have to recite it. It's the only way to learn how the poem is constructed, how each word or line leads into the next. It will give you a much, much better understanding of the reasons that rhyme and meter are important and when it's alright not to use them. In general you'll understand the poems you memorise much better because to memorise a good poem is more or less the same thing as learning how it is constructed poetically.

memorising songs makes them easier to understand yes?
Like, it took me a while to realise Hey Ya was basically a breakup song and i wouldnt have known unless i had listened to it over and over again

MINE EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY
OF THE COMING OF THE LORD
HES TRAMPLING OUT THE VINTAGE
WHERE THE GRAPES OF WRATH ARE STORED
HE HATH LOOSED THE FATEFUL LIGHTNING
OF HIS TERRIBLE SWIFT SWORD
HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON
GLORY GLORY HALLELUJAH
GLORY GLORY HALLELUJAH
GLORY GLORY HALLELUJAH
HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON
I repeated this in my head for weeks when I took 2 hour walks down a cycle path near me, it didn't do anything

I also mouthed it and murmured it

try opening a book and reading it

obviously you aren't going to get anything out of a little ditty like that. try some Hopkins. this is one I've been trying to learn that I find very satisfying.

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

the first line is very easy to memorise, so much so that I can barely get it out of my head; it's the double alliteration. the KingFishers leads directly into the Catch Fire - as soon as you say one you'll remember the other. the same with DragonFlies Draw Flame. from there, almost every word in the poem has at least one and often multiple other words close by, connected by either alliteration, rhyme, or assonance. Once you know the poem fairly well - a few reads through - each of these seems inevitable.

"As tumbled" is already preparing you for "tucked string", "over rim of roundy" brings you to the "wells" that establishes the second rhyme for the stanza, "stones ring" is very much like (each tucked) "string" then "tell's" and immediately "hung bells" and so inevitably "bow swung" and you can't forget "finds tongue to fling out broad its name" once you know how when you say it aloud it feels exactly the way it means.

And so on.

It hangs together in your memory in a way it doesn't on the page, and becomes something more pleasurable than just text.

philo.swu.bg/biblioteka/Ferguson, Salter & Stallworthy, The Norton Anthology of Poetry.64.pdf

Read this cover to cover

>goes to Harvard
>wastes time in poetry classes

I'm glad I am spending my time here wisely.

hey ya by Outkast?

start with zen haiku

If a poem's meaning is not obvious to the poet's intended audience then he has failed at his job and produced bad poetry and you should not bother reading it.

If you are not the poet's intended audience then you should make yourself familiar with the cultural conventions of the genre and the poet's audience but you shouldn't go to excessive effort. That's making excuses for the poet's own bad writing.

/r/ing a mobi or epub of this

Read it aloud

Good choice on the Hopkins. These were the first poems I learnt by heart, and still inspire me.

THE LEADEN ECHO

HOW to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, … from vanishing away?
Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep,
Dówn? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?
No there ’s none, there ’s none, O no there ’s none, 5
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair,
Do what you may do, what, do what you may,
And wisdom is early to despair:
Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done
To keep at bay 10
Age and age’s evils, hoar hair,
Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death’s worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay;
So be beginning, be beginning to despair.
O there ’s none; no no no there ’s none:
Be beginning to despair, to despair, 15
Despair, despair, despair, despair.

Here's Dylan Thomas reading them
>youtube.com/watch?v=AA0npYt0Wig

THE GOLDEN ECHO

Spare!
There ís one, yes I have one (Hush there!);
Only not within seeing of the sun,
Not within the singeing of the strong sun, 20
Tall sun’s tingeing, or treacherous the tainting of the earth’s air,
Somewhere elsewhere there is ah well where! one,
Oné. Yes I can tell such a key, I do know such a place,
Where whatever’s prized and passes of us, everything that ’s fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone,
Undone, done with, soon done with, and yet dearly and dangerously sweet 25
Of us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matchèd face,
The flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet,
Never fleets móre, fastened with the tenderest truth
To its own best being and its loveliness of youth: it is an everlastingness of, O it is an all youth!
Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace, 30
Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace—
Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,
And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliver
Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death
Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s giver. 35
See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair
Is, hair of the head, numbered.
Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould
Will have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept,
This side, that side hurling a heavyheaded hundredfold 40
What while we, while we slumbered.
O then, weary then why
When the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care,
Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept
Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder 45
A care kept.—Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.—
Yonder.—What high as that! We follow, now we follow.—Yonder, yes yonder, yonder,
Yonder.

God this place has become terrible. To echo much of what has been said, including my myself, you HAVE to memorize anything before you can write about it. I got my first dose of this when I was 16, and I was taking a high school summer program at harvard before matriculating.

Anyway, the professor was a grad school professor. He essentially said (I'm paraphrasing but his mouth was this dirty, this was before "Safe space days"): " Look, retards, not one of you understands a goddam thing about poetry, so to have you try to "Write" anything sightful about any poem would be fucking laughable.

Here's your job. Start with "Sir Gaiiwain and the Green Knight" and memorize to "The Wasteland." For "Canterbury Tales" and (whatever shakespeare play was in there) I'll give you a break and only omit every other line. "

your midterm will be up to the halfway point, your final will consist of the midterm exactly PLUS everything covered since then. Now, if you are clever enough to mememorize this and just want your Lit requirement out of the way, you can leave. IF you want to stay and think you can actually learn somethiing, you can stay."

I WORKED like a nigger in the fields to get the grade I got. On the midterm, I got a 99% because I misinterpreted from "Cateterbury Tales" "Therin that place..." I froget what I put, but the correct answer was "In that Palce where.

I had 99% midterm (next closest was 62%), 100% on final (he gave out grades last day, didn't write top 3 grades). You should have seen the looks of hate they shot at me for how I threw off the grading curve, but fuck em.

What was my "secret?" lock myself in the 5th floor of the fuckign uncdotioned bedroom,pour out sweat like a nigger, and pace back and forth reading and repeating like a jew studying the talmud and praying for yaweh to kill all the gentiles and bring them all their geld.

And after all these fucking years, only think from all my uni courses that is completely MINE and I can recite on command at any time. Was the best course I have took. Sure, 2 months on 5th floor with no airconditioning and sweat but fuck, I realized just how far the emory can be pushed. But you HAVE to like and respect the professor and want to prove something to him/her. Only thing that can drive you for 8 9 hours a day devoted to memorization. But it CAN be done...

Here is a great example of a poem I had some asshole (in fact, the oen who READ IT on spoken verse on YT) tell me it "didn't mean anything historically" and citied as his source Orwell who called it a "neeedless display of rhetorical flourish." HE deleted my comment after I asked him 1. When did Orwell become an authorative source on Poetry? 2. Does he know the story of Lepanto, and does he not unders and tht for a GREAT POET like Chersteron, NOT A SINGLE WORD IS WASTED?

"Lepanto
BY G. K. CHESTERTON
White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young,
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king."

(THIS IS ONLY THE OPENING, BUT IF ANYONE WANTS IT PROPERLY UNPACKED , I'LL HAPPILY DO IT SO YOU LEARN WHY THE CUNT WHO READ IT HAD NO CLUE:

"White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun"

OK, so it opens with what the gypo with the stick up his ass Edward Said would have called "Orientalism." The exotic luxury of the Sultan's court (in this case Suliman The Magnificent, who took Belgrade but was luckily overrun by the Wingéd Hussars at Vienna so suddenly they even captured his harem tents).

You have imagery of the Corsair (pirate), who became notorious at this point to where no christian could live within a few miles of the beach. They'd pilage Churches, carry off slaves, and should they come cross the tomb of a former foe now dead, dig up his bones and defile them (this practice was so well known across Italy it entered many Italian Dialects and was known to my grandfather )

'''They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy'''

They have attacked and raided even those who sought to stay neutral

'''They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,'''

This is a reference to Venice and the famous Lions of St Mark, who, though attempting to stay neutral, realized war was coming. It would finally arrive whe the Turk took the fortress of crprus, prmising afe passage. Not only was it not given, but the governer was tortured, meant to carry earth on his back for three days in the sun to rapir the damage done to the ramparts, and then kiss the feet of Mustafa each time he passed. HE was later flayed alive (by a jewish butcher, this would not be forgotten as all jews would be expelled from Venice after LEpanto) and his skin stuffed with straw, and first paraded around the city riding a donkey. Then his skin was hoisted to the top of the mast of the commander's ship. This is only a very brief description of the torture inflcited on Marco Antonio Bragadin by the Turk. You can find a full list elsewhere. Before I go on, is anyone reading this?

>And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
>And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
>The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
>The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
>From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
>And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun"
*brief description- The Pope, trying to get toegethe rthe Holy LEague, is in agony at what is taking place. He is going, basically hat in hand, to all the kings of Christendom for help. The Rpotestant Queen of England (despite how favorably she is portrayed currently as a stronk woyemn) was a cold, Rptestant bitch concerned only with consolidating her own power and burning as many Catholics as she could. Recall, history wirtten by the victors, esp when there is no third party anywhere even close to challenge. This was case with elizabeth I.

"The Sdahow of the Valois...." The Valois, once a proud family of crsaders and Knights of Christendom who battled botht he Infidel and heresy, have fallen so far they are defacto 'ALLIGND with the Turk, so much so they let them dock in Marseilles and administer the city as if it were their own.

In defense of the French, however, the Greastest Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitaler Jaques de Valette was French, as were many previous grandmasters, such as the one who led defense of RHodes (which they eventually had to give up). Also, by far greatest cotingent of fighting knights came from France...

Well,I expected, no one gives a shit or wants it really unpacked, both historically and from a poetic/linguistic basis. I'll come back and check tonight/ tomm in case a miracle happens and someone actually decides they CARE and want it unpacked,,,

Here IS THE READING-- ONLY LISTEN TO THE READING, SON'T EVEN LOOK AT HIPHOTO AT THE END, DON JON WAS 32 WHEN HE ENDED THIS CAMPAIGN, NOTHING LIKE THE OLD MAN PICTIRED HERE. HE HAS A DECENT VOICE (THOUGHT HE SKIPS.MISPROBOUNCES ABOUT 5 WORDS, BUT THESE EITHER HERE NOR THERE...JUST LISTEN, '''DO NOT''' LOOK OR READ UNLESS YOU WANT MIND POISONED.

THIS WAS DON JON AT TE TIME OF LEPANTO.

'''OH, A GREAT, GREAT BOOK ON THIS BATTLE AND THE SEIGLE OF MALTA THAT YOU MUST READ AT ALL COSTS (IT'S THAT GOOD):

amazon.com/Empires-Sea-Lepanto-Contest-theWorld-ebook/dp/B001BADGJA

Yeah.

W.H.Auden said that he thought English classes in schools should probably restrict themselves almost entirely to making children learn the best possible poetry by heart.

Nowadays of course children are not taught in schools to learn ANY poetry by heart.

(I personally am in a fortunate position because both my parents were teachers & I got into the habit of reading things independently of school. Also I have a pretty good memory. But I still don't know nearly as much as I would like.)