Are Some People Unable to Appreciate Poetry?

Are there some people who just can't get poetry, or at least metrical poetry? When I try to read lines of any poem in its supposed meter--say iambic pentameter--it just doesn't sound right. I know there are supposed to be variations from the pattern, but it seems like there are so many that the exceptions swallow up the rule. Trying to read most of any given poem in its supposed meter just sounds stilted, unnatural, and almost incomprehensible when you're trying to understand the subject matter.

I decided to give poetry a try to expand my horizons, since I've always stuck to the genre of fiction (i.e., prose). But I'm starting to think it's just not for me. I'm not a very sensual guy; I've always been more interested in and comfortable with ideas and information.

Anyone had the same experience or have any advice?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    John Stuart Mill thought that only highly refined and sensitive people were capable of actually appreciating lyric poetry:

    https://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/jsmill/diss-disc/poetry/poetry.s01.html

    >At what age is the passion for a story, for almost any kind of story, merely as a story, the most intense? In childhood. But that also is the age at which poetry, even of the simplest description, is least relished and least understood; because the feelings with which it is especially conversant are yet undeveloped, and, not having been even in the slightest degree experienced, cannot be sympathized with.

    >In what stage of the progress of society, again, is story-telling most valued, and the story-teller in greatest request and honor? In a a rude state like that of the Tartars and Arabs at this day, and of almost all nations in the earliest ages.

    >But, in this state of society, there is little poetry except ballads, which are mostly narrative,---that is, essentially stories,---and derive their principal interest from the incidents. Considered as poetry, they are of the lowest and most elementary kind: the feelings depicted, or rather indicated, are the simplest our nature has; such joys and griefs as the immediate pressure of some outward event excites in rude minds, which live wholly immersed in outward things, and have never, either from choice or a force they could not resist, turned themselves to the contemplation of the world within.

    >Passing now from childhood, and from the childhood of society, to the grown-up men and women of this most grown-up and unchild-like age, the minds and hearts of greatest depth and elevation are commonly those which take greatest delight in poetry: the shallowest and emptiest, on the contrary, are, at all events, not those least addicted to novel-reading.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Thanks. But I'm not sure this fully explains the problem. Mill's focus is on the substance of the poem: the "feelings" and "contemplation of the world within" reflected in poetry, and he contrasts it with the simple description of "incidents" in stories.

      I actually really enjoy the introspection, emotional complexity, and nuance of the substance of many poems I've read. My problem is more sensory. I feel like a mostly deaf person trying to appreciate music, or a mostly blind person trying to appreciate a painting.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Aphantasia
      Spatio-visual tone-deafness. Poetry is akin to sculpture, frozen moments/movements. Novel prose cannot sustain the prosody effort typically, and the 'plotgay' exposition prostitute is there for 'drama'. Poetry doesn't abide this voyeurism and offends the plotgay's aversion to typology and polysemy

      Thanks. But I'm not sure this fully explains the problem. Mill's focus is on the substance of the poem: the "feelings" and "contemplation of the world within" reflected in poetry, and he contrasts it with the simple description of "incidents" in stories.

      I actually really enjoy the introspection, emotional complexity, and nuance of the substance of many poems I've read. My problem is more sensory. I feel like a mostly deaf person trying to appreciate music, or a mostly blind person trying to appreciate a painting.

      Meter does not exist in a bubble and on its own and neither does poetry. Read them out loud, try undisturbed meter readings and then straight-forward and more natural (to you) sounding ones and then think about the actual information and how it all relates to another.

      "Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?" is in Iambic pentameter so "∪/∪/∪/∪/∪/", right? But then, you read it; you think about it, you ponder: would one stress his own self before his very maker? Does this even sound good? Or is this what you might be looking for: "/∪/∪∪∪//∪/"
      Poetry is about feelings, much like literature. Some of the most well-known poets in history got trashed by other poets because they readily disturbed meter and gave frick all about rigid rules. Don't expect to get something out every poem you read but don't be afraid of giving it some time and try a few different approaches to taking-in the poem.

      All this. As far as hearing and recitation, it demands your ears be engaged. Meter alone will only suggest what will be musical delivery of the line. You can - and ought to - push the limits, play with time, attack, dragging or pushing the beat (and silences).

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Meter does not exist in a bubble and on its own and neither does poetry. Read them out loud, try undisturbed meter readings and then straight-forward and more natural (to you) sounding ones and then think about the actual information and how it all relates to another.

    "Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?" is in Iambic pentameter so "∪/∪/∪/∪/∪/", right? But then, you read it; you think about it, you ponder: would one stress his own self before his very maker? Does this even sound good? Or is this what you might be looking for: "/∪/∪∪∪//∪/"
    Poetry is about feelings, much like literature. Some of the most well-known poets in history got trashed by other poets because they readily disturbed meter and gave frick all about rigid rules. Don't expect to get something out every poem you read but don't be afraid of giving it some time and try a few different approaches to taking-in the poem.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      That line is clearly /u/uu/u/u/.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        You would absolutely stress thy, in my opinion. Your reading quarrels with the information of the line, I think.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          meh that's a style choice that sounds pretty bad metrically, especially with the spondee and the three unstressed syllables if you read it naturally for the first time you would read /u/uu/u/u/.

          [...]
          >That line is clearly /u/uu/u/u/
          That's how I read it too.

          I get that you can't unfailingly, blindly adhere to the meter, but the samples of poems I've read recently seem to include more exceptions than examples of the rule.

          But I will take your advice about experimenting with different approaches to heart.

          [...]
          Yeah, in the fourth line from the bottom, I feel like "death" should be stressed, and stressing "the" seems weird.

          >Yeah, in the fourth line from the bottom, I feel like "death" should be stressed, and stressing "the" seems weird.
          yes that's the only variation and it's the most commonly accepted one of putting a trochee instead of an iamb for the first foot. but you can see the rest of the poem is totally regular. what poems have you been reading that have more exceptions? for example in all of shakespeare's sonnets, the trochee in the first foot is pretty much the only exception you will see, and that is permitted within iambic pentameter.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      That line is clearly /u/uu/u/u/.

      >That line is clearly /u/uu/u/u/
      That's how I read it too.

      I get that you can't unfailingly, blindly adhere to the meter, but the samples of poems I've read recently seem to include more exceptions than examples of the rule.

      But I will take your advice about experimenting with different approaches to heart.

      You probably just dont understand meter yet. Here’s test: do you spot any deviations from iambic pentameter in this sonnet?

      Yeah, in the fourth line from the bottom, I feel like "death" should be stressed, and stressing "the" seems weird.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >in the fourth line from the bottom

        meh that's a style choice that sounds pretty bad metrically, especially with the spondee and the three unstressed syllables if you read it naturally for the first time you would read /u/uu/u/u/.
        [...]
        >Yeah, in the fourth line from the bottom, I feel like "death" should be stressed, and stressing "the" seems weird.
        yes that's the only variation and it's the most commonly accepted one of putting a trochee instead of an iamb for the first foot. but you can see the rest of the poem is totally regular. what poems have you been reading that have more exceptions? for example in all of shakespeare's sonnets, the trochee in the first foot is pretty much the only exception you will see, and that is permitted within iambic pentameter.

        >putting a trochee instead of an iamb for the first foot
        feel like you two are talking about different lines here?? OP meant death-bed and you are talking about death's second self, no?

        >that's the only variation
        do you really think so? disagree, i see a couple of other lines that should or could take the same inversion
        >bare ruin'd choirs
        i'd scan this as /uu/ (scanning ruin'd as two syllables and choirs as one); this one is a bit arguable and depends a bit on whether you parse the phrase as
        >boughs which shake against the cold; and bare ruin'd choirs
        or
        >boughs which shake against the cold-bare-ruin'd choirs
        >death's second self,
        /uu/ (think we agree on this one)
        >this thou perceiv'st,
        i would also scan this as /uu/, especially since the line is split with a comma after it
        tip to the OP: when punctuation splits a line is into two iambs and three like that, imo it's particularly common for those first two iambs to form a little /uu/

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >feel like you two are talking about different lines here?? OP meant death-bed and you are talking about death's second self, no?
          im talking about the same line "death's seconds" could be a spondee but definitely not a trochee because the first syllable of second is stressed. but it's pretty natural to put more stress on sec than death and it becomes an iamb, since death is a one syllable word and could be emphasized or not, but we know that sec is stressed because it's in a two syllable word.
          >i'd scan this as /uu/ (scanning ruin'd as two syllables and choirs as one)
          the first syllable of ruin is stressed though. this one is the same situation as death's second
          >/uu/ (think we agree on this one)
          again "sec" is stressed. if anything it would be //u/
          >i would also scan this as /uu/
          since this and thou are one syllable each and aren't really special one syllable words like God or Time that we would know to stress, there's no reason to stress them any particular way so we default to the meter and it becomes u/u/

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >im talking about the same line
            the same line OP was talking about I mean

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >since this and thou are one syllable each and aren't really special one syllable words like God or Time that we would know to stress, there's no reason to stress them any particular way
            agree, but in that situation i think one is free to stress them according to the sense, or to what sounds best, i just think the line sounds better with an inversion. Don't you think some stress should be laid on 'this'? it's the culmination of what he's been talking about up to now.
            i feel more or less the same about the others, i just think they sound worse when scanned completely regularly, but i won't fight you on it any further.
            for a third opinion, john gielgud seems to stress 'ruin'd' like you and 'this' like me

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    You probably just dont understand meter yet. Here’s test: do you spot any deviations from iambic pentameter in this sonnet?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I will add that, overall, this sonnet adheres to iambic pentameter. So does the famous one about comparing thee to a summer's day, which I just stumbled across on this board earlier today. So I guess I should focus on Shakespeare's sonnets for now. (I've been reading excerpts from poems in Mary Oliver's Handbook, and maybe she didn't pick the best examples.)

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        you should also try Blake who is very musical despite often not following a strict meter.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Thomas Moore is another musical poet

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >you should also try Blake
          I read bits and pieces from The Marriage of Heaven & Hell years ago, and I seem to remember liking it. I'll definitely give him another read.

          Thomas Moore is another musical poet

          >Thomas Moore is another musical poet
          Thanks

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          I like tigers

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I love poetry but I do sometimes feel as if I’m not really getting it. I think good poetry is evocative and some people just can’t picture or hear what the poem suggests. There’s a degree of creativity necessary.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    Then stop shitposting and show a good poem you like.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Poetry in English is ugly and bad. Unlike in Romance, Russian and some East-Asian languages.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I only like poetry that has a meter and rhymes. I'm actually quite in love with it. I love writing funny things in alternate rhyme and I've even started an epic fantasy poem in terza rima that proved way too tough. Fricking awesome I love this shit. I wish people were cultured and intelligent enough to appreciate poetry just like that instead of using it as a pseud conversation piece to appear smart. If you make characters speak in rhyme everything they say is based as frick.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    And writing poetry makes you appreciate how gigantically skilled people like Dante were. I have mixed opinions about the Divine Comedy but in terms of skill he was the fricking GOAT. Unbelievable wordsmithing

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Yes, just check on IQfy.

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