What Does a Poem Mean?

Let’s wrap up National Poetry Month with some quotes for poets. These quotes come from articles in the April Oprah magazine:

“Why Poetry Matters

…it shows us ourselves by illuminating the interior lives of others. One cannot read a poem without being aware of the poet’s voice – whether loud or barely a whisper – speaking across the distances, time and space. Poems offer a form of refuge.

They can comfort us when we grieve or can celebrate joy. And poetry helps us remember – keeping alive the cultural legacy of a people.”
Natasha Trethewey – United States Poet Laureate from 2012 – 2014. 

“It’s Not a Test

A peom is not a test. Readers of poetry can’t fail. When you read a poem, you can, if you like, cling stubbornly to a ‘wrong’ answer to the question, What does it mean?

Poems aren’t meant to express what can be expressed in everyday language. Like dreams, they come to offer us strange new experiences, or to remind us of those we thought we’d forgotten. They can be understood in the parts of our brain that appreciate sounds, or smell or the experience of awakening and feeling unaccountably anxious.

…Go out in search of poems you like, that can become yours. What they mean to anyone else is irrelevant. They mean what a leaf blowing across the freeway means. They mean what the open eye of a goldfish looking into your eye means. The limitless pleasures of poetry are yours for the taking.”
Laura Kasischke – 2012 recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry

Great advice: “The limitless pleasures of poetry are yours for the taking.” Don’t forget it throughout the rest of the year!

Quote of the Week

“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” – Dolly Parton

Fun With Language

As found in Reader’s Digest

“I asked my three-year-old what she liked to eat.

‘Nuts,’ she replied.

‘Great,’ I said. ‘What kind?

Pecans? Walnuts? Peanuts?’

‘Donuts,’ she replied.

Quote of the Week

Here is a good quote for National Poetry Month:
“…the great instrument of moral good is the imagination.” –Percy Shelley, “A Defense of Poetry”

Fun With Language

In my article “How to Banish Typos, Misprints and Other Writing Disasters” I pointed out how one small mistake can wreck a document.

I found this item in the Reader’s Digest and it is quite sad but will give you a chuckle. Her type didn’t  just wreck her document, it killed any chances of getting interviews:

“After I sent out resumes to universities regarding faculty positions, my husband asked if I’d cought the typo, the one where I addressed the cover letter ‘Dear Faulty Search Committee’ ”-Jennifer Gotbeck

Quote of the Week

And here is the final quote

On the realization of her dream to become a judge, from the chapter in her book where she took the seat as the judge for the District Court of the Southern District of New York: “Sometimes, no matter how long we’ve carried a dream or prepared for its way, we meet the prospect of its fulfillment with disbelief, startled to see it in daylight. In part that may be because, refusing to tempt fate, whe have never actually allowed ourselves to expect it” – Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Sonya Sotomayor’s book “My Beloved World” p286

Fun With Language

Quote of the Week

Some practical advice from Sonya Sotomayor’s book:

“Sometimes, idealistic people are put off by the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in heaven. To succeed in this world, you have to be known to people.” – Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Sonya Sotomayor’s book “My Beloved World” p218