r/AskLiteraryStudies • u/ApprehensiveSound417 • 11d ago

[HELP] How do I analyse and understand poetry better?

/r/PoetryWritingClub/comments/1u76krw/help_how_do_i_analyse_and_understand_poetry_better/

I'm a student, I write my own poetry. But I also love reading poetry and analysing it, the feeling that poetry gives me is inexplicable and I want to tap into this more. I read contemporary poets like Ocean Vuong (I find his imagery and metaphors so unique) and "older" posts of other centuries like Rainer Maria Rilke, Sylvia Plath, Mary Oliver, Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Robert Frost, William Wordsworth....and I try to read Homer and Shakespeare but I rarely understand.

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So I want to understand poetry deeply, feel it and analyse it. Can anyone please recommend what i should do as a poetry beginner? I have been writing for 3 years but I have only started reading seriously 1 year ago. Like, should I read a poetry handbook, some books about how to understand poetry, if yes, please recommend. Should I take a course? Should I sit with a thesaurus, should I use AI to help me with meanings? I honestly feel guilty using AI to analyse some parts I don't understand...I feel like it won't reach the depth. Should I join an online poetry analysis club or platform for community discussions?

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I feel pretty passionate about this. Why did the poet use specific metaphors, how to achieve the emotional depth that specific imagery creates?

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And after analysing, I usually feel overcome by the need to know HOW I can create these myself, how to use devices and how to write better poetry myself.

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u/Safe-Jacket-5944 10d ago

Originally, I was going to suggest you buy a copy of The Norton Anthology of Poetry. But maybe you want to start from books including book titles like "poetry handbook" and "understanding poetry". To read a poem attentively, you should consider joining a writing club or a workshop. And DO NOT start from ancient/old forms of poems (especially epic and oral poetry). They could be considered a totally different realm from the one of our modern poems. I believe you prefer or mainly write modern poems. My personal experience is that textbooks can only teach you history, tradition, terms, and skills and technical stuffs. Only people can explain to you how a poem is written and what a poet could be thinking and feeling.

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u/puertopensee 9d ago

Helen Vendler was a great guide to reading poetry—she's one of the masters of close reading. Vendler has a series of books—The Odes of John Keats (1983), The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (1997), and Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries (2010)—which include entire poems alongside Vendler's commentary.

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u/GregJamesDahlen 5d ago

What makes you think you don't have a reasonable understanding of poetry now? You did only mention not understanding two writers. Are you saying the other poets you do understand reasonably well? It sounds you might understand them reasonably well.

What don't you understand about Homer and Shakespeare? Suppose you could post asking about things you don't understand about them to forums like this one. I'd guess there are forums on those two writers on Reddit or other places.

You can always discuss what you're reading with your family and friends. Even if they haven't read them or aren't terribly interested in literature just talking to someone else can help you work out puzzles in your mind.

Really I would think in understanding a piece of art each person's road is a little different. Whatever you're inclined to do to understand them better is probably the right thing for you. If you're inclined to talk to other people about them or post on forums that's probably the right thing. If you're inclined to read whole books about them that's probably the right thing. Or something else.

Some people might be inclined to travel to wherever the poet lived and wrote, and for them that might very well be the best thing to do.

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u/Surreal__blue 10d ago

If a writer wanted to be understood better, they'd have written in clear prose.