Poetry…purposely complicated

Readings 4 & 5 for the masters program are two collections of poetry, “Holding Company” by Major Jackson, and “Poems” by Elizabeth Bishop.

I’ve come out of it with the understanding that poetry isn’t for me. I mean, I sort of went in with that notion, but slogging through over 200 pages of it has really hit the nail into the coffin.

This isn’t to say that I hated them; there were many of the 150 or so poems I read that I liked for the rhyming patterns, or the way words sounded strung together, or the general mental picture they created, but for the majority of the read, I just sat there being confused.

Poetry seems to be about a moment, or a feeling, or even a minute dissection of something, and it’s really just what’s in the author’s head. “Holding Company” had some notes about certain poems in the back, which I found really helpful when I went back to read them because it at least gave me some context for what I was supposed to be looking at.

Although I still found Jackson’s poems less accessible than Bishop. His style is mostly free verse and while I liked the imagery and word choice he used, I honestly just didn’t get most of his poetry. It’s incredibly cerebral, and based on the back notes, I have a feeling I was supposed to be reading far more into each line than I actually was.

Getting through Bishop’s poems isn’t much easier, but she uses a story telling style that appeals to my plot obsession and I feel like I actually take something away from her poem that isn’t a just glazed over look of stupid.

Either way, I won’t be seeking out any more poetry anthologies of my own accord.