Meanings...

I have noticed a discrepency between Ph.D's and others of us in the fiction/non-fiction writing world in interpreting what a poem means. Or what a phrase in a poem means. Academia tends to reinforce the notion that only they know poetry's secrets. If they don't know, well, sorry to say, they don't admit it.

Last week I heard a lecturer say, unequivocally, that poems only mean certain things. Period. Yesterday I attended another lecture by another Ph.D who couldn't imagine a bit of discord between two people in a scene in one of Billy Collins (former U.S. Poet Laureate) poems. He looked a bit confused when I suggested it. Then said "no it is an ordinary scene...".

At the Dodge Poetry Festival in 2006 I was able to hear Billy Collins talk about his poetry. How he found some of his poems in an anthology and was amazed to see the footnotes suggesting one meaning or another. He went on to say that even he wasn't sure what he meant when he wrote the poem.

I believe there are accepted truths used for poems written in earlier centuries. We take into account the historical time-frame of their writing, metaphors appropriate to their style at that time, rhyme and meter and form used by previous generations of poets. There are also universal (loss, love, lament etc.) and general (rural countryside, city problems etc.) experiences mentioned in all poetry.

However, I also believe in interpreting a poem, whenever it was written, each human being brings to the poem their own relevant life experiences and skill.
This experience and skill, I argue, is equally important when reading poetry.

Emotionally, we cannot remove ourselves from what we read or what we write as much as some like to try to do that. I maintain it isn't possible or we would not be human...we would be word mechanics without thought and experience.

Do I mean that academics are wrong? No. Defintely not. I do make the case that some academics get stuck in the logic of what they know - and dismiss emotion or another way of looking at content. It is this stubborn refusal that turns people off to poetry because they are afraid they will make a mistake in interpretation.

My advice? Enjoy each word on the page - let the images (flowers in the field, or a red wheelbarrow) conjure up in your mind whatever associations you bring to these images. Respond to a phrase with a quick association and enjoy the experience. It will bring the poetry alive for you. Sure you can enjoy reading about various interpretations from other scholars - but never discount your own impressions. Never.