People often judge you immediately when a person says, "I don't like poetry". They think, she's unintelligent, she has few emotions, she doesn't enjoy life as one should.
I do not love poetry. I appreciate it- I understand that it's a powerful medium for translating a person's emotions. I understand that it can lead to discovering greater human truths.
Doesn't mean I have to enjoy it.
I tend to be a straightforward person- I don't play games when it comes to practically anything in life; from boys to literature. I like my facts cold, hard, and straight to the point. That is probably the reason I am a math and science person; I lean away from subjects that have grey area and opinions.
While poetry may not be practical, it is certainly common in our daily lives.
We hear it in our music, in our speech. We see it in our writing, in our classrooms. But what would you consider poetry? Can one word be poetry? Can one line, one sentence, a book, a picture? Is poetry strictly written and spoken? Can poetry be drawn?
This is one of the few reasons I enjoy poetry- its flexibility. Though it is full of grey area, poetry has loosely defined rules that leaves anyone a poet if they want to be one. They might not be a very good one, but they still are one. Children forced to write poetry in kindergarten are poets, just not very talented.
Why are children taught poetry at such a young age? They aren't capable of understanding the deeper meanings in the vast majority of poems, such as Dulce et Decorum Est, which is just a gruesome description of wartime. 1st graders aren't going to know how mustard gas boils skin, or that men with no legs are left behind in trenches, or how when a soldier returns home, his home is no longer home.
I agree that children probably should not be told to read graphically violent poems when they are young, but I disagree with your assertion that they should not be taught any poetry when they are young. All of Dr. Seuss's books are poems. In fact, most of the books that were read to me as a young child were poems. I do not think that age should be a factor in deciding what media of art to teach children.
ReplyDeleteI'm on the same boat as you, Mills. I do not feel very strong emotional connections toward poetry- I more appreciate it for its existence value, if you will. I'm glad it's still alive and well in today's society and that it hasn't died off as many other art forms have.
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