How to Read a Poem
(Page 2 of 2)
May-June 1999
by Edward Hirsch, from New Age
In its final stanza, in an extraordinary turn, the villanelle becomes a love poem. By the poem’s structural logic, the loss of the beloved must necessarily be the greatest loss of all. The conclusion is the first acknowledgment that this final loss actually feels like, looks like, a disaster.
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By forcing herself to write it down—" (Write it!)"—the author forces herself to face her loss. The activity of writing mirrors the psychological process of recognition, and the process of recognition becomes the emotional discovery of this poem. The reader overhears what the poet is making herself acknowledge. Rather than the villanelle’s being a container into which a poet pours previously worked out thoughts and feelings, the form itself becomes a way for the writer to unearth those feelings.
Poems can be accessible in different ways. Some may carry meaning that seems readily apparent at first but that deepens the more you attend to them. But even poems that seem initially resistant, even inscrutable, will reveal their secrets after study and reflection.
I say that one should turn on a lamp and read a poem in the middle of the night because poetry is a solitary, intimate, and passionately private communication from a soul to another soul. Remember that poems demand an attentiveness to language and values that requires concentration. But if you invest something of yourself in the daily reading of poetry, you will find this simple act rewarding, even necessary.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that poetry is “what will and must be spoken.” It is a secret that can no longer be kept secret, a way of knowing. Whenever a poem enacts what it is about, it creates a way for itself to live dramatically inside the reader. The great poem is the message salvaged from a wreck and sealed in the bottle. Take the time to go down to the dunes and search for that bottle. When you find it, bring it home, because it is now yours. This haunted and haunting message was meant for you.
From New Age (Nov.-Dec. 1998). Subscriptions: $24/yr. (8 issues) from Box 1949, Marion, OH 43305-1949.
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