The readings of this class seemed to have got my mind rolling on what poetry really is and what can I get out of it. Coming into this course I thought why in the world do you not just come out and say what you want to say instead of writing something hard to understand like poetry. Then the dreaded thing happened . . . I looked at my first reading assignment for this course and it was poetry. Not only was it poetry but one of the poems actually was named "Poetry" (Moore 146). So needless to say, I am thinking what have I got my self into and how am I going to make it through this thing that troubles me the most, poetry. What must be done must be done; I began reading. Once getting into the first section, "Poetry" and "Ars Poetica" began to define what poetry was. While on the other hand, "Love is Not All: It Is Not Meat Nor Drink" and "You Fit Into Me" helped me develop this new found understanding of what is to be taken from poetry. The poems helped me have somewhat of an understanding of why in the world someone would read poetry or even worse write it. .
The poem "Poetry" (Moore 146) began to answer my question what is poetry. In the beginning of the poem she describes how poems should balance the figurative and the literal world in order to help the reader's understanding. It is also stated that a poem must not become "derivative as to become unintelligible" (Moore 146). This is one problem I have always had with poetry and I was glad to see someone else address this issue. It is one thing for someone to strip something down to a sense of understanding but another to lose its sense of self or meaning due to breaking it down to much. The author describes this as "losing the rawness" (Moore 146). A sense of rawness is what makes a poem have a since of meaning to me but to lose its rawness eventually loses my tune as a reader. This poem got me started on to a question that intrigued me, what actually is poetry?.