I have not read much poetry. In fact, other than the poems I was forced to read in high school, I have read almost no poetry in my life. The only exceptions are poems written by my sister and brother-in-law, and a small collection of poems by Sylvia Plath. I guess I should count The Odyssey as well. It says something that our book club waited until pick #98 to discuss a collection of poems. My wife (I'll call her Amy), selected a book of poems written by Tony Hoagland called What Narcissism Means to Me. We had an excellent discussion that explored the themes of the poems (anger, anxiety, love, ego). Amy did a nice job of setting the tone for the discussion with some well thought out points. We all really enjoyed the book and agreed that what was masterful about Hoagland's style was his ability to create an impression of a story, establish characters, and create vivid moods, all while employing beautiful if spare language. Reading these poems was actually enjoyable and did not feel like work. I can feel the poets just cringing at this sentiment, but so often, reading poems can be a chore. This collection has really opened me up to exploring poetry further.
This was crystallized for me when each of the four of us (one of our members could not attend) took turns reading our favorite poems. As I listened to my friends read the poems aloud, I appreciated the humor, anger and pathos of the poems more intensely than when I read them. Poems are meant to be heard.
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That sounds inspiring to me. I like the title too! I never thought of poetry as a chore, just something different, like a minor diversion from reality. We read a lot of the Beat poets (Ginsberg, LaLoca, Ferlenghetti) and my father always read poetry to us (Blake and ee cummings) which gave him great joy!
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