Poems: Three Series, Emily Dickinson
I read these poems via Serial Reader, which actually turned out to be a good way to make sure I really paid attention. Sometimes, if I try to read a book of poetry at a single sitting, I find that they start to just blur past me. This way, I had more concentration for each individual poem, which helped me appreciate them more. Emily Dickinson isn’t my favourite poet, and I really wanted to give her work a chance.
I did enjoy some of these poems, but for me the regularity of the poems is a downside. I do enjoy highly structured poetry at times — I love villanelles, for example! — but with a simple form and those constant rhyming couplets, it felt almost trite to me. Possibly because Dickinson’s poetry is quoted a lot, but even the ones I didn’t know at all… I don’t know, simple a/b/a/b rhyme schemes really bore me. Alas.
I find rhyme a particular problem in narrative poetry where, combined with endless iambs it tends to lull e to sleep.
What’s a villanelle?
It’s a highly structured form of poem with repeated lines. Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night” is a villanelle.
I adored Emily Dickinson’s poems when I was much younger. I have reread many of the things that I loved in my youth and it can go either way. I discover insights that I didn’t know were there, or I might wonder how in the hell I liked it in the first place. I do tend to like poetry that is more structured, however.
Toady recently posted…Nonfiction November: Fiction / Nonfiction Book Pairings
I do like structured poetry, but when it’s also extremely regular in rhyme scheme and such… eh, it doesn’t sound interesting to me, you know?