WHAT DOES A POEM MEAN?

Suppose you meet this orchid, what

experiences (thoughts, feeling,

idea, etc.) do you have in mind?

Your experiences might form a poem,

because poetry is “a kind of language

that says experience more and says it

more intensely than does ordinary

language.”

WHAT DOES A POEM MEAN?

USES OF LANGUAGE

• Practical (to provide information)

• Hortatory (to persuade)

• Literary (to share experience).

PRACTICAL

What is Love?

Your Name

I wrote your name in the sky,

but the wind blew it away.

I wrote your name in the sand,

but the waves washed it away.

I wrote your name in my heart,

and forever it will stay.

(Jessica Blade)

Love is a deep, tender,

ineffable feeling of

affection and solicitude

toward a person, such as

that arising from kinship,

recognition of attractive

qualities, or a sense of

underlying oneness; the

emotion of sex and

romance.

SUBJECTS OF POETRY

• All life Experiences;

• Poetry concerns with all kinds of

experience—beautiful or ugly, strange or

common, noble or ignoble, actual or

imaginary, philosophical or practical,

happy or sad

FEATURES OF LANGUAGE LITERARY USE

ENABLE READER TO IMAGINATIVELY PARTICIPATE IN THE

COMMUNICATED EXPERIENCES, WHICH, IN TURN, WILL:

Broaden reader’s experience (by involving in new

experiences)

Deepen reader’s experience, since he/ she is

involved in experiences he/ she has gone through.

One of the paradoxes of human existence is that all

experiences—even painful experience—when

transmitted through the medium of art is, for the

good reader, enjoyable. In real life, death and pain

and suffering are not pleasurable, but in poetry they

may be. In actual life, if we cry, usually we are

unhappy; but if we cry in a movie, we are manifestly

enjoying It.

To appropriately share the experience in a poem,

reader should understand and respond by applying

five rules:

1. Read the poem more than once to get its full meaning

2. Read the poem aloud, or, if you can’t bring yourself to read aloud, at

least sound the poem in your mind’s ear. The sound might help you

understand the poem.

3. Keep a dictionary by you and use it. It is fruitless to try to understand

poetry without troubling to learn the meanings of the words of which it

is composed.

4. Always pay careful attention to what the poem is saying.

5. Think about the effects of reading the poem on you. Jot down your

responses to the following questions:

a) Do you find the poem interesting? Why or why not?

b) Do some things on it interest you more than others? If so, why?

c) Does anything in it puzzle you? If so, what?

General Meaning, Detailed Meaning, & Intention

• The general meaning is a kind of summary of what

the author expresses in the poem. Thus, it is based

on a reading of the whole poem and should be

expressed simply in one, or at the most two

sentences.

• The detailed meaning is the meaning provided in

every stanza. It may be written as a continuous or

two short paragraph.

• The intention of the writer is the feelings the poet is

trying to arouse in the reader.

WHAT IS AN EAGLE?

Eagle is any of many large birds of prey belonging to the family Falconidae. It

is characterized by imperforate nostrils, legs of medium length, a hooked bill,

and the claws roundly curved and sharp. Land eagles are feathered to the

toes; their length is about three feet, the extent of wing seven feet. Eagles are

monogamous. They mate for life and use the same nest each year. They tend

to nest in inaccessible places, incubating a small clutch of eggs for six to

eight weeks. The young mature slowly, reaching adult plumage in the third or

fourth year. (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007)

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ringed with the azure world he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watched from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

(Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892)

The Challenge by Jim Rohn

Let others lead small lives,

But not you.

Let others argue over small things,

But not you.

Let others cry over small hurts,

But not you.

Let others leave their future

In someone else's hands,

But not you.