Poetry

I have always enjoyed poetry, though I can't say I have always understood or appreciated it. There is a difference there, you know, between enjoying and appreciating literature. One can enjoy the sound of the words as they form on the lips, but it doesn't always follow that one can always grasp the meaning behind them. At least not immediately.

Sheakespeare is like that for me. I have always (ever since I picked up my first Shakespearian play, Romeo & Juliet) enjoyed reading Shakespeare, but at the same time he's never been an easy read for me.

More traditional poetry is also like this for me. I read Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake when I was 19 and while I enjoyed the ebb and flow of the words there were aspects of the epic poem that I just didn't get. I'm much better with the simple poems.

As a child my favorite was Vachel Lindsay's The Moon's The North Wind's Cooky. Which to this day I still love and often recite for my daughter. One day I hope to have the opportunity to study poetry, perhaps with my book club (it was discussed as an option during our last meeting). But for now, here's a simple children's poem I discovered a few months back (Accrossthepage) about one of my favorite places:

Library
No need even
To take out
A book: only
Go inside
And savor
the heady
Dry breath of
Ink and paper,
Or stand and
Listen to the
Silent twitter
Of a billion
Tiny busy
Black words.

[Library From All the Small Poems and Fourteen More (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994)]