a prose poem about how i don’t understand poetry at all
(I'm at Orton Park Festival, and two women have a table set up offering to write poems for a dollar. I tell them that I'm not particularly fond of poetry. Or, rather, I don't 'get' poetry. So, they took my dollar and wrote me a poem about how I don't understand poetry.)
a prose poem about how i don’t understand poetry at all
by Miriam Hall
8-25-07
poems are dense
made up of a thousand ideas packed into only a few lines. it’s too tense. expectations. will i understand it? will anyone care if i don’t care? it’s too hard. i prefer novels. they are long and i can lay my mind out on the spines of them, forget to read so carefully for a few minutes. poet-novelist nicole krauss says poetry is harder than novels. i agree. my head hurts after them. and yet, somehow, at the end of this one i feel understood. and it’s ok.
a prose poem about how i don’t understand poetry at all
by Miriam Hall
8-25-07
poems are dense
made up of a thousand ideas packed into only a few lines. it’s too tense. expectations. will i understand it? will anyone care if i don’t care? it’s too hard. i prefer novels. they are long and i can lay my mind out on the spines of them, forget to read so carefully for a few minutes. poet-novelist nicole krauss says poetry is harder than novels. i agree. my head hurts after them. and yet, somehow, at the end of this one i feel understood. and it’s ok.
