How Do People Read Poetry? Poem by Denis Martindale

Reading is the first step,
since the mind then gets the jist
of what is being shared,
perhaps with pictures played out,
as the storyline is portrayed
for dramatic effect.

The word school
may bring back memories
of infant school
or junior school
or senior high school,
or even some college
or university,
or perhaps a scene from
a film or tv show.

When the poetry has been read,
it may have a profound conclusion
that creates a sense of
the feel-good factor,
or cause laughter or shock
or even tears to flow.
This can happen as the poet or poetess
has just created the piece of poetry,
whether it rhymes well or not.

The rest of the world can read a poem like IF
and get the jist of the father and the son
fitting into society, while others see it
as a word of inspiration to try to reach
such standards in the future.
So reading has its effects and
the hopes and dreams we have
may suddenly blossom within us.

If we have read the theme before,
maybe we will not be as impressed,
so that erodes the effects
the writer intended.
Perhaps the shocks do not shock as much,
or the jokes do not make us laugh as much.
Perhaps our current
mental and spiritual moods
are not up to receiving
some inspirational point of view.

It is the same with writers
who come across their poems
weeks or months or years later
and just feel amused at
the childlike views,
or the thought that all would
turn out well after all.
The writers may even edit their
previous poetry to provide
more insights based on
their life experiences.

On the poemhunter dot com website,
many writers are not English,
but share their version of English,
so we get confused at first
as to the real meanings
and cultural references,
but if we get some blessing at all,
then we have been rewarded.
Perhaps we then decide to write
our version or translation.

It is a matter of whatever
we have read before
that determines whether we choose
to read the next poem or not.
Many will be intrigued by the title,
or by the first glance that sees
lots of exciting exclamation marks,
or perhaps dialogue
with contrasting views.
We may just know the writer's work
and look forward to
some new treat to savour.

But the vast majority of us
do not speak the words out loud
for fear of making mistakes.
When I write a new poem,
I choose to read it loads of times
and recite it as well.
I want to hear how it reads.
I even use text to speech software
and the poemhunter dot com website
has recently added voice readings
as a way to share the written word.

The talents of some voice-over artists
can transform the way a poem is presented
and so can the layouts of Internet webpages.
Some use calligraphy fonts that assist
in the beauty of the themes,
or special fonts for dramatic effects.

My Stephen Gayford poetry blog
just kept using black text
on a yellow background,
but other blogspot dot com websites
use fancy themes and layouts
to enhance their content.

Whether it is a book
or an Internet tablet
or a PC monitor view,
we can copy that text
and transform it with our
choice of fonts and perhaps
print off copies to frame
and display poetry in our own homes.
Maybe using a larger font size
improves the reading.

Thankfully, our Internet web browsers
have zoom-in text options,
so many more can read the poetry
and participate... like the poets of
the poemhunter dot com website
each and every day...


Denis Martindale, copyright June 2014.