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Poetry Appreciation Discussion - April 2024 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-04-12 20:36:43
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2026-06
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  • Poetry Appreciation - Motherhood - Plath, Swenson, Bradstreet.pdf

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Content

Dear Book Club Readers ---

Your appreciation of great poetry in March was phenomenal, and it would be lovely to hear about the poems you're enjoying this month.

Our poetry appreciation thread is the place to mindfully check in and share what poetic works have resonated with us recently. So let us know:

What poems are you appreciating at the moment?

Let us know anything that has resonated with you during your poetic excursions:

  • Resonant lines

  • Striking imagery

  • Sublime musicality

  • Intriguing allusions

  • Compelling themes

  • Your favourite poets

  • Powerful metaphors

  • Elements you want to examine

  • Poems you want to recommend

  • Reflections, musings, and insights

  • Passages you're learning by heart

This is the place to put your poetry appreciations and get other readers weighing in on your thoughts!

Curated Poetic Vintages:

Your responses to our last three poems were beautiful. It was exciting to see the different links you discovered. And you can see the poetic connection I had in mind, along with my appreciation, in the downloadable PDF at the bottom of this post.

I have specially curated three more poems for you to enjoy. There is another link running through these poems for you to discover. It could be thematic, stylistic, or philosophical. Indeed, it will be possible to see multiple connections.

You don't need an in-depth knowledge of poetry to uncover the connection. You only need to read, reread, and feel. And the more you read, the more you will discover.

I would love to know what you make of the chosen poems. Which one is your favourite? Which poet resonates with you the most? And what lines stand out to you?

I will reveal the link running through them in the next poetry thread, along with the next three poetic vintages. And all poems can be found in the Norton Anthology of Poetry, which makes an excellent poetic textbook.

Thank you so much for sharing your love of great literature with us.

Happy reading, everybody!

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Comments

Val

Thank you for sharing the selected poems! I found "Porphyria's Lover" the most captivating, and appreciate the morbid turn it took. I assumed early on that Porphyria herself was someone otherworldly or a manifestation of some concept like death or innocence. Still, I expected her to be the one to enchant and hurt the speaker, so I was surprised by the reversal there. I loved the line "as a shut bud that holds a bee." That's such an interesting way to describe violence without pain - and one that feels way too real to me as the new owner of a venus fly trap that always seems sentient when it catches bugs! As for my own poetry reading, I just finished Dawn Watson's verse novel We Play Here, about four girls growing up in Belfast in the '80s in what the poetrybook website accurately describes as "an eerie, elemental landscape of normalised violence, poverty, and neglect." It was an interesting read that I appreciated for its refusal to comfort readers with any sense of future -- it was firmly stuck in the present moment as experienced by each girl, whether we liked it or not.

Hannah

Initially I didn't love The Raven but have been spending some time with it. Something I noticed is the italicised words in the poem: "Here" "He" "She" "Still" This struck me as basically a summary of the whole poem. Here he is, and she is still, in his mind. It really pulled on my heart. Lines such as: "Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow" And "Leave no black plume as a token of that lie they soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!" Filled me with such emotion! I enjoyed the in-line rhyming and repetitive nature of this work, it added to the sense of gloom and despair to me. The monotony and never-ending feelings that grief can bring. I see a thread of haunting throughout these poems. Being haunted by a lost love, by the loss of youth in Tithonus and haunted by perfection or warped ideas of love in Porphyria's Lover. They actually reminded me of one of the curated short stories The Horla from last month - in haunting and in the general melancholic feelings. I'm going to spend some more times with the other poems and catch up on everyone else's thoughts!

Ldawg44

I have loved the raven for years but I had never read the other two! I am choosing to focus this post on porphyria’s lover. It started off reminding me a lot of the raven; there is a tempest, an unsettling feeling, a vaguely supernatural character emerging from the storm… On my second read, however, I wondered how much of that was merely influenced by having just reread the Raven. Did others feel like Porphyria was a supernatural being? Or was that just my interpretation? I was also very interested in the speakers fixation on her hair. The speaker mentions it many a time: we are told that it is yellow and that she is very fair so we get the sense that her hair is lovely, feminine, and alluring… and yet it ends up being the thing that he uses to kill her. So it is both beautiful and deadly. I think that mimics the lyrical nature of this disturbing little poem, and speaks to something sinister about the larger nature of love and attraction. In both cases, we are drawn in by something that is aesthetically pleasing, and yet that aesthetic contains a darkness that we might not notice at first.

Robert Smith

The Browning poem , with the twist at the end made me laugh out loud.

Nancy Cross

Hiya Benjamin, is there a particular edition of collected poems by Yeats you like? Also what edition of Norton’s anthology of poetry do you recommend? Thanks for your help!

Jamie Newman
>>135576483

Nancy, I've been using the sixth edition and finding everything in there that Ben has mentioned!

Emma S.

I've been reading haiku by Basho recently. This one made me smile today. If I'd the knack I'd sing like cherry flakes falling. Just conjures up such beautiful images.

Jonas Svensson

The swedish translation I’m reading is fabulous, got to be a reread in english this summer.

David Stephens

Speaking of Poe, I simply adore his poem "THE BELLS".

Helen Lyons

I cannot say I understand all poetry, however my favourite from this group was 'The Raven' I loved the rhythm and could imagine the whole setting. I also love crows and magpies and see many around where I live. I agree Ben with your comments in the notes, it is always good to treat these birds with respect. My second favourite was "Porphyria's Lover" The notes are really helpful for someone new to poetry.

Patrick All-de Lange

When I saw these three titles, I thought The Raven would have my vote for sure. I love that poem, I have read it out loud so many times to enjoy the rhyming scheme. But! I was completely blown away by Porphyria's Lover! There is so much in that poem. Every sentence has a meaning and hidden meaning. From the bad weather to the personification of the wind to the unreliable narrator and the twist: it is awesome! There is so much to discover in it. I can recommend this page if you want a more in depth look into it: https://poemanalysis.com/robert-browning/porphyrias-lover