stop and smell the parentheses...

You might wonder what my qualifications are to run a blog about poetry. The answer to that is very little. A) I can read and B) I really like it. I know that a lot of people don't think super highly of poetry. But I think that's because we feel kind of stupid if we don't get a poem the first time we read it. And then of course there are the teachers and others that ruin it for us because we HAVE to find whatever the author intended and there's always only 1 answer. In addition, there isn't a lot of instant gratification. Anyone that thinks they understand a poem after only reading it once, doesn't. We get impatient if our computer's take even a moment to download information and we tend to think our brains are the same way. If it doesn't download instantly it must not be worth our time. This is where poetry falls through the cracks. Here's what works for me: I have to slow down for a few minutes, read it through a couple times (and read it out loud, but that's a topic for another day), and then let it roll around in my head as I go about doing other things. Then come back to it late at night when I'm sleepy (not sure why this works, my brain is just in a different frame of consciousness, I guess) and then I read it again. That's when whole thing will come alive and something will make sense.

I was reading some Langston Hughes for my class (I'm a student once again) last night and found his tone and style thrilling. He contributed greatly to the Harlem Renaissance, a time period when African American arts began to boom, beginning just after the turn of the century lasting until around the 30s. Hughes wrote poetry as well as novels and plays. I am including a recording of him reading the poem. If you let it, it just might change the way you think. After all, isn't that the beauty of the poetry?

Negro Speaks of Rivers

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I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I'm not sure how to make this work, so in the meantime just copy and paste in your browser window: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mFp40WJbsA