Progress

There's been an awful lot of music talk around here, but I haven't abandoned the poetry. Now I am getting into some of Keats' most highly-regarded work. It's taking me a long time to work through the biography at this point, because it is covering his most productive period ('the fertile year') and there is a lot to grasp in terms of his intellectual and philosophical development: basically all the things he'd been thinking about which laid the foundation for this poetry. I am constantly flipping back and forth from biography to poetry to letters, trying to make sure I really get it. There is a lot to digest, is what I'm saying. And I love it, but some nights my brain is all in after 3 pages.

One thing that all this outside reading has done, however, is make the reading of the poems themselves much easier for me. Recently I went back to The Fall of Hyperion, a long poem I hadn't read since I first took up with Keats back it December. And it was easier! I mean, I am getting used to reading poetry, reading every word- not skipping ahead or gleaning- and pausing at the end of each line to allow the image to form in my head. And it helps so much that I am now familiar with Keats life, some of his experiences and thoughts and the imagery that was important to him. It feels miraculous to me to read this stuff that was so incredibly beautiful but almost unintelligible to me four months ago and actually GET it. I lived in a foreign country once upon a time. I worked really hard to learn the native language and I can clearly remember when it first dawned on me that I was actually understanding what the people around me were saying. The language was no longer meaningless background noise with a word or two I could make out once in a while. It was suddenly a living means of communication which I understood and could participate in. That's what reading The Fall of Hyperion this time felt like. Does anyone know what I mean?? Or am I the only one so lost to begin with?

I expect I will be almost starting over again when I start a new poet. But I still think it's progress. And even if I only ever understand Keats (to the extent that I do, I'm not getting cocky over here), I am so much richer for it!

Thoughts? Similar or different experiences with reading? Please share if you have the time, I'd really love to hear about it.

Comments

[Melissa Donovan]

I know exactly what you mean! Some poems resonate the first time you read them, others require extra readings and more thought. That's part of what makes poetry so intriguing.

[Greer]

Yes! It's interesting that you can spend maybe 5 or 10 minutes reading a shorter poem, but then still be thinking about it hours (or days) later.