Reflections on class, 9/17

My title is sort of pun-ny since the poem we discussed today was "The Mirror". I'm so funny and smart! :)

Seriously, though, I don't like that you left feeling frustrated, but at the same time, I'm glad you were frustrated. Poetry is difficult--and while I did tell you that the meaning of a poem can be left to interpretation, I did not tell you that what happens in a poem is up for interpretation. And I also told you that some interpretations are better--are more right--than others. Confusing? Yes.

When we explicate a poem in class, we break down the poem to understand its parts and how they function to create the experience of the poem as a whole. Those parts are what the AP test will assess you on. How do those parts function individually? What are they? Name them if you can (literary devices). Should you be good at them right now? Absolutely not. Should you be better than you were 3 weeks ago? Absolutely yes.

Sam commented today that you don't have this kind of time on an AP test--the kind of time to do what we do in class. Of course you don't--then it'd be a 10 hour test! But with continued practice, you will get better, you will get faster, and the analysis will get easier. Give yourselves time.

Our book quotes Emily Dickinson's definition of poetry: "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that it is poetry" (789). If a poet has this to say about poetry, then I think we have room, as readers, to still feel uncomfortable and like we're sometimes whacking our brain against a wall. And that is okay.

I'd like you to take a few minutes to read the passages on pp. 769, 772-774, 777 (top half), and 788-790 (focus especially on the boxed list). I think they might help ease the pain of studying poetry.