How to Read Poetry

Reading poetry is different from reading fiction. To begin with, poetry is usually much shorter, often in short lines with much space around it. Each word in a good poem is important to the meaning. Look on my page What Is a Poem? for more information. Here's a good way to read poetry:

1. Read the poem once straight through. I suggest reading it aloud, because most poems are meant to be heard.
2. Read the poem again, trying to understand the exact sense of all the words. Some words may have more than one meaning. Look up any words you don't know.
3. Paraphrase the poem in regular words. This means asking yourself, "What does this poem say, line by line?" and answering the question. This helps you understand it better, and also to see the the difference between regular writing ("prose") and poetry.

   (These steps are from Kennedy, X.J. and Dana Gioa. An Introduction to Poetry. 10th ed. New York: Longman, 2002. 6-7)

4. Ask yourself, "What's going on with this poem?" Look on my page Elements of Poetry for some things that can be part of a poem's meaning.

Sometimes you can understand a poem easily, and other times it is hard. It takes practice. A poem usually says something that couldn't be said as well any other way. Here is a story about that:

When the poet and biographer Jay Parini visited The Haverford School, he told a story about Robert Frost: After a reading, Mr. Frost was standing outside, and a lady who had been in the audience approached him. She told him how much she had enjoyed the reading, and especially the poem "Fire and Ice." She asked if he could tell her the meaning of that poem. He answered that he certainly could, and said:

SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

This is the entire poem. In other words, the meaning of the poem is the poem itself.

Or, as Archibald Macleish says in the poem Ars Poetica,

A poem should not mean,
but be.