16 | A&E and Opinion
Poetry Should Be Open For Interpretation Taylor Posik Staff Writer
Poetry Blocks. (image courtesy: Insight Puplications) “Is poetry dead?” It’s one of the most asked questions as mankind moves through the twenty-first century. People are drifting away from traditional poetry and turning to Instapoetry such as the #1 bestseller of 2017, Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, which had sold millions of copies worldwide within the first three months of being released. While this question can be interesting to ponder, it’s not the only question that should be asked. Teachers incorporate poetry into their lectures to improve children’s reading and writing skills from an early age. In addition, it can help develop speech, creative skills, understanding of real-life situations and help children to get in touch with their emotions. However, it has not gone unnoticed that English teachers have a habit of guiding students through a poem while correcting students’ viewpoints. This behavior can be noticed as early as elementary school and persists throughout college, begging the question: is poetry really open for
interpretation? Firstly, an interpretation is not an opinion, it is an understanding of what’s being viewed. For example, someone can make an interpretation that a poem is about love and connect their claim to evidence within the poem. However, if they make the same claim without any way to back up their reasoning, it’s an opinion. Furthermore, an opinion can be as simple as someone being drawn to a particular piece. “In a poem, the evidence is every word...It generally helps to read a poem several times, looking up words or allusions, and then most readers will ‘get’ the poem— unless it’s a very difficult poem,” says English Professor Dr. Allison Cummings. In a class at SNHU, students were asked if poetry is meant to “teach or delight.” Depending on the way a person looks at a poem, it could be both. The “delight” aspect is as simple as reading a poem for fun. When a poem “teaches” something, it can have several meanings. It can use
technical forms and allow people to “consider all the words, their arrangement (syntax), and implied or double meanings, to arrive at a solid interpretation. If a reader overlooks some lines or words and arrives at a misinterpretation, it’s like a lawyer overlooking a key piece of evidence and losing a case,” says Cummings. Whether in the classroom or on one’s own, poetry should be open for interpretation. As an art form, the main purpose of poetry is to make a person feel something, and individuals’ feelings shouldn’t be invalidated. There’s a reason why people have differing interpretations of certain art forms. Sometimes they are reminded of what they’ve experienced, other times they may be based on desires or fears. Unfortunately, students are hesitant to speak up in class because they don’t want to be told they’re wrong. A teacher can explain a key part of the poem a student may be missing, but they shouldn’t immediately reject the student’s analysis. As long as they’re backed
