APPRECIATING POETRY, THE LAYMAN’S GUIDE

Many people find it difficult understanding poetry, so they abandon the subject and conclude that poets are “confusers”. Some poems are straightforward but not all of them share this feature. Some poems twist our minds to make us dig deep to find meanings. With poetry helping me through many of life’s challenges, I have realised that writing poetry must come with this basic explanation to demystify its confusion. I define poetry as pouring out our hearts to unburden our souls hoping to reach others who will learn, appreciate, sympathise, and entertain themselves.. Let us use child poetry to make it easily understandable.

RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY

GO AND COME ANOTHER DAY

LITTLE CHILDREN WANT TO PLAY

RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY

How many people think past rain in this poem? But the rain is just a symbolism beautifully wrapping the problems in the poem. The rain can stand for poverty, sickness, sadness, tiredness, death, you can think of others while the third line represents an innocent person wanting to live, or someone in dire need to be free.

So it can read like this:

 

SICKNESS, SICKNESS GO AWAY

GO AND COME ANOTHER DAY

I NEED GOOD HEALTH TO HELP ME PLAY

SICKNESS, SICKNESS, GO AWAY

 

Let’s take another child poem:

ONCE I SAW A LITTLE  BIRD

FLYING UP, UP, UP

SO I CRIED A LITTLE BIRD

WILL YOU STOP, STOP, STOP,

I AM GOING TO THE WINDOW

TO SAY HOW DO YOU DO?

BUT IT SHOOK A LITTLE TAIL

AND AWAY IT FLEW

AWAY, AWAY, IT FLEW

 

This means birds grown in the wild, even some at home, are wary of others for their safety. No matter how innocent others’ thoughts are, the bird will always be on its guard and will not heed to any one’s call no matter what it will gain for safety.

 

There is also this funny child poem

I AM A LITTLE TEA CUP

STANDING ON THE TABLE

THIS IS MY HANDLE

AND THIS IS MY SPOUT

IF YOU WANT A CUP OF TEA,

JUST POUR ME OUT

JUST POUR ME OUT

 

Apart from this teaching children how to use a tea cup, it can be related to human nature. Once you get to know people, you can live with them without problems, you press the wrong button and you get into trouble just as you can get into trouble if you are careless with the tea cup, you can break it or hurt yourself if there is hot liquid in there.

What I am trying to say here is that, poetry is meant to amaze, advice, teach, praise and entertain.

Whenever you meet a poem with difficult vocabulary, all you need to do is to get a dictionary and put on your thinking cup, poets who are really hurting seek to pour out their anger but hate for just everyone to understand, as that will mean the person watching the poet’s nakedness of heart. A poet who is also extremely happy might want to hide his or her source of happiness with words.

Just think that poetry without difficult vocabulary has a hidden meaning, one the poet desperately needs to hide. All it takes is a little curiosity, research and thinking, and it will show itself perfectly.

It is a puzzle, yes, but a puzzle that must be unraveled to deepen our thoughts.

Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia © 2014