I can still hear my high school English class groan as the teacher announced Poetry week. I might have been, felt like it, the only one who loved this block of lesson time.
However, just like art class, I saw and felt a different meaning to each piece. I couldn’t tell you what the writer meant, I wasn’t there. I can tell you what I felt from the piece.
I hated having to fit in with the established concept of the poem meaning. The focal is here, but I’m seeing, feeling something over there. Why am I wrong?
Granted the writers were commenting on their world and time – fine, that is pretty much fact. But how do we know they felt the same general, average emotions I was supposed to feel? Maybe they were over there, too.
Maybe they wanted their words to bring more to life than a repeat?
Maybe…and maybe the mood was blue and they saw red because they were simply looking out the window.
Who decided being blue meant you were down, anyways?