This blog was suggested by my English teacher at the College of the North Atlantic. At first, I was terrified! The combination of reading the English language and then, writing the words while paying close attention to grammatical correctness , is always intimidating for me and now we added poetry to this combination. I came from a country which shared with the world, many great poets such as Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, and Anna Akhmatova. For the first time, I am discovering all the exciting and the insanely complexities of the English language and how skillfully it is utilized in poetry by other poets.
Often, I have to read a poem several times before I can interpret its meaning and understand the style, moods and tones that are not always obvious. The initial introduction to a poem is usually the first indicator to the number of times I will have to read it. If the poem has something interesting to offer, I will read it again and again in an attempt to decipher the author’s message. When I begin to read a poem, the first reading is just scanning through the words and sentences and this often influences my first impression. I am not aiming for understanding at this point. Sometimes my fear of the language and style overwhelms me and I am not sure what message the author intended for the reader, but I will not give up until I can formulate my own interpretation of what is written.
When I first read Emily Dickinson, I did not understand many of the individual words and their meanings. It was challenging for me to visualize what message she was trying to convey, but I fell instantly in love with her work and the complexity of her writing. You can recognize the great poets by how skillfully they can capture your imagination. It is as though they are trying to share a secret that majority of the society has accepted and considered it to be normal. It’s as though the poet has sensed the flaws and begins to scream her message, in a poetic manner, so that readers will question what society has accepted at face value. They always challenge the thinking of the reader, asking them to reexamine how they view the world and the things we accept as universal truth.
