Why Do We Like the Poems We Like?

Why Do We Like the Poems We Like?

In grade-school, I encountered the poems customarily encountered by my generation: Emerson’s Concord hymn, Frost’s “Stopping By Woods” (which we had to memorize), Kilmer’s “Trees,” and parts of Hiawatha. There was a mixture of the patriotic, the safe, the conventional, and the pleasing (Hiawatha is fun to listen to, especially for children).

In high school, things got more complicated, but not much. English teachers preferred short stories (“Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge”), novels (Lord of the Flies), and plays (Romeo and Juliet; Julius Caesar). When I got to college, I finally encountered poems that bowled me over, such as Randall Jarrell’s “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” and Karl Shapiro’s “Auto Wreck.” I liked these poems because they surprised me. In a way, they didn’t give me a choice. They insisted that I like them. They presented images of and provided a new language for war, death, and terrible commonplaces like car-wrecks; they did things with poetry I didn’t know, until then, could be done.

I think we pretend to or agree to like some poems because we are supposed to. I think we like others because they remind us of a certain time in life or a certain moment; they help mark a memory. And I think we like others because, when we read them, they strike quickly, they pierce, and they satisfy by surprising. I also believe poetry pierces in ways that novels and plays can’t—even though novels and plays are equally powerful, in their own ways. Nowadays, people—even people who study literature, I might add—don’t like poetry, fear or dread poetry, or otherwise just avoid it. But that’s a different question, one I might take up later.

For now I’ll end by offering this opinion: the poet whose opus is most full of piercing surprises is Emily Dickinson, who may be the most misunderstood or mis-characterized poet ever. I still cherish her wonderfully observed poem, [“A Narrow Fellow in the Grass”].