Too often, people don’t read poetry because they assume they will not understand it. Sure, some older writing can be hard to read, but poetic writing does not need to be intimidating! Recently, a friend told me that she wanted to read more poetry, but she didn’t know where to start. So, assuming she was not the only one with this dilemma, I decided to create this list of 3 poems that made me love poetry.
“High Waving Heather” by Emily Brontë
This is one of the first poems I read and immediately loved. I discovered this poem after reading Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. The meter and rhyme in this poem give it a musical quality and a cryptic feel like Emily Brontë’s prose. While it was written in the 1830s, the language is not archaic and I highly recommend it to anyone who thinks that they cannot understand or enjoy old poetry.
“America” by Allen Ginsberg
This poem creates these moments of visceral heartbreak where the speaker laments his country that has, in so many ways, failed him. Yet, he juxtaposes these with lines that are laugh-out-loud funny. While Ginsburg wrote this poem in 1956 and it has moments that reference political events of his time, it encapsulates a timeless catharsis. I have read this poem countless times the past few months as I have felt a great disillusionment with my country, for I find great comfort in Ginsburg’s bitter humor.
“The Truth the Dead Know” by Anne Sexton
Admittedly, this poem is quite sad. Sexton captures a moment of the deep grief felt while leaving a parent’s funeral. Yet, she does it so well. That pain that is so inevitably tied to human experience seeps from her words. Once again, this shows how a poem written half a century ago can still be powerful.
These poems are certainly all different in tone and subject matter but, in effect, they all do the same thing. There is a magic to good poetry in how it ties people together from different times and different places… people who would never be able to interact or care for one another in any other way. Poetry allows for this amazing type of empathy amongst people that will never met. Maybe if we all just read a little more poetry, we could create a more empathetic world. It would be a small step, sure, but a step in a good direction.
*Photos used from here