Don't Read Poetry

I like to think of myself as moderately competent in English... but poetry in this language has always eluded me. I know there is something important and beautiful that I'm missing. I keep trying, intermittently, unsuccessfully, to learn to appreciate it. Burt's teaser — “Don't read poetry, read poems” drew me in, as did her six-axis breakdown.

Unfortunately, this was not the book for me. I need a book written by a late bloomer, not by a lifelong aficionada in a university English department. Burt tries hard, and with enthusiasm, but her words fly past me or shatter against my thick old skull. We are coming from much different places.

I am not completely unchanged. Although some of the book confirmed my prejudices — about some poets being pretentious and self-absorbed; or about “tedious, impenetrable, baffling” being a deliberate art form; or about the need to know a lot about Wordsworth and other pop icons in order to understand their poems — there is much more about minor and minority voices, about the expression of personal and cultural struggle.