How to Enjoy Poetry

This is difficult to rate. My enjoyment was peaked when going through a poem, but that's the smallest amount in this book - majority just him talking about himself.

When I picked this up I didn't realize who Frank Skinner even was, if I'm being honest. So I have little attachment to how he perceives poetry but I did enjoy what he had to say about the poem “Pad Pad” - except the Art bit, more on that towards the end of my review.

I've read a few poems and poetry collections and I've always felt quite distanced from them. Maybe just one or two that sung to my heart. I will take more of a patient approach in my next poetry read and try and give my brain the similar jolt of deconstructing, analyzing, and imagination that happens for me when reading fiction novels.

So yes some good tidbits. Happy to hear from a poetry enthusiast on how he enjoys this crafted art and hope to embark some of this for me in the future.

Lower rating primarily given to the fact that how short this is and while I knew it wasn't hundred pages of scholarly dissections but rather a ‘hobbyist' view for poetry I'd of still enjoyed more time in the poem and his thoughts vs using the first 15pgs out of a 50pg book about how he got involved in poetry. In my opinion, it'd of been better to work through these revelations within the poetry so we can see how his worldview and life career affected how he saw the poem. Also - to of talked more of how Stevie Smith used art in her poetry. While he has a disdain on Smith's art because it wasn't how he initially perceived the poem, if he keeps going back to it time and time again to explore more, why dismiss the art altogether? Bc it felt like an attempt of apologizing to the readers? I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself properly but for making such a finite decision regarding the art as a bad thing, for limiting our mind, isn't that going against what he's saying in the rest of this book?

A snippet about his time at a museum, that he likes to look at the paintings to start coming to his own ideas and then reading the info so as to not be confined to what ‘experts' have said. A similar approach to when he's reading poetry. This is actually a great point I agree with. But why the opposite for art accompanying poetry? It felt like a full stop in his mind. Which discredits the art in museum idea. I am a person who loves imagery. I'd like to one day absorb a poem the way I've absorbed art. I think art could be a way to force a reader into opening their minds and dissect further vs creating a contained rigid exploration in the poem, to leave one absolute in the meaning. Is the art contradicting to what's in the poem? Does it provide a wider lens for the poem, to expand it beyond the limiting words on page? In my humble opinion, I'd like to think that the art as an additional piece to poetry, one way or another gets you to think beyond just reading the words and moving on. But maybe renowned poets and poetry lovers have set precedent that it's taboo in a way.

Perhaps Skinner also delves deeper into all of these things in his poetry podcast. But this alone did not convince me to start listening just to find out if that's true or not.