To Find a Poet

I used to hate poetry, I didn't understand it - couldn't be bothered analysing it. I mean, how on earth was I supposed to be able to figure out exactly what the author meant when writing? Did the person in question write notes in the margin on how/why things were written or meant to symbolise? No, and how should I - after x number of years - be able to understand?

I think school played a major part in me not liking it (bear in mind that I am now a teacher myself). We were given poem after poem that reflected authors and different times and I just didn't get it. I'm not even sure I wanted to understand it. It was dull stuff at a time when everything was supposed to be fun and not to mention the fact that someone told us to read it - we were, after all, teenagers and being told what to do did sometimes create the opposite effect.

Then something happened. It was while at Uni. I was bored senseless with all the different stuff we had to read (some of it was just plain awful i.e. Hanif Kureishi's Buddha of Suburbia) and one of our teachers decided to read a poem by W. Wordsworth (The Solitary Reaper). And I was just blown away. It was fantastic and hearing it being read by someone who knew how to read it made all the difference to me and it still remains to be my favourite poem.

I must admit, however, that my search for poets/poems has been fairly stagnant. I read some stuff and some I liked and some I didn't like. A while back, I was at home and a girl on telly was singing the most fantastic song. I searched for her music and realised that the lyrics were in fact poems by a Swedish poet called Dan Andersson. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Andersson)

I have now read a fair few of his poems and they are absolutely fantastic. I've always loved reading books but this is just like discovering a completely new and uncharted territory despite the fact that it has always been there right in front of me!

I am astounded by his work and can't wait until I go home for Easter and can actually buy a book with a collection of his poems so I can read them "properly" rather than having to search for them on the Internet.

What is it that makes us understand things we didn't before? Is it as simple as having lived those few extra years or is it what we experience during those years? Surely the mere number of years aren't enough to make me "get" poetry and I must say that I don't feel as if I have lived through anything special that would kick-start my poetry-reading-skills (they were admittedly absolutely s##t).

It doesn't really matter though, does it? But it does fascinate me . I honestly think I was too young, too naive and simply hadn't had time to experience life in the way that I needed to. I always thought I was too dumb to get it but I hope not and as I have been proven wrong about poetry I can only hope that it means that I am not as dumb as I made myself believe.

It is doubtful that I, from now on, will love all sorts of poetry and understand all of its meanings but just maybe I'll be able to find more that I like and if I don't? Well, in that case I think I can be happily satisfied with what William Wordsworth and Dan Andersson managed to pen during their lifetimes.

Ems -
who's found her poet(s)