Comments on: Poets in Dialogue

by: Laura Harris

Mon, 05 May 2008 18:08:18 +0000

When I first read the poetry dialog, i found myself intrigued with delight at the thought of responding to another persons poem. The concept brought new ideas and meaning to my words. Through writing a response to a poem written by Wallace Stevens title, “The Snow Man”, I gained a deeper perspective on his meaning then I would have by mere dissection and analysis. I began to learn how to develop the mind of a poet when I realized I have the ability to observe and think as Wallace Stevens might.
I learned that each poet will interpret an idea, scene or event differently. Stevens spoke about what it means to look at winter through the eyes of the “snow man”. Or rather, Jack Frost. I had the opportunity to respond by adding what I would feel and experience if I had the mind of winter.

by: Travis Croft

Fri, 02 May 2008 20:39:50 +0000

Throughout the course of the semester I have been responding to these poems by my own experience. I have also been looking at these poems throughout the author’s perspective as well. I enjoy this poet’s dialogue it’s a new way of looking at poems. It is probably one of my favorite sections that we have looked at this semester. I enjoyed the poem by Elizabeth Bishop’s The Fish. Being a fisherman myself I can see a different perspective than that of Elizabeth Bishop. I can also see where Bishop is coming from, when reading the poem. Within the concept of poets talking to one another, I see that the authors are putting their own personal experience in when they rewrite the poem. I get a lot more meaning out of a poem when I see it through the eyes of my past experiences rather than the author’s experience. This type of poetry will continue to be a favorite of mine and I will enjoy reading this type of poetry in the future.

by: Joanna Hendrick

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:59:28 +0000

The concept of “poets in dialogue” is a completely new concept for me to think about (like just about all other things pertaining to poetry!). It is something that I find really interesting and fun actually. To be moved by a poem written long ago enough to want to expand on it or respond to it is a really awesome thing. I think that it also shows the original writer a lot of respect and admiration that their poem was able to impact someone’s life in that way.
I thought that the dialogue between the shepherd and the nymph was really well done. The shepherd had such lofty ideas as to how the romance was going to turn out but the nymph was not at all impressed. The other two poems however, did not seem to connect as nicely, they were both separately beautiful poems but didn’t bounce off of one another as well.

by: erin emenheiser

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:45:33 +0000

I guess I never really thought I could respond to poems–or any literature, for that matter. When something is printed in a book, it seems so permanent and authoritative. For years I have equated publishedness with universal truthfulness, yet I realize that (almost) anyone can have their ideas published, as long as they can find a company that will agree. Maybe it’s the bound covers that scare me; none of my work–whether prose or poetry–has ever been good enough to be printed between two beautifully designed book covers, and I feel inadequate as I read and disagree with things that are. For these reasons, I haven’t really thought about interacting with poems in dialogue–I didn’t know that I could.

by: David Kent

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:04:19 +0000

I consider myself to be at least slightly intellectual, and that’s pushing it, but one thing is for sure, I love a good argument. I love responsive poetry because it is a marvelous way to provide a side of an argument and allow there to be persuasion in literary skill. One of my most favorite pieces is “Williams is Wrong.” I think there is a wonderful tension between William Carlos Williams and the author of the piece, though not literally, of course, that makes the poem have much more dimension to it. I also like the poets overwhelming use of imagery, as though battering Williams with proof of the beauty that comes from the country. I wrote a piece arguing with both of them and really enjoyed utilizing the way literary tools paired with an original argument can really make a strong point.

by: Marty Zimmerman

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 01:53:38 +0000

I had never before been exposed to the fact that poets have been in dialogue with one another over the span of centuries. The idea is new to me, yet it makes complete sense that poets would voice their own opinions in response to the works of fellow poets. Subjects spark a variety of opinion and it is a wonderful thing to see professional and creative minds “speaking” with one another in relation to one of these topics. Over the course of this semester I have found myself forming opinions and questions as to the positions of various poets, trying to determine whether or not their position is correct. The opportunity to respond to a certain poem was an interesting challenge and one that I did not entirely master. I attempted to respond to the poem “Grass” by Carl Sandburg. This particular piece caught my attention early on in the semester. It portrays the grass as a hard-worker, and contained a dark tone. I thought I would try and portray the grass as something where social gatherings take place, like picnics, and where children play games; I wanted to create a happier tone, a much more light-hearted image of the grass. However, by trying to incorporate a rhyme scheme, the poem took a series of unintended turns and did come together as I had hoped. The exception to this was the third stanza which contained an entirely different pattern of thought, and proved to be the best of the three. Of this stanza, only three lines significantly stood out. I hope to continue this line of thought from the third stanza and thereby create a poem that is of good content and is in dialogue with Sandburg.

by: jessica joy (nelson)

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:45:29 +0000

I do certainly always find myself wanting to respond to poems as I read them. Even poems that I disagree with I sometimes fall in love with because of the beauty of the poetry, and want to respond. It is the nature of poetry, and all art, I think, to evoke a response. If it does not do so, either the art is not fulfilling its purpose or the observer is not trying.

In regards to Jubilate Agno, I am one of those cat lovers who does love this praise poem. I love the way that cats move and how friendly cats act around people, and I think that all creation was made for the purpose of giving glory to God, so it is fitting to observe how a cat moves and consider it worship. More importantly, I think that reveling at the things that God’s creation does, and praising it is a worshipful activity for humans to do, because we are considering and wondering at, and fascinated with, and giving glory to God for the things He has made in his great power and wisdom. 

by: Kyle Hey

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:33:43 +0000

Poet-dialogue is something that i have not been exposed to in my discipline. I found this interaction very neat. The exchange if ideas has always fascinated me as a history major. So when i discovered this exchange in poetry i found it very interesting. One thing that i like about this dialog is that it does not have to be an immediate response. A poet today could respond to a poem from hundreds of years ago. I find it interesting to observe the change of ideas over time. For instance, in the response that i wrote to a poem was a respond to “the anthem of the doomed youth”. So i did not have the same ideas about a doomed future like the post WWI poet did. Instead i responded with a more hopeful message. Both responses where a result of the time period we lived in but it was still a dialogue.

by: David Ben Avraham

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:00:04 +0000

The idea of dialog through out the ages, is an amazing one. How wonderful it would be if we could in some way talk with Moses, or Abraham, or the things I would tell Hitler given the chance. Though some what un natural to me, I feel that this is spectacular. I have often found myself ruffled up by an idea in a poem, feeling absolutely vulnerable to the living words on the page and yet, what response could I give to this frustration? How could I connect with the pain felt by the character or poet? I really enjoyed writing my own reply to a poem written about the Holocaust in which a woman pleads to her readers that they must remember what was done to them. And I the seed of the survivor tell the poet that I will remember, I will carry this story even to my children and my children’s children. Strangely, now that I know that it is “kosher” to interact with any given poem, I feel like I now have a doorway open before me that will give me the power to interact with history past or present.

by: Marianna Santos

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:24:47 +0000

I was fascinated by this section in our book. I thought it was amazing that these poets were able to connect with their predecessors by dialogueing with their poems. I was particularly interested in the cat poems, in which the poets so humbly praised characteristics of cats that are often overlooked. It’s neat to observe how the two poets paid attention to different qualities, and drew different conclusions as to the purpose and meaning of the cat’s existence. Together, they challenge us to look more closely at the world around us, to find beauty in the things we so often look over, to appreciate nature and our surroundings.
I thought this week’s exercise was also really interested. In thinking about the poem I wanted to dialogue with, I was challenged to think outside the box and connect with the poem on a new level. I choose to write on the poem I wrote my paper on, and it turned out pretty well since I had done a close reading of the poem already. I believe this is a crucial step in successfully dialoguing with poems.