This past week we began to talk in class about the matter of poetry - in particular the formal elements of a poem's construction. It is challenging for me to talk about poetry in such academic terms, because it sort of sucks the enjoyment out of reading poems for the sake of poems.

However, on Monday for the first time I was challenged to consider how a poem's meaning was enhanced by its form. My group read a "Sonnet 73" by Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote the sonnet according to appropriate sonnet form of 14 lines, with a specified rhyme scheme, in iambic pentameter. At first, it seemed to me that such strict gridlines left little room to creatively employ the sonnet's structure in the poem's message, but I was obviously wrong. The speaker's attitude towards death - calm, resolved yet sad, at peace - was reflected in the poem's form. A reader is guided slowly and methodically through the words, learning gently and calmly that the speaker's death was near. There is no rushing in the even rhythm of rhyme, no uncontrolled emotional outpouring. It is simple, sad, bittersweet, peaceful.

And now for something completely different.

Recently (due to my ever-approaching honors thesis) I have been pondering the struggle of defining literature as "good" and "bad," or more appropriately "high" and "low." Though my focus will be primarily on prose, I suppose the same struggles exist in the realm of poetry - perhaps even more so. Poetry often seems so personal that to judge or critique is deemed inappropriate. Of course, this is not the case - bad poetry certainly does exist and should be weeded out... or kept in a person's private journal.

I suppose then my problem is with the seperation of high and low. It seems that many post-modern poets have bought into the stereotype of the tortured artist, and so has the academic reader. If it's not sad, tragic, dark, convuluted, disturbing, rebellious, or angry, then not only is it bad poetry, but it is low poetry. Anything joyous or humorous or simplistic is relegated to the pages of the latest "Chicken Soup for the Soul." I don't really think that this is right.

I'll muse some more on this subject another time.