How Do People Read Poetry?

Reading is the first step, since the mind then gets the jist of what is being shared, perhaps with pictures played out, as the storyline is portrayed for dramatic effect. The word school may bring back memories of infant school or junior school or senior high school, or even some college or university, or perhaps a scene from a film or tv show. When the poetry has been read, it may have a profound conclusion that creates a sense of the feel-good factor, or cause laughter or shock or even tears to flow. This can happen as the poet or poetess has just created the piece of poetry, whether it rhymes well or not. The rest of the world can read a poem like IF and get the jist of the father and the son fitting into society, while others see it as a word of inspiration to try to reach such standards in the future. So reading has its effects and the hopes and dreams we have may suddenly blossom within us. If we have read the theme before, maybe we will not be as impressed, so that erodes the effects the writer intended. Perhaps the shocks do not shock as much, or the jokes do not make us laugh as much. Perhaps our current mental and spiritual moods are not up to receiving some inspirational point of view. It is the same with writers who come across their poems weeks or months or years later and just feel amused at the childlike views, or the thought that all would turn out well after all. The writers may even edit their previous poetry to provide more insights based on their life experiences. On the poemhunter dot com website, many writers are not English, but share their version of English, so we get confused at first as to the real meanings and cultural references, but if we get some blessing at all, then we have been rewarded. Perhaps we then decide to write our version or translation. It is a matter of whatever we have read before that determines whether we choose to read the next poem or not. Many will be intrigued by the title, or by the first glance that sees lots of exciting exclamation marks, or perhaps dialogue with contrasting views. We may just know the writer's work and look forward to some new treat to savour. But the vast majority of us do not speak the words out loud for fear of making mistakes. When I write a new poem, I choose to read it loads of times and recite it as well. I want to hear how it reads. I even use text to speech software and the poemhunter dot com website has recently added voice readings as a way to share the written word. The talents of some voice-over artists can transform the way a poem is presented and so can the layouts of Internet webpages. Some use calligraphy fonts that assist in the beauty of the themes, or special fonts for dramatic effects. My Stephen Gayford poetry blog just kept using black text on a yellow background, but other blogspot dot com websites use fancy themes and layouts to enhance their content. Whether it is a book or an Internet tablet or a PC monitor view, we can copy that text and transform it with our choice of fonts and perhaps print off copies to frame and display poetry in our own homes. Maybe using a larger font size improves the reading. Thankfully, our Internet web browsers have zoom-in text options, so many more can read the poetry and participate... like the poets of the poemhunter dot com website each and every day... Denis Martindale, copyright June 2014.