On Poetry

I've been posting poems for Holy Week partly because April is National Poetry Month (and partly because we are bizzzzzz-eeeee with church services and houseguests!). But I thought it might be helpful to reprint here Semicolon's rules for reading poetry:

1. Always read poetry out loud. Hide in a closet if you must, but poetry read aloud is much easier to understand and feel.

2. Read each poem more than once. I suggest you read the poem aloud three times at least.

3. Don’t try to understand every word or phrase. Grab onto the phrases or images that do make sense to you, and enjoy those. Little by little , the poem may come to be meaningful as a whole.

Try it; you may like it.