Reading poetry can be difficult due to figurative language, but readers can learn to enjoy and interpret it by first appreciating the form, then seeking deeper meanings through understanding poetic devices and researching the poet. Reading aloud can also aid in understanding.
Figurative language can sometimes scare readers because it is often difficult to interpret. Poetry usually contains a fair amount of this type of language, as well as meter, rhyme, and other poetic devices. Reading poetry can therefore be difficult and unpleasant for some readers, unless those readers learn to read poetry for both enjoyment and interpretation. One way to do this is to start reading poetry with certain goals in mind. The first time the reader reads a poem, he or she should simply enjoy the sounds of the words, the flow of the lines, and the overall presentation of the poem.
This allows the reader to connect to the poem, even if they don’t necessarily understand the overall meaning or point of the poem. Sometimes reading poetry is about enjoying the form: the combination of words, the sounds they make together, the line breaks and pauses, and so on. The reader may start reading poetry without looking for meaning, which can be frustrating and difficult. Instead, he or she may simply read for reading pleasure.
After the first reading, the reader may want to try and find deeper meanings. An understanding of figurative language may be required, but it is important for the reader to remember that much poetry is open to reader interpretation. This means that in many cases there really isn’t any misinterpretation of a poem; meaning is what the reader takes away from words. In other cases, a poet may have a specific theme or idea in mind when he writes the piece; the reader should be less interested in finding out that exact meaning and more interested in getting their understanding out of the words.
Studying the different types of figurative language, meter, rhyme, and other poetic structures can help a reader arrive at a more common interpretation of poetry. Understanding terms like simile, metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, onomatopoeia, and so on can help the reader understand the language more efficiently. Researching a bit on the poet can also give insight into the meaning of the poems, since the reader will be able to get the context from which the writer was writing that particular piece. Reading aloud can also help the reader hear sounds or patterns that they might otherwise have missed when reading silently.
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