The Abstract

As we progress further and further into the poetry unit, I can't help but become somewhat annoyed by this textbook and the bizarre questions it contrives. The poems that we have been reading this far have been quite enjoyable in all aspects save the questions they seemingly answer. None of the poems have been overly simple, either; quality was not sacrificed for accessibility.

Before I return to the book, though, I must take a brief digression. I notice that the more thoroughly I am able to judge a judge a poem depends on how much of it I am able to analyze. I love to analyze poetry, but I am also a bit sad about how little some poems have going on in them. Take, for example, my favorite poem, an untitled piece by Mark Z. Danielewski:

"Little solace comes
To those who grieve
When thoughts keep drifting
As was keep shifting
And this great blue worlds of ours
Seems a house of leaves

Moments before the wind. "

It may be difficult for someone to argue that this poem is especially deep (other than I'm meaning), and one wouldn't be out of line in arguing that the poem is too simple. It IS simple, and it's meaning is obvious. I wish it had more layering and more to analyze, but it's still my favorite poem, and it's far more preferable to the opposite end of the spectrum.

So why does the textbook bother me? Because of the way that it treats poems at the other end. Poems that are full of fluff and have very little going on. Poems like 'You Are in Bear Country', where any meaning associated with the poem is based on totally abstract,  invalid evidence from the text. The textbook treats this pointless abstraction like masterpiece, and it feels so pretentious in doing so. The textbook asks questions so contrived that I cannot imagine how they were imagined. It makes the experience of poetic analysis much more of a chore than it should be.