Hard-to-Understand Poetry

[Arrigo_Lupori]

Some poetry is hard to understand. The poets may not specify the point of their poem and the reader has to try and infer it from the blurry cover of symbolism and metaphor. Additionally, the topic may be so deep and/or intricate that even the author doesn't know exactly what he or she means (which is why the author uses poetry to try and express it than explicitly with plain old literal language).

Do you like poetry that is hard to understand? Do you find it deep and interesting? Or, do you prefer poetry that you can comprehend completely and easily?

Yes I do. Sometimes one must write in a way that is hard to understand in order to get the point across to the few who can follow.

[Libs_Books]

I like poetry that doesn't necessarily yield up all it has to say at a first reading. For example, even a simple poem, such as Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, can have hidden depths. But then there are obviously complex ones, such as Donne's Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, where the complexity is deliberate, but you can still unravel it, and enjoy doing so.

Sometimes difficulties in understanding arise because times have changed so much since the poem was written – poems from medieval times being an obvious example – but they can still be a joy.

And then there are poems where the poet seems to have deliberately set out to make life difficult. That can be annoying, but I love T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland and also – one I discovered much more recently – Dowson's Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae (It's only the title that's scary – honestly – and, if you're interested, PM me and I'll send you a link that explains it).

What really, really annoys me are poems where you have to know things about the writer's personal life to fully understand them. That strikes me as arrogant and elitist – it seems to assume that we would want to know and that just gets my goat.

[Crawdadnelson]

The brain only improves when challenged.

[R-Myra]

Poems by Shakespeare are very hard for me to understand. I tried many times to understand what he wants to convey but I came up empty handed. Guess it is not my cup of tea.