This act of completion begins when you enter the imaginative play of a poem, bringing to it your experience and point of view. He also suggests that a poet depends on the effort of a reader somehow, a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun. Williams admits in these lines that poetry is often difficult. William Carlos Williams wrote a verse addressed to his wife in the poem “January Morning”: The third is assuming that the poem can mean anything readers want it to mean. The second is assuming that the poem is a kind of code, that each detail corresponds to one, and only one, thing, and unless they can crack this code, they’ve missed the point. The first is assuming that they should understand what they encounter on the first reading, and if they don’t, that something is wrong with them or with the poem. Most readers make three false assumptions when addressing an unfamiliar poem. ![]() This approach is one of many ways into a poem. To ask some of these questions, you’ll need to develop a good ear for the musical qualities of language, particularly how sound and rhythm relate to meaning. Since the form of a poem is part of its meaning (for example, features such as repetition and rhyme may amplify or extend the meaning of a word or idea, adding emphasis, texture, or dimension), questions about form and technique, about the observable features of a poem, provide an effective point of entry for interpretation. ![]() The goal of careful reading is often to take up a question of meaning, an interpretive question that has more than one answer. ![]() Effective technique directs your curiosity into asking questions, drawing you into a conversation with the poem. Curiosity is a useful attitude, especially when it’s free of preconceived ideas about what poetry is or should be. Reading poetry well is part attitude and part technique.
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