Poetry assignment

First off, I feel like this guy knows way too much about poetry and writing to not like it.

I disagree with a lot of what he said. Just because he doesn't like poetry doesn't mean he has to ruin it for everyone else. To me, this Bernstein guy seems like an arrogant @*$&*%&^%$! Haha :)

I started out not liking poetry. However, the more I read and the more we discussed as a class, I began to understand it, which helped me appreciate it a lot more. Now, I really like poetry. I think poetry most definitely (in a valley girl accent) has a spot in our literary study. I don't think it is absolutely vital for someone to know about the intense poetry if the really don't want to, but I do think it helps the reader understand other things more easily. For example, after doing the poetry unit, King Lear was not easy to understand, but I had more patience than I did at the beginning of the year with other hard "works of literary merit" that we have completed. So maybe it isn't totally necessary but it "exercises the mind", which I enjoy!

Along with getting a good brain workout comes the analysis of poetry. This is something I really struggled with at the beginning of the year and sometimes still, but it comes a lot easier now that we have discussions. We can absolutely go too far with analyzing. However, it's fun sometimes! Honestly, think about how boring our class would be if we didn't over analyze.

So basically, I think that guy is a jerk. He can diss poetry in his mind if he wants, but leave it alone. He's wasting a lot of energy on something he hates!