Poetry

Wow, this man may be the most opinionated man I have ever seen. And for what? Arguing that poetry isn't worth our time? That's quite insulting to the poets who have made it their lives work to create these poems... While I do agree with him that poetry gets a little lost in main stream media today, it still deserves to be recognized as a form of art. Poetry is meant to be savored, like a good dessert, not consumed quickly like so many people want to do with other literary works. In order to promote this "savoring", I feel that we do need to make the poetry more accessible at first to draw people in, then challenge them with some of the more complicated (and yes, more depressing) poems. Most people have not had the advantage of an AP course like us, so they need those baby steps in order to appreciate poetry, not matter what this extremely opinionated man has to say... And really, how is this promotion of poetry any different than promoting a new book or movie or art museum? These works of art need to be put into main stream advertising in order for people to learn about them and in turn appreciate them.

A risk we take by advertising poetry is the chance that once people read poems regularly, they start to over-analyze them. While many times there is a second meaning hidden in a poem, there are also cases in which you need to just take the poem for what it is. No, that poem isn't about the sacrifices that people have to make in society or about the grim death of a soldier in battle. It really is just about a toad getting it's leg cut off by a lawn mower. But Mr. Bernstein will obviously never experience this problem, because he believes he is far too superior than the lowly people who read poetry... Makes me wonder how intelligent this guy is, because he may as well not read books while he's at it...