The reading this week was about how poetry is like a "language within a language." From reading I learned that once the tone and the language level is found, the poem can be better understood in a more clearer verbal way. The chapter made points of experimenting different ways to see it as a different language by thinking of it as music. It discussed that the sound of words are raised to an importance equal to their meaning, and that words can be put together that puts extra emphasis on what sound they make. All together thoughts and feelings are the raw materials of poetry and the connection to better understanding it is emotional and musical.
Reading this chapter was some what easy to understand and I didn't have many questions to ask about it. The only thing that I would have trouble with is being able to point out the emphasis on the words in the poems. For example, looking at different ways to say the word means it will have different meanings. I have to learn to read it slowly and think a little more about what is actually being said. For the assignment this week, I was very confused on what was to be done with writing a dictionary entry for the word. After it was discussed in class it was more clear on what was to be done with the word we picked from a poem. Another question that ran through my mind was how do poets think of what to say or how to even start their poem out. After reading I saw that poets need to first think of how they want to something to sound as much as they think of what they want to say. The reading said it's hard to distinguish one from another.
Some things I thought were interesting or something that I learned was that poetry language is used by "persons who have things (known to them or not known) that they need to say, and who are moved by this need by a delight in making music out of words." Making music out of words is a good inspiration tip to go by because it makes you think of a little more on what to say other than rhyming words together. I also learned that a artistic discipline is this chapter was that a poet learns the language of poetry, then works with it and is always being inspired by it. A artistic process that was mentioned in the reading also showed me that repetition and variations of sounds could make the second verse after it sound sad and memorable, whereas the first has no such music to keep it floating. All of these tips and points made in the chapter could help me be better at writing poems and stories if I think of the words more than just words.
