How compare/contrast poems?

Question

Bearing in mind that I've never study poetry before could you tell me how would you compare and contrast two poems using terms such as Rhythm, form, meter, sound & communication. I've read Seven Centuries of Poetry in English by John Leonard p.567-586 assuming that it might help and was tough to understand. I am struggling to understand most of the poems I've read so far let along comparing/contrasting them.

I specially like to hear from someone who struggle like me but managed to overcome.

I am facinated by hearing the wonderful world of poetry and envy those who enjoy the blissfulness of poetry. I want to go there too but already tired without knowing where to turn.

Answer 1

Okay...you've basically asked us to explain all the nuances of poetry in a single question...whew! Okay, let's see if I can summarize quickly:

Rhythm..."I think that I shall never see..." this is "iambic", which means the reader hears short-long, short-long, short-long on the beats...can you "hear" it?
compare that to "Never have I known a man", that's "dactyl", because it's long-short, long-short, etc. There are other rhythms, such as "anapest" and "trochaic", and I'm sure you can google these to get others.
Meter: how many feet? Shakespear loved "pentameter" or 5 feet...which can also be called 10 beats, as in, "Awake for morning in the bowl of night"...if you count each short-long as a foot, you'll count 5 feet...if there are five feet in an iambic rhythm, it's called "iambic pentameter" (penta meaning 5).
Form: sonnet, ode, villanelle, terza rima, ballad, free verse, open verse, etc. Also shown as rhyme patters such as abba cddc effe gg or abab cdcd efef gg (both sonnets with 14 lines...although other sonnets have slightly different form). You have full rhyme, abab, or half rhyme (also called slant rhyme) abcb, or arched rhyme, abba. These are all forms.
Sound has to do with things like sibilance (seven silent stallions slowly stompted...sssssss sound), or alliteration, Playful pods of porpoise plung (similar consonant sounds...sibilance is a type of alliteration). You also have words that make you think of the sound itself, such as "bang" and "snap".
communication: it depends on whether your saying "who" is speaking in the poem or if the poem is able to speak to you...effective communication...do you see what the speaker is trying to convey? In some cases the communication is from images, in others, the words, almost prose (like a story), is the speaker speaking in present, past or future tense...these all are communication issues.

So, you can compare meter, form, rhyme, sound and communicaiton by stating who each poem was formed and how well it succeeded, plus comment on whether or not you think the form, rhyme, meter and sound served to enhance it to its best advantage or if it might have benefitted from a different form.

Answer 2

First, I'd like to echo DBee's excellent comments. I think one of the secrets of enjoying poetry is to read it out loud.

Poets carefully choose each word in their poems. So if the poet chooses the word "rock" instead of the word "stone", the poet is considering how the word sounds and how it makes the reader feel to say it. Yes, both "rock" and "stone" are words that can create a similar image in your mind. But for me, the word "rock" is harder and scratchier, while the word "stone" is smoother and rounder. It's nuanced, but you see the way the word sounds subtly affects what the word means to the reader.

You said you wanted to hear from people who have struggled to understand poetry but have managed to overcome. I am one of those people. For me, reading poetry means I am entering a place where I don't quite know what is happening. I need to settle into a sweet confusion and just go with it. I'll read the poem out loud two or three times. It's almost as if my "poet brain" needs to warm up and then I can understand it or even love it without completely understanding it. Sometimes a poem is like a glimpse of a dream - you see the image and feel an emotion, but you can't explain the entire meaning.

For me, the more poetry I read, the more I feel comfortable with it and can see connections between poets and ideas. Hang in there, you're not alone, and dive right into the sweet confusion of poetry.

Answer 3

Sadly, this question should have 12 answerers in as short of as many minutes--ESPECIALLY in this forum. The first thing I will recommend is that you consider some audio recordings, like I know you can find most of Shakespeare's poetry and Spenser and the like performed in audio; and none to surprising--they are cheap. The audio will help you to get a better grip on the musicality of those older poems without having to weed through the silent Es and ancient spellings. Read along with the audio renditions of the poems and that will get you further comprehension. Now, oddly, the same thing is true of modern poems. If you can find an audio recording of the poet and the work it will make the comparison go much faster. If not, might I suggest you read the poem yourself aloud and record it if that is a possibility for you.
What will become very apparent to you is the musicality of the poems. You find that various kinds of form poems compare most easily because they still have that fundamental thing in common with their predecessors. Comparing a 15th century sonnet to James Tate is something entirely different! You might consider, when first making comparisons, to look at the modern poem and see what it's roots are. If it is a prose poem, then you should look to Baudelaire who was the father of prose poetry. If it is a free verse poem, then look back in on Walt Whitman and his literary roots. Free Verse, btw, is not modern at all in it's origin, you can go back several, several centuries and find it. The rhyming thing is a belief that Formalists hold in regard like Baptists hold the New Testament. For Formal poems you can go back in time, but keep in mind that this works best in the original language, because a lot of Formalists tried to hard to make rhymes and meters where sometimes rhymes and meters did not exist. When looking at the post modern poets and the language and experimentalists, this is a little newer, but you should be able to trace them back to the European surrealists and dadaists, from there you will see that most of them were doing what they did for a literary reason and you can trace that reason and their literary trainings. So once you are able to trace modern apples to ancient apples, you can then begin the process of comparing apples to oranges.
BTW, when you compare apples to oranges, don't be surprised to be dealing with a lot of stems, seeds and pulp! =D And one thing you should hold true is that poetry sings. It is meant to be lifted off the page and put into your mouth. Poetry comes from a long history of oral tradition, it was performed in courts and countrysides for time and memoriam. Sounds and musicality are the key fundamentals to understanding poetry. Yes, the poet usually is trying to convey something, but think about what the poet is trying to do first: get you to feel the poem by reading it aloud. That is the first and most essential connection between the writer and the reader.

Do well.

Answer 4

DBee,

That was my thumb, and I only wish I had more of them!