Extra Credit Post

Poetry has always been enigmatic to me. I can read or listen to poetry and appreciate its unique structure and rhythm, maybe even glimpse some meaning from it, but it has always been difficult for me to interpret the deeper message the author is trying to convey through their words. Because of this, I knew that attending a poetry reading and being able to write a 300 word response would be a challenge for me. I had never heard of the poet before but Graham’s poetry caught my interest because they were so different from most of the poetry that I have ever read. One line that really caught my attention was from the poem After Taxes. “We are more boring in the dark, less ugly.” I cannot remember the rest of the poem, but for me this line had some meaning.
In a very literal sense the poet is saying that life is more interesting because of the variety of people, places, animals, cultures, etc. In the dark it is easier to hide our imperfections, our differences. This would make life much less interesting because there would be no variety, no differences, no arguing, no controversy. This may be a very literal translation of the authors words, it may even be completely opposite of what Graham was trying to say to his audience, but that is the beauty of poetry. It can be interpreted in dozens of different ways, depending on the reader or listener. This means that even someone who is poetically challenged can get something out of reading a poem. Graham’s poetry was so unique, it was shocking and abrupt and that is what made it interesting to me. Many poems that I have read in the past a too wordy and focused on form that I become distracted by the rhyme scheme or having to lookup words that I do not understand. That what was wonderful about Graham’s modern poetry, it was short and to the point, but there were also many layers of meaning behind his words.