Maxine Lei Marie S.

Dagcutan

What are some salient points in the video?

The video presented different areas of poetry and the angles people could take to make
poetry as pleasurable and accessible as the other present forms of art. It took poetry out of a
solid box image it held and placed it in stage where the author doesn’t serve as the sole judge for
regarding the meaning of the said poem but rather places the importance of depth and meaning
put upon by the reader. It is indicated that it is not the actual nature of poetry to induce boredom
out of the readers but rather because of the image “serious” poets had given it. It is only fair to
point out that though some of the heavy, tear jerking, mind boggling pieces had defined literature
over the millennia, it is now time to let go of such image and accept that ideas and imagery won’t
ignite the reader’s love for poetry as it is a detachment of the reality. For most people will not
adhere to literature the same way connoisseurs would, it is a poet’s job not to drown the readers
by giving them everything at once, for it will be like eating the appetizer, main course and desert
at the same time, giving the consumer a cringey and distasteful experience. The video could easily
be divided into three important points, poetry is not all serious and can be taken lightly, the
meaning doesn’t simply apply from the author’s point of view but also the readers and most
importantly a poet mustn’t simply present ideas to the readers but provide a touch of reality to
induce passion and connection to both the words and ideas presented.
What information you thought was so important to you?
I’ve read Inferno, the first part of a long narrative poem by an Italian poet, Dante Alighieri
years ago, and up to this day the images it portrayed is still very much present in my head. What
I did not know that the speaker in this video’s most notable work was translating the divine
comedy by the said author. I was baffled, intrigued to what the translator of such bold and vivid
work would have to say, and alas I was not disappointed. What struck me the most personally
was, to quote the speaker, “Good writing is rewriting”. I’ve always been hard on myself growing
up, to point out the exact reason would be impossible, as I grew up comfortable, loved and well
provided, there was no external expectation placed upon me but the one I’ve placed upon myself.
Failure is a hard pill for me to swallow, it is my greatest fear, it is crippling to not see myself
standing in the stage I’ve planned to be in, and to hear such words from a great man is consoling
to say the least.
It reminded me of General Mikhail Kutuzov a character to one of Leo Tolstoy’s work, war
and peace and as he is said to be a general who never fights. Though, demeaning to some, I relate
to his character in a sense that , for him not to fail, he never fights, as I too is like that. The idea
of being okay with failure has saturated us for so long, that as time pass by it has numb the people
of its meaning. We don’t value the wisdom of failing anymore as the world has given us, little to
no breathing space, we are expected to produce the best and only the best thus making us lose
interest to the things that we once used to love. That is why for me, no matter the river of words
given, what was most important was the words of comfort given by a man who’ve probably
tasted more failures than he did success but is redeemed successful anyway, reminding me that
it is, indeed okay to fail.
What did you learn from the video?
The video carried a lot of wisdom not just from a poet but also from a person. It is evident
that the speaker loves poetry as much as he loves reality. He repeatedly said that, though not in
verbatim but of the same context that often times, it is why poetry became a distant sibling of
the arts is because some educators took serious things, too seriously. Such a light phrase for a
very heavy context, but I think a very salient learning you could get from the video is how
educators affect the views of people at a very young age. Growing up we’d often associate the
feeling of boredom, detachment and complexity to poetry that it would be the only thing we’d
remember about it. Leaving us to question whether it is the readers’ or poet’s fault, but
admittedly, most of the time it is neither, it is implied that the educators of before had a more
backward way of thinking, only proposing that those who cannot relate must not understand. In
a personal light, I say, it is not true at all, for as the speaker has said, a proposition of a lighter,
more relatable set of poetry must be taught at school for them to develop a liking to the craft
instead of things they can’t personally relate. What do they know about Rome’s failure, or the
beauty of Helene whom they have not met personally, if the goal is to make them love the craft,
a certain level of understanding must be reached that, the poet and the reader are not the only
two factors in the cycle of poetry but also the educator who proposes the primary idea about it.

Share your Reflection

I’ve been reading for as long as I can remember, every night as I lay in my bed, I make sure
to read a passage or two before I fall asleep. Reading is such a fundamental and normal part of
my life that I often forget how alien it is for some people. To say that poetry has shaped my view
of the world would be an understatement. I’ve seen it in a light in which it is part of every crook
and cranny of the world. In the video, a speech entitled “The Poet in America” was presented,
spoken by a poet, translator and etymologist by profession John Ciardi but as he spoke, it is clear
that the character he embodies presents an artist and an educator. In the video, he crushed the
centuries long image of poetry as a serious and heavy field but rather an area so flexible, humor
can be considered its staple. Poetry used to be the pinnacle of entertainment, but gone are those
days of glory as poetry only seems to exist in high schools and universities, fed to the students
for them to have a semblance of what it really is. One problem that lots of people have with
poetry is that poets don't "tell it like it is," they use strange and incomprehensible language, full
of "quaint and curious" metaphors that are so far up a young learner’s alley.
After the literature intervention, a repetitive and formula based literature came slowly to
be seen as vapid, as not truly responsive to realities thus, as even perhaps distortive of them. The
same old same old deadens our senses and our perceptions, so that using the same old words
for new feelings would render the new feelings prematurely old. As readers, we’d come to poetry
in hopes of the greater understanding to the feelings we can’t seem to phrase correctly but as it
slowly disappears in society, we’ve come to appear hackneyed by its existence due to the forced
nature some universities presented us. It is then, where I realized that just like any other craft, it
takes years and years of trying to love and re-love it again and again and be satisfied with the
idea that nobody can ever master a creative path. For artistry is not about the mastery but the
continuous effort of trying to gain the idea of mastering it. It where you start on the small things
and try to magnify them, connecting them to the perceived truth of the reader rather than
making it about the vast universe, nobody seems to understand anymore.
For just like angels, the reason why they could fly is because they have taken themselves
lightly. They are strong, beautiful and statuette beings that we view upon the sky, always
wondering how come they could fly and we could not. It is only for us to realize that, just like
poetry, angels are just ideas some you believe in, some of you don’t. Never will it reach a point
that an author and a reader would have a concrete set of definition of meanings in one poem,
for in poetry, you can’t get entirely clarified, what you can hope for as a poet is to touch even a
dent of truth the reader hopes for and as a reader to identify a small piece of yourself in the
words of another man trying to vivaciously define it.