Of all the different forms of art, poetry is one of the most accessible ones. Everyone is capable of writing a poem, because sometimes the verses could be as simple as the ordinary sentences we say in our daily life, like William Carlos Williams’s This is Just to Say. A poem that tells a story of him feeling sorry for secretly eating the plum that perhaps his intimate one kept in the icebox. It is a simple poem without much decoration, yet it is its simplicity that demonstrates a vivid breath of life to the readers and evokes their memories of similar experiences.
Sometimes a poem can resemble a maze. We may be bewildered among the abstract metaphors and unacquainted allusions, we may hardly get out of the maze and find out what the poet wants to convey with our first attempt to go through it. Nevertheless, the process of exploring can always be full of joy. To me, I am frequently impressed by the creative ways that poets employed to express their emotions and thoughts. For example, one of the poems that our class analyzed in the poetry workshop, the Wild Geese written by Mary Oliver, is a poem that is interesting and worthy of exploring. The poem starts with an eye-catching verse “you do not have to be good”, which would probably foster one to question: how can this link to the wild geese? Tracing the lines, we slowly unveil what Oliver wants to convey, she uses the symbolization of wild geese as a free, unconstrained animal to encourage people to liberate themselves from the anxieties, concerns and stresses from the outside world and be what they truly want to be from inside. I especially love the three parallelled verses starting with “meanwhile”, by putting three distinctive scenarios together, Oliver creates an atmosphere of carelessness. The world is ginormous with hundreds and thousands events going on at the same time, how significant is our sorrows compared to the vast world? Is it worthwhile to be troubled by something that might be negligible while there are numerous awesome unknowns to explore in the world? The answer is perhaps not.
Poetry is one of my favorite forms of literary art, the power and beauty it contains are sometimes immeasurable, a concise verse can generate a vivid imagery to our own imagination, which lingers for hours; a philosophical verse can engage the readers and foster them to ponder for days. It is such a valuable form of art that all of us shall learn to appreciate.
