As the leader of the Psalms bible study this season, I'm studying a new perspective on poetry with my class. The Psalms are poetry and our study encourages us to read and re-read and then re-read again each of the Psalms we cover. I think we've ready Psalm 1 at least 22 times in the four-week old study.
I don't like poetry.
I especially detest the kind that rhymes.
Now and then, I find a poem I can inhabit momentarily; Maya Angelou's Phenomenal Woman is one such work. When the moment passes, well, then I move on.
Read a poem 22 times? Never.
I'm much happier lost in prose - prose of any kind, whether fiction or non-fiction, cereal box or best-seller.
The word "prose" means straight, direct, unadorned speech, and comes from the Latin prosa oratio, meaning straight-forward.
No wonder I like it.
I'm not a fan of indirect approaches, context clues, or metaphorical speech. I do not care for mystery in written or spoken form. I dislike intensely having to read body language to discern someone's meaning, especially when the speaker is lying or misleading. I cannot use a cliche to save my life (really I can't; it's become something of a family joke).
I had a professor in college the first go-round who once commented on a critique I wrote about Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country; "you craft sentences which are well-made and direct...," he typed, "[putting to] shame much of what I read on this campus." Not only did I frame his critique, but I had a huge crush on him after that comment.
Don't get me wrong. I can solve the mystery created by indirect approches, foreshadowing, contextual clues, metaphors, and body language. I can unravel the language and critique the work succinctly. I can read what someone's trying to say without words. There are times I can even enjoy doing it.
But love poetry? Mystery? Metaphor?
Pfft.
No. Slap me upside the head with the straight-forward, the direct, the truth.
I'll love you for it.
And I'll never lead the Psalms again.
I don't like poetry.
I especially detest the kind that rhymes.
Now and then, I find a poem I can inhabit momentarily; Maya Angelou's Phenomenal Woman is one such work. When the moment passes, well, then I move on.
Read a poem 22 times? Never.
I'm much happier lost in prose - prose of any kind, whether fiction or non-fiction, cereal box or best-seller.
The word "prose" means straight, direct, unadorned speech, and comes from the Latin prosa oratio, meaning straight-forward.
No wonder I like it.
I'm not a fan of indirect approaches, context clues, or metaphorical speech. I do not care for mystery in written or spoken form. I dislike intensely having to read body language to discern someone's meaning, especially when the speaker is lying or misleading. I cannot use a cliche to save my life (really I can't; it's become something of a family joke).
I had a professor in college the first go-round who once commented on a critique I wrote about Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country; "you craft sentences which are well-made and direct...," he typed, "[putting to] shame much of what I read on this campus." Not only did I frame his critique, but I had a huge crush on him after that comment.
Don't get me wrong. I can solve the mystery created by indirect approches, foreshadowing, contextual clues, metaphors, and body language. I can unravel the language and critique the work succinctly. I can read what someone's trying to say without words. There are times I can even enjoy doing it.
But love poetry? Mystery? Metaphor?
Pfft.
No. Slap me upside the head with the straight-forward, the direct, the truth.
I'll love you for it.
And I'll never lead the Psalms again.
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