Thursday, February 9th, 2012 by clairewestlie

I have always enjoyed prose over poetry. Always. Some of the reason behind this preference is my unwavering and passionate love of literature. I remember my first favorite series. The Cam Jansen mystery books.

I digress.

Now back to poetry.

I've been taught all through high school and into my first years in college that poems have one meaning. The poet had one idea or theme in mind while writing his or her poem. This is what is it. Nobody cares what you think it means, Claire.

Either you get it or you don't.

Boo-hoo.

Now, in Literary Theory and Writing, we have learned about "intentional fallacy" and my mind is blown to bits.

We can read into something in a poem which author did not mean to put in there!?

This opens doors for my relationship with poetry. Now, I can feel free to questions lines or phrases in poems.

The poem I chose for my close reading is "World Under the Brine," by Walt Whitman. As I read and reread the poem, I made notes and questions about Whitman's meaning. Walt Whitman is a pretty scandalous poet and I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him more.

This past week, I've been cornering friends (and foes) to tell them the good news! All these years, I have not been crazy to have different ideas about poet's meaning. The class discussion about William Blake's poetry and its meaning was insightful.

How do we know what Blake meant? Shoot. We don't know him. He's dead.

As I continue my journey through English academia, I am excited and ready to begin looking at poetry as artful and free to interpretation, not just what your English teacher says it means.

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