How Does a Poem Mean? ch 1

I started this book with Tim and J yesterday. I'm just going to say a teensy bit about it because I think that to do any more would be more work than I need.

John Ciardi says that a poem isn't about what it means; poets don't write poems because they have something to say. People who put a message into rhyme usually end up writing doggerel. Poets write poems because they like to play with words. And people by nature enjoy tackling challenges, so poets like to the challenge of working within the framework of poetic style. Their playing with words might be likened to a juggler. The more difficult he makes it by juggling more balls, the more pleased he is with himself, and the easier he makes it look, the more people will enjoy watching him. A poet enjoys seeing how he fit words into a difficult set of parameters. And the more smoothly he can make it work, the more his poetry is enjoyed by others.

Good poems often go from specific details to something bigger, and the best poems do it seamlessly. Ciardi uses Rober Frost's poems Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Eve to show this. Robert Frost starts with a specific snowfall in a specific woods, but ends with a broader context ("...miles to go before I sleep.") If asked what he meant by that, he doesn't exactly know, because it wasn't written to say something specific. Yet through Frost's mastery of words, it elicits a feeling in those who read it.

That's why the book is called "How" does a poem mean, because the art is how words are used more than the precise, direct meaning of the poem.