Each day I read at least one poem. It’s become a habit in the past few years. It’s also a quest to understand poetry. Having never taken a poetry class, I have little understanding of what the elements of a poem should be. Rather like art, I know what I like and what does not appeal, but I have little understanding of why. Often the punctuation confuses me, as does the way the lines are broken up. There are poems where only one or two lines will jump out at me as meaningful.
I take a rather random approach to selecting my daily poem, letting it arrive in my email inbox or on a podcast. Some days I even spin the poetry app on my phone. Some of the poems I read leave me feeling rather confused. I assume that those poems did appeal to other readers. Some days a poem leaves me feeling comforted that I am not alone. Then there are days when I am simply in awe of the craft of arranging words in unconventional patterns until they create meaning where before I saw only chaos.
My Turn 