I had a rather disturbing dream last night. Currently in class, we’re doing poetry analysis. I’ll be the first to admit that poetry is usually above my head. So it must be weighing heavily on my mind because in my dream last night I was in class trying to dissect a poem and interpret it. As I was giving my thoughts on the poem in question, one of the other students started to heckle me, telling me I obviously didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.

So what do I do? I drag him outside and beat him up. This kind of freaked me out a bit, because in my dream, it was rather surreal. For one, I’ve never condoned violence. I like to think I’m a pacifist before a warmonger. Secondly, as I was punching the daylights out of this guy, he kept laughing at me, smiling through bloody teeth, telling me I was no good.

After waking up from that, I had a hard time going back to sleep.

Poetry is difficult for me to understand. Two of my friends from class were telling me that I didn’t give myself enough credit when it comes to interpretation. What they don’t understand is that I only give these thoughts on the poem after listening to other people’s responses. From their thoughts, I can see a direction and things open up; I can make a connection. If I was left on my own, however, I’d be hopeless.

Here’s a good example: The Red Wheelbarrow, by William Carlos Williams, is a poem I just don’t get. How am I supposed to interpret this? Some people’s interpretations were quite strange, but at least they had an interpretation. I didn’t even have a thought. And this annoyed me, so I decided that I could write a poem just as obtuse as that one:


the trapped Majesty
beating against glass
freedom denied
by her own hand

a lesson taught
a smile given
an opening revealed
Majesty flies

I actually liked this after writing it. It was written in about 30 seconds, and it has a literal interpretation. Would the average reader get it? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. But I figure if that red wheelbarrow poem could get published, then so could mine.

So there.