The Art of Destroying the Mystery of a Poem

Is there a mystery, a magic, something intangible behind a poem? There is if you believe there is. For the longest time I did not want to analyze poetry. I was frustrated in university when I had to deconstruct a poem. I felt like I was disrespecting the poet and what he or she was trying to do. I felt like one of the evil characters in one of my favourite novels: Necroscope. He reads his victims thoughts by touching their innards. But they have to be dead in order for him to do it. I felt like that. By analysing a poem, it was a sign of destroying it. Although I wrote several essays and did research on poems, I never really liked doing it. A poem, I thought (and kind of still do) is to be read and enjoyed. That's it! However, the poem belongs to the person who reads it. If the person believes the poem to be something completely different than what the poet intended so be it. I feel very strongly about this notion.

In the last while I have rediscovered writing. I have always known it be a difficult process and as Stephen King notes, and I’m paraphrasing, there is no getting around it. You have to do it! I have also discovered that I have to rip and tear into poetry or any writing for that matter in order to understand the art. In order for me to learn and progress I have to open up the writing piece and peer into its inner workings. I liken it to opening an automatic watch. In order to have an understanding to how the watch really works you have to open it and tear apart its mechanism. However, that’s the easy part. The difficult part is to put it back together and make it work again. And that’s what I have to do. In order to go forward I have to practice the art of destroying this myth that there is some mystery behind a piece of writing like a poem. I have to do it in order to write the poems I need to write.