How does poetry mean?
More important than any part of any lesson you’ve studied in this unit is this fact: poetry attempts to capture the essence of an experience. Poetry is about life, and even the most mundane experiences can be the subject of a poem. Poetry is a testament to a slice of life. And although some teachers might argue this point, I think it’s fair to say that you think that you’ve nailed the meaning of a poem, then you would be wrong. Poet Bill Zavatsky puts this way: “In fact, the virtue of a great poem is that it can be interpreted inexhaustibly, from generation to generation, century to century, and even from culture to culture. No one has stopped writing about the Odyssey; the last word on Hamlet has yet to be said. The poem reads us as much as we read the poem.” So when you are looking for the meaning, or theme, of a poem, you can only answer that question based on your life experiences and based on the content of the poem. A 33 year old nun from Spain will probably have different life e
