A Look at American Poetry

Many may consider poetry to be a language of its own: full of feelings, emotions, and perceptions. All of us have our own experiences & sentiments; therefore we all have the ability to write our own poetry from our background without even realizing it. In my opinion, I do not think that the importance of American poetry should be stressed just to college students; I believe that our society as a whole should care about American poetry. Throughout history, poetry has been considered to be important, not only for entertainment purposes, but because of its unique value and the readers ability for their own interpretation. Not every single reader will walk away with the same perception of a poem; poetry is deeper than reading an encyclopedia. For example, if a student were to write a research paper on a specific animal, they may be able to look up facts about their diet, habitat, lifespan, etc. All of this information is for practical purposes; we may be able to grasp their lifestyle, however not their soul… a poem can turn this living creature into something majestic; or the total opposite. Behind poetry are experiences: beauty and ugly, customary and weird, good and bad. While I may look at a poem about hunting as beautiful and wonderful, my girlfriend would probably read the same poem and think it was disturbing and unnecessary; we may have read the same exact poem, but our past experiences allow us to have different views. This brings me to my main point, who is the reader and what type of poem is it? It may not always be something one can relate to, or even understand, but that does not mean we should not care. Poetry has evolved into something special over the years in America; readers and writers, who never even realized the...

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...r who is very close with my family, I can feel the sentiment behind each authors’ literature from my own experiences. I know that not everyone is lucky enough to have certain family bonds; however, I believe that much of our society in the 21st century is focused around family, values, and our upbringing. If a voyager from the future were to read these two poems, I think they would have a pretty good understanding and notion that our culture and civilization has a strong focus on relationships, family, trust and support. We go out of our way for the people we love and care about.

Works Cited

• Childress, Susanna. Under This Roof. .

• Fugue Journal.

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• Scarano, Caitlin. Pillow. .