Toward Higher Ground

Often I find people avoiding poetry because they believe it must be difficult in order to be any good, or worse, that they are not equipped, in whatever fashion, to "decode" and understand it. Rubbish. Read these poems easily and quickly. If you come across one that isn't working for you, big deal. Skip it and try another. Don't think too much about what these poems are "supposed" to mean. Let them wash over you and, hopefully, give you a glimpse of something beyond any neat categories...
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Often I find people avoiding poetry because they believe it must be difficult in order to be any good, or worse, that they are not equipped, in whatever fashion, to "decode" and understand it. Rubbish. Read these poems easily and quickly. If you come across one that isn't working for you, big deal. Skip it and try another. Don't think too much about what these poems are "supposed" to mean. Let them wash over you and, hopefully, give you a glimpse of something beyond any neat categories of thought. Have faith in your personal and unique impressions of them. That, I believe, is poetry's purpose: an individual expression followed by an individual interpretation where the sum is greater than the words, where, every once in a while, you transcend this finite language and, if only for a moment, say "Ah!" - from the author's preface