National Poetry Month: Issue 3
April is National Poetry Month. I'm featuring local Southeastern Wisconsin poets on my blog in an attempt to give them exposure and just because it's kind of fun. I remember my first real exposure to poetry from a critiquing or analytical perspective as clear as if it was yesterday. I was in 8th grade literature class and we were all asked to pick a poem and give a critique of it. On that day, one friend chose Elton John's song, Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding which we played on the monoaural phonograph and was then critiqued. It was as edgy as we got in a Catholic grade school in the 70's; as close to Room 222 or the Dead Poet's Society as you can get, I think. I forget the poem I chose, some willowy poem about ocean waves and a cave cut into the rocks or some such thing. I do remember reading it and thinking "What the heck?". It was only after re-reading it a second, third and fourth time that I really started to understand the deeper me...