Week three post

This week we read Chapter 3 in MYOD. Kenneth Koch taught us about some of the other elements of poetry beyond the “music” of it discussed in chapter 2: comparisons, personification, apostrophe and synesthesia. Comparisons allow poets to make something more vivid and exciting and also, when used properly, can clarify something. Koch goes further on to discuss how using comparisons can make a statement jump off the page and actually appeal to the senses. It was also noted that metaphors and similes are two types of comparisons, with metaphors most often being more powerful. Similar to comparisons, personifications bring more of the world into the poem and help to connect what possibly isn’t known. It was also stated that personification makes ideas, concepts, objects and other non-living things easier to talk about. A more direct approach of making a comparison exists in apostrophe, a technique in which the poet actually talks to an object or non-living thing directly making it powerful and manageable. Koch notes that modern poets rarely use personifications and apostrophe. The last method of comparisons Koch discusses is something called synethesia, in which the poet brings part of the experience closer by talking about the details of one sense as if they were those of another.

I had a pretty tough time writing this the poems this week. Making comparisons is easy. However, I found using the elements found in this week’s readings (personification, apostrophe and synethesia) to be much more difficult. I guess the challenging thing about it was adding the musical sound to the comparisons I’ve been trying to instill in my poems. It was also hard not being allowed to rhyme nouns with nouns, verbs with verbs, etc. Maybe this structured approach to writing poems will be easier with some more practice.