Whose Poem Is It Anyway?

My favorite subject is English.  I love to write poems but I am not a big fan of poetry. What I never quite understood was how my teachers were able to get inside the head of a poet and understand exactly what they were trying to convey in their poem.

O Lady Moon

O Lady Moon, your horns point toward the east:
Shine, be increased;
O Lady Moon, your horns point toward the west:
Wane, be at rest.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Take that poem for example, my English teacher could tell us that Christina was not actually talking about the moon but something else.  (I am not sure what else it could be).  To me that is not even a poem.  I could come up with that in a drunken stupor, yet this poem is famous.  But that’s not the point, how did my teachers know what Christina meant by this short poem?  It’s not just her, they could take any poem and do the same trick!

“Class, the writer is telling us about a lover who is not returning her love”.  And how do you know that, teacher?  ”From the tone of the poem, we can see she is forlorn and is asking him to increase his love for her”.

How do we translate a poet’s language with such confidence.  How do we know that their words are not literal?  Just words.  With long-dead writers who are not around to explain the true meaning of their work, how could we decipher their poems?  So, was my poetry teacher just bs’ing?

                   With a slash and a cut, it all came apart,

                                                        exposing to the world, its perceived  

                                   meaning.  

Perceived by those who thought they knew my heart,

my mind, but it was all just my take.

                                                                                                                               Me

Whispers in the wind

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My most recent poem, written for St. Vincent and The Grenadines’ Independence Banquet, 2010.  (I was to read it but couldn’t attend due to illness).

WHISPERS FROM HOME

Psst…I hear whispers in the wind

echoing through the trees.

I can hear it in the distance,

approaching on a breeze.

As I get even closer,

I could then understand,

they were not just idle chatter,

but whispers from my homeland.

I hear the drums of Chatoyer,

our national hero.

Sending out a cryptic message

to the beat of a calypso.

Ocean sounds assail my ears,

waves lapping at the shore.

The whispers are calling me,

getting louder more and more.

I hear a faint melody,

distant but still clear.

It is the sound of steel pan,

sweet music in the air.

I close my eyes to take it in

but it does not last.

Another whisper in my ear

and I am back in my past.

The early morning rooster,

crowing, cock-a-doodle-doo!

I can hear so plainly,

as if I am there too.

Laughter rides in the wind,

a happy child at play.

It is like music to my ears

until the wind whisks it away.

“Hush”! The wind whispers to me,

in a soft and breezy tone.

“Listen with your heart and mind

to the sounds of home”

The whispers then grow fainter

and I could barely hear.

and with a gust, they were gone,

inaudible to my ear.