Poetry Goals and Failings

It's come to my attention that I'm a little less good at this poetry thing than I thought I was. So, let's get down to the subjects at hand… More specifically, what I need to know to get a little better at this poetry thing.

1. Separating "Story" from "Theme".

2. Identifying poems by their form.

3. General vocabulary.

4. Recognizing multiple meanings in one poem. When I find a meaning I tend to stick to it and look for more examples of that theme. Then, when I encounter question that asks about themes and my chosen theme is not included, I tend to get rather mixed up.

5. Paying attention to *every* word.

The first theme may sound odd. Specifically, I mean separating the story the poem is telling from the lesson it's trying to teach. I've managed to figure this out in other types of literature, so hopefully this will just take a little more practice and thought. Luckily, I greatly enjoy finding this sort of thing out. Unluckily, I greatly dislike figuring out what poems are by their form. When asked if a poem is lyrical, an elegy… My mind decides that it has not, in fact, learned anything about poetry, ever. Even more unfortunately, this is memorization work. I have an issue with that. General vocabulary is also memorization, but it's more fun, at least; I've always loved learning new words, and I used to compile long lists of words I found that I wanted to learn. On to my fourth goal… When I find a meaning I tend to stick to it and look for more examples of that theme. Then, when I encounter question that asks about themes and my chosen theme is not included, I tend to get rather mixed up. And lastly, I need to stop skimming over words or phrases that I think "less important" or easy to understand. Those words tend to come back to bite me. Every singe time.

Patterson's AP English quiz? This will be a cakewalk!

I mean honestly, I've done these things with half my brain wandering off and thinking about video games. I can fill in bubbles and plan out a day of dungeon crawling, zombie-slaying and dragon hunting with ease; I can even finish bubbling and planning with time left to doodle ancient greek monsters on the back of the test. This is going to be great.

70%.

Wait. Something went wrong here. This is a mistake, right? I mean, I didn't skip half the questions? Maybe I bubbled them in wrong. Wait, no, I didn't use a bubble sheet, I wrote down the letters… But this is wrong! I never score so low on English tests! What's this abomination doing on my mind scape? Thank the gods that this is practice, because I'd be jumping for the nearest window.

It's not that a 70% is exactly terrible, nor is it… new, I suppose. I've gotten my fair share of bad grades. But I wasn't expecting a really challenging test from this, I'll be honest. I was expecting something easy. A cakewalk. This definitely was not. I enjoyed the reading; I loved the poem about the fading dark of dawn, the mares gliding through the sky. It read like a painting, like something I'd want to draw some day. I loved the excerpt from Pride and Prejudice, a book I've been urged to read. But I suppose my mind isn't quite in the "test" zone today. Actually, I can't remember a time in the last year I've been in the "test" zone. Is there such thing? Tests are like dry, stale toast. Uncreative, boring, and leave a bad taste in your mouth. Hopefully this class adds a dash of color… Or perhaps I'll just need to get used to nasty plain toast.