I think poems are always married to their author. The poet will have the closest and most intimate relationship with the poem of anyone because they truly understand what the poem is trying to convey. They understand it on an entirely separate level than the average reader because a part of them went into that poem. Because of this, even if someone's poem never sees the light of day, it is still married to its author. Even if a poem isn't "married" to anyone else because no one but the author has ever seen it, it will always be married to the poet.
When two people marry, their names become synonymous. It works the same way with poems and poets, as you rarely will think of someone like Robert Frost without immediately thinking of "The Road Not Taken." The bond between a poet and their poetry is so close that divorce between the two is unthinkable. The poem is a piece of the author, and you can't divorce yourself. Poems most definitely are married to people, and they are always married to someone, but they can also be married to many people. Each person that is strongly affected by a poem, memorizes a poem, or simply reads a poem and thinks about it later that day is now married to that poem because it has ingrained itself in their mind and will always be with them, wherever they go.
You make an interesting point here, especially in the last paragraph. I never thought about poems being married to their authors when I read the prompt, and I think that's actually very true. I liked how you responded to the prompt because its very true that poems are available to the public but do have a special connection with their authors. Nice job!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on how authors have a unique relationship with their poems. It reminds me of how class discussions can have everyone split in their interpretations but no one knows exactly what the author was thinking when they wrote it. And at the same time you mention that everyone can have a personal connection with any poem which is also pretty cool. Great response to the prompt overall.
ReplyDeleteI thought what you said in the opening paragraph was interesting, that because a poem has a unique relationship with each person who reads it, it's married to everyone. I agree that it has a unique relationship with everyone, but the unique aspect of those relationships is rooted in the broad range of emotional responses the poem will illicit, and the lack of a uniformity, normality, or expectation in the interpretation of the poem. As such, for every poem in existence, there will likely be someone who reacts to it adversely, and carries a disliking or disdain for the poem. While there are certainly (and unfortunately) dysfunctional relationships and marriages, since marriage requires mutual agreement (in the US, at least), I doubt that those who dislike a poem would get married to it.
ReplyDeleteBut that still leaves everybody else! Good post, Lydia.
Hey Lydia, I think most of my thoughts are pretty well articulated by Timmy's comment above. I love the idea of poems being polygamous, but doesn't this also make poets polygamous? What about readers? What is the meaning of marriage then? I almost feel like, as Timmy said, with marriage being an intricate and specific relationship that two people may not both want to enter into, what about polyamory? I feel like we all have varying relationships with people: frenemies, teachers, friends, acquaintance, etc. And I think poems can be any one of these things. You could say you like a poem because soemtimes it appeals to you, but other times it doesn't like a frenemy. You could learn something from poems and respect them but not necessarily want to spend time outside of class with them like a teacher. You could truly love a poem and talk about it all the time and have memories with it, discover cool new things about it every day, and feel like it understands you too like you would a friend. Or maybe a friend of yours likes a poem and so you read it to impress them and are only connected to it mutually through your friend. I think my point is, every relationship is different, like every poem. Can you really marry a hiaku? Maybe babysit for it, or visit it at a nursing home. But if poems are like people, I think many people can love it and be loved by it in a polyamorous relationship or friendship by various degrees.
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ReplyDeleteI like that insight about the relationship between names in marriage in poems and humans. What exactly does it mean though for poems to be married? Do you think that poems can be married illicitly? Could a poem fail to marry but instead have an affair?
--Even
I love this post. You make some great and really important observations. I agree that although poems are inherently "polygamous," they are also always married to their author, especially when the poem becomes well known and there's that immediate association.
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