Perrine Poetry

Poetry has always been an area of confusion for me. Unlike other forms of literature which are for the most part cut and dry, poetry seems to be ambiguous and difficult to interpret. When reading Laurence Perrine's essay on interpreting poetry, I found his approach to determining correct interpretations helpful. I never understood how there could be one perfectly correct interpretation when the poet never interprets what he/she means himself/herself. Perrine says that anybody can be correct in their interpretation as long as they account for all the details and do not contradict any one and the best is that which is most economical. This helps me to more effectively interpret a poem because it incorporates more than just guessing at what the poet was trying to get across. This essay also helped me to better understand the 4 poems I read because it not only gave more than one interpretation, but it also backed up or invalidated the interpretations. It also invalidated my interpretations and showed me how I was wrong and what was the most correct.

One aspect of this essay that I found helpful was the analogy of a rock being dropped into a pool with limits being compared to symbols. This helped me to realize that although a symbol can have many meanings, it must be within reasonable limits. The poet may leave it up to interpretation, but the reader can not twist it so much that the symbol does not match the interpretation at all. While i found this helpful, I also found it slightly confusing. Who is to say how far is to far? Although "the pool... has borders," how does a reader know how far these borders extend? I find it difficult to understand poetry completely and once it is seen in one light, it is difficult to understand it as another person does. I believe that poetry will always be difficult for me to completely understand, but this essay helped me to see that I can never be completely incorrect.