BBAW: Profile of Poetry Book Blogger The Written World
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So for my final Book Blogger Appreciation Week (BBAW) profile of poetry book bloggers this week, I'm going with a relatively new reader of poetry, Kelly of The Written World. She's also the other half of The Poetry Project.
As a relatively new reader of poetry, how would you describe your experiences so far? What poems or poets have you loved and which have you disliked?
I describe my experiences as a tad bit overly paranoid. I am always worrying that I am not getting the idea behind the poems. As a result I overthink and then miss things entirely. It is a problem I have long had with poetry sadly. I still haven’t read a lot of poetry, but I did enjoy my time with Robert Frost last month. I had read his poetry before, but not in such a quantity. It was basically a poem here and there in school. In the end I read two collections.
Because you're a new reader of poetry, was there a particular catalyst that started your journey to read more poetry? And why had you not read poetry before?
A conversation on Twitter lead to the Poetry Project. First, there was just a list of poems to read and then it grew into something more wide-spread. I think it is working having a poetry fan and a not so poetry fan reading together. Leslie says “look at all these wonderful poems” and I slowly explore them and decide it is not so bad. I hadn’t really read poetry before because I don’t get the appeal. I am a novel fan over the shorter types of writing. I also don’t read a lot of short story collections. I am trying to get beyond that, though.
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As the "other half" of The Poetry Project with Regular Rumination, what are your goals for the project and how did you come up with the monthly themes? Was there a slew of ideas and a particular process of elimination or was it easily agreed upon?
The idea of The Poetry Project is to read more poetry. Now that others are joining in, it is basically to get people reading and talking about poetry more. The themes came about because people felt overwhelmed deciding on what to read. This way they can either read in the themes or still have a chance to explore whatever they want to read. As to the themes, Leslie and I both chose 6 and then rotated months. Some of them are decided for the seasons, holidays, events, etc. that happen during that month. Others were random choices. If we successfully get near the end of a year, we plan to get participants to pick the next 12 themes.
Do you read full books of poetry or do you just read individual poems? Have you been reviewing books of poetry on your blog, The Written World?
In the beginning, I was just reading a poem here and there. In August, though, the theme was ‘Pulitzer Winners’. I went back to some of the early award-winners and found their collections in the public domain. As a result, I read poetry collections in August. Very impressive for me! Every Wednesday one of us says something poetry related. I just say a few short lines about the poems. I sometimes include favourite lines. I wouldn’t call them reviews, though.
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What are you reading now? How do you view the world of poetry and its future in your reading life?
The theme for September is classics. I have been trying to decide what to read. There is a lot that would fit into that category. One of the few poetry books I owe is a collected works of Emily Dickinson, so I was thinking maybe I would hunt that down. As to the future, I am hoping that I will become comfortable enough with poetry that even without the Poetry Project I will explore something poetry-related each month. There is so much out there that I haven’t tried. It’s a slow process, but I have made big changes so far this year. I would like to think, anyway!
Thanks, Kelly, for answering my questions, and I can't wait to see what the Poetry Project has in store in 2013 and what you discover in poetry.