CRWR 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Gerald Stern, Mark Doty, Sestina
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2: close reading, creative reading, contemporary reading, generative reading. Getting through to its center is tough, nearly impossible, but once you put your incisors to work, the result is relieving, soft, satisfactory and fun. A poem is not a rock filled with bubble gum because hu(cid:373)a(cid:374)s (cid:272)a(cid:374)(cid:859)t (cid:271)reak through ro(cid:272)ks (cid:449)ith their teeth. The(cid:455) (cid:449)ould destro(cid:455) our molars and bloody our gums. But if we get through maybe we can replace our old gums with the new: what makes a good poem, a good poem combines wit, wisdom, and musicality. A good poem is also memorable in whole or in part, because of music or wisdom or feeling. There(cid:859)s (cid:374)o si(cid:374)gle (cid:862)right (cid:449)a(cid:455)(cid:863) to (cid:449)rite a poem: love is important to the poem making process. Imagination: imagination and memory are the central driving forces of poetry; poetry, one might say, is imagination and memory concentrated in language, hook.
