Burying the Gem
In one of her poems, Emily Dickinson wrote: “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.” She goes on to say that the truth is like lightning, and the poet needs to come at his theme from an angle rather than “blinding” his readers with an abrupt, blunt statement of the truth. Dickinson was right. Part of the delight we experience in reading poetry comes from discovering the poet’s meaning for ourselves—a meaning that lies beneath the surface of the printed word. A good poem treats its reader as much more than an unsuspecting target for a lightning bolt.
What Should it Mean?
How should you decide what the theme of your poem will be? You should probably have at least a vague idea of the poem’s meaning before writing it, although meaning will often change or develop through the writing process. Here are a few ideas.
from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (poetry excerpt from “The Stag at Eve” by Sir Walter Scott)
She read on and on, steadied by the strongly-marked rhythm, drawn forward swiftly from one clanging, sonorous rhyme to another. Uncle Henry nodded his head in time to the rise and fall of her voice and now and then stopped his work to look at her with bright, eager eyes. He knew some of the places by heart evidently, for once in a while his voice would join Betsy’s for a couplet or two. They chanted together thus:
“A moment listened to the cry
That thickened as the chase drew nigh,
Then, as the headmost foes appeared,
With one brave bound, the copse he cleared.”
At the last line Uncle Henry flung his arm out wide, and Betsy felt as though the deer had made his great leap there, before her eyes.
“I’ve seen ‘em jump just like that,” broke in Uncle Henry. “A two-three-hundred-pound stag go up over a four-foot fence just like a piece of thistledown in the wind.”
“Uncle Henry,” asked Betsy, “what is a copse?”
“I don’t know,” said Uncle Henry indifferently. “Something in the woods, must be. Underbrush most likely. You can always tell words you don’t know by the sense of the whole thing….”
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