Reading Poem and its Effects on the Readers

Reading Poem and its Effects on the Readers

By: M. Shabir

When I first read a poem, my focus was to look for meaning.  What was the poem about?  Was it about something? Or did it simply evoke a mood, or an emotion, or a vivid atmosphere? The questions might seem so strange for many whose have been able to flash out a poem. But for me, it is not simple to find what a poem is about. To find a meaning in a poem is still puzzling since this literary work has not been familiar to my mind; I have just started to enjoy and learn to find meaning what a poem says.

Having attended last week class, the questions I have mentioned earlier have now found their answers. There are some important points which I have formulized in terms of finding meaning when reading a poem. These points were concluded from what had been elaborated by Bachrudin Mustafa while he was trying to teach class members how to find meaning or message contained in a poem.

The first point is that when we read a poem, we are just simply to gain a feeling for atmosphere or emotion. In other words, we don’t need to try hard to make to ‘make sense’ of the poem. Just let our mind flow to follow what the poem text says. To me, this is kind of exercising how to familiarize our selves to the reading of poem before we become familiar with catching the meaning behind the poem text. The second point is that when we read a poem, try to analyse if there is something happening in the poem.

In Perjamuan discussed last week for example, we can just simply think that the poet is telling us something; he is trying tells us a story of someone’s family life. By analysing such characters, it will make us able to understand and catch the meaning or messages contained in the poem.

The third or last is, on our reading of the poem, we start to look the poem deeper.  Does the poet create a metaphor?  Is the poem really about something else? Sometimes, a poem is not always metaphoric; it oftentimes tells a story of the poem owner using simple language which is easy, but oftentimes difficult digest for beginner.

However, being considered as part of art, a good poem is oftentimes metaphoric; it uses vivid images and descriptive language to ‘paint’ a picture in the reader’s mind; it cuts out all the excess words that we might find in prose and creates its magic with a limited amount of text.

 In order to catch its meaning, looking deeper into a poem is required since only this way we can know the power of the poem or its effect to us the readers of which will be discussed to conclude this discussion.

One big question ton answer: what the effect might be resulted from reading poem to its readers? I posed this question because of being inspired by last week discussion where a poem was read by Bachrudin Mustafa. Applying the three steps mentioned earlier in connection with reading a poem, I easily can mention here that a poem has a huge and extraordinary effect which is as huge as this world. How come?

A friend of mine has proved how a poem Perjamuan has been able to open his ‘blind eyes’ and turn him conscious of what he has done to his wife for many years. Perjamuan has made him think contemplatively. He said the poem was so touching and he felt so sorry for being not good husband to his beloved wife. What I can say from this friend’s confession is that a poem sometimes also functions as one of sources of divine guidance or hidayah ilahi for those who still have heart. Whatever the effect is, it will depend on how deep the readers’ can get into the poem.

Based on my searching on internet, I found a few approaches which may prove useful or in order for us be able to go deep into a poem to find its meaning. These approaches seem to have much similarity with the steps which I have mentioned earlier: the first is after a first reading, we try to find out the overall emotional effect we feel when we read the poem. Second, try to find out what particular images or phrases in the poem stand out for us. Third, ask ourselves what ideas and emotions the poets suggest in the poem.  And than we try to fit these into any kind of overall sense of what the poem might mean.

However, going deeper into a poem is not simple work since it involves sensitivity of its readers. It doest not mean that reading poetry is exclusively for certain group of people; what I am telling is that a poem is not usual reading, and therefore, to read it meaningfully will need an exercise to sharpen  our sensitivity. Only those who have high sensitivity who will be able to grasp what a poem means even the meaning is deep as the sea or as high as the sky.