April is the cruelest month

So it might come as a surprise to you all that I, an English literature nut, can’t stand poetry. Yes, tis true. I dreaded those days in class where I had to come prepared to either read poetry or have a had read 50 pages of it before class. I hated even more having to write my own *shudders at the thought of her sonnets* and I have decided to try to have it written out of the high school curriculum so I don’t have to teach it. Yes, my dislike of poetry knows no bounds.

I wish I could tell you why I don’t like it. Why during National Poetry Month I turn a blind eye and try not to think about the pain poetry has inflicted on me in the past. But I don’t know.

There are a few poets I can stomach- Whitman, Dickinson, Tennyson, Shakespeare’s sonnets and Eliot. And I do adore Frost, in fact Frost has gotten me through many a gym work out and quite a few essays on my life. But the rest I just don’t get. Maybe it is that I would rather simply read a story about their theme, or maybe it is I’d rather here poetry set to music (yes, I do understand that a song lyric is basically a poem) but I just struggle.

So while the rest of you happily celebrate and cherish writing poetry this month. I am going to be sitting back and working on ‘Confessions’, grading papers, and enjoying spring because in many ways April is not always the cruelest month.

(Oh I didn’t include this above but I do like the poem about the toad and the lawn mower. It was on my AP Literature test, oh so many years ago and I feel in love with it.)