Monday, January 31, 2011

Welcome to The Poetics of Life’s Lessons!

Hello to all the poetry lovers out there! My name is Chelsea Jones, and I am a big fan of poetry.  I enjoy reading and thinking about poetry; however, I wouldn’t describe myself as a poetry critic, as I am not the one to strip poems to pieces and analyze every line of each stanza.  Although I believe that in order for one to appreciate a poem, he or she must be aware of its literary elements and interpret its meaning, I think that we oftentimes over analyze poems and ignore their primary function, which I believe is to teach us. In my opinion, we should focus more attention on the holistic meaning of a poem and how it impacts us instead of the miniature details and literary devices.  Poems, for me personally, have provided the basis by which I come to understand and interpret life.  

In this blog, my goal is to share with you some of my favorite poems and what I think they could teach us about life.  I am by no means a life expert, as I am fairly young (age 21) and have lived a rather normal life.  However, I frequently contemplate life and its wide array of topics and formulate my own theories on how people should approach and live life.  I often wonder to what extent my theories can be realized, and hopefully this blog will provide me with an answer.  

Once a week, I intend to provide you with brief commentary on one poem that I have selected.  Please note that my commentaries will simply stem from my own personal opinions and may not reflect what the author of a poem intended to convey.  At times my commentaries may include a poem analysis; however, the main objective of this blog isn’t to analyze poems but to reflect on what I think they could potentially teach us.        

I myself like to read what other writers think about various topics in order to create my own opinions on certain issues.  For those of you who like to do this as well, hopefully my selected poems and commentaries will allow you to form your own opinions about issues relating to life, rethink your previously held perceptions, and learn something that you didn’t once know. I intend for this blog to be bi-directional and a conversation between me the writer and you as readers.  So please, don’t hesitate to join this blog, read what I have written, and leave comments.  Perhaps, we can bounce ideas off of one another and simultaneously learn some of life’s lessons.  

Lastly, it’s important to inform you that this blog is essentially a class project.  I am currently taking a class called Digital Writing at Duke University, and the class is primarily focused on two questions: how to write effectively for the Internet and how technology has shaped and continues to shape the way we write today.   One of the main goals of the course is to create and maintain an idea-centered blog.  I have chosen to blog about some of life’s lessons as they can be interpreted from poems.  I realize that “life” is rather broad and may mean and include different things for various people.  Perhaps, in the near future I will limit this blog to pertain to only certain areas of life, such as relationships, self-confidence, dreams, etc, for clarity and topical purposes.  I have never blogged before, so I give you forewarning that this blog may drastically change as time progresses and more posts are added, thus I ask of your patience.  Nevertheless, I hope to provide you with some great poems and insightful commentary, and hope that you have as much fun reading this blog as I hope to have in writing it.