Class Discussion on “How Poems Arrive”

I believe this poem is discussing the pros and cons of writing poems and delivering them to a reader so it satisfies their expectations. One of the pros I believe the author found about writing poetry was in the second stanza where she said, “Like love, they’re strongest when admitted blind, Judging by feel, feeling with sharpened sense.” I’m interpreting that she meant that she was generated most of her ideas when she wasn’t thinking too hard directly about what she should create her poem around. She generated her poems around feeling, whatever mood or what she felt in that moment inspired her to create such poems. A con would be when she said in stanza 4,”But poems, butch or feminine, are vain.” In this line she is personifying poems as a whole by saying whatever a poem is masculine or feminine they are still gain meaning that not all poems regardless of its theme or style they can be difficult to understand and interpret or in her sense create. Creating poems can be difficult or “vain” because as a poet you need to use different use of words, styles and think of what you need to write about. Or if you’re a reader of a poem, interpreting a poem can be hard as you need to use a dictionary to define certain words used by the poem or reread the poem itself at least ten times to get the bigger picture making it “vain,” while “sporting with vowels” or showing off that they’re so complex and unique that they don’t care that it’s hard for the reader to understand or for the poet to create.