How do I into poetry? Is there a point in reading translated verses or should I stick with the languages I know well?
>>7414760
Poetry loses much much more than prose in translation.
There are several books that cover meter, rhyme, poeteic structures, figures of speech, rhetoric, etc. Read one of these to understand the basic building blocks of poetry.
Then read lots of poems. Harold blooms best poems of the English language gives a good range of poets (assuming you want to read in English). If you find someone you particularly like, get some more of their poems.
If you know English then you have access to a wealth of Poetry.
Read a book on poetry and metre and form, such as Rhyme's Reason, or, The Oad Less Travelled.
Then read an Anthology such as Bloom's The Best Poems of The English Language. After that, you should have a great foundation for independent choice.
>>7414760
>Is there a point in reading translated verses
Yes.
>should I stick with the languages I know well?
Yes.
I consider myself good in english, and I also speak portuguese. I know Pessoa is the sacred monster of luso literature, but he has so much shit I don't know where to start. Any tips?
>>7414824
>Wants to read portuguese lit
>Starts with Pessoa
>Not Camões
What the fuck, dude
Its like you don't want to read about Lusus and the giant sea monster Adamastro
>>7414833
Should I also read Homer before Camões?
>>7414837
You don't HAVE to. From what I know/remember, he doesn't make references that are too obscure. If you want, go ahead. But I'd feel weird if you felt compelled to read Homer to read Camões to read Pessoa. SWTG aside.
whatever you do don't start by reading free verse first, it will completely ruin your detection of rhythm and sound. personally I hated poetry until I started reading Wordsworth and Coledridge, so I guess check them out. if you seriously want to get good at poetry you should start by taking a few short poems and just marking the fuck out of them, noting stressed/unstressed syllables, rhyme schemes, different vowel and consonant sounds, stanzas, basically whatever you can find in them.
>>7414760
Try Yeats. he captures themes that are appealing and relatable to the modern sensibility yet is rigorously formal.
>>7414856
What even is the point of free verse?
>>7414872
Increasing the poetic potential, but reading it before stricter poetry is like listening to experimental music or watching obscure films; you probably won't get it.
For most people the freedom of free verse is oppressive while structure gives you freedom.
>>7414872
this >>7414896, but also I think free verse is appealing to people who don't have much practice in reading poetry because you don't have to get as "academic" about it, things like identifying form don't really matter so you can basically give it a once through and get most of the value out of it. not to say that there isn't interesting or skillful free verse, but it's a lot like blues guitar in that it's appealing to beginners and over saturated.
>>7414760
Is Mike ok?
>>7414908
Was he ever?
