Why should I forgo what I think or feel about a poem for what a literary theory says about it? 

It is commonly believed that poetry cannot be paraphrased, that once you start unfolding its meaning, line by line, its true essence, like that of a dream upon waking and verbalising, evaporates.  

Yet students of literature are taught to interpret poetry by paraphrasing, and most often this prosaic meaning, derived within the framework of some critical theory, overpowers the poem itself, sucking all life out of it. 

The injury theorising of poetry, and for that matter, any good literature, does is that it alienates the common reader. 

It makes poetry, like quantum mechanics, sound like a field for specially trained readers. 

But unlike in the case of quantum mechanics, any theoretical training to read poetry is a disservice both to poetry and to the human mind. 

And to the human heart. 

It is a disservice to the unique set of experiences and histories that have formed each one of us and that govern our very understanding of the world. 

Why, then, should we suddenly abandon this “I”, which seeps deep into our dreams and hopes, when faced with a poem? 

In simpler words, why should I forgo what I think or feel about a poem for what a literary theory says about it? 

Poems are composed using the elements of human speech but when a poem begins, we are instantly aware that it is a different medium, that here meaning is entwined with music, both of which are themselves perceived differently each time we revisit the text, often reflecting off our own deepest, darkest recesses. 

As users of the same language, we all are equally qualified to read poetry. It is another thing that poems or poetry, like music to some ears, may not hit us at all. Some other poem may touch us after a few years or decades. 

Reading poetry, like writing poetry, is a process of self-discovery. We grapple with the phantasm of our inner, uncertain vocabularies. We enter the life-giving waters where neat societal and academic boundaries are dissolved. We make wild associations and murmur the strange, rebellious and imperfect language of the heart. We risk redefinition, to drop seeing the world as we have been up to this point, and to see it in the light of the poem we are reading or writing. We become vulnerable like children, and return strong. We risk our sanity, and return saner than before. 

I do not see why I must forgo this joyful adventure of reading and writing poetry for the deathly stratifications of academia. 

Snehal Vadher

20/08/2021

Dharamshala

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