by Alexandria Fuertes
“Poetry doesn’t make sense.”
From the youngest school kids to the oldest, most voracious scholars, countless readers would die on this hill. This opinion might even mirror your own — and that’s perfectly reasonable. I read dozens of poems a week. I understand how difficult it can be to dig for a message buried deep under metaphoric mountains. There is no need to be ashamed for struggling to unearth treasure without a map.
But even so, a poet knows that their peers will often feel that shame. Generations of readers have been crippled by the increasingly pervasive mentality that anyone who doesn’t “get” poetry simply doesn’t have the intellect to do so. This mentality is profoundly unfair to its victims. I won’t argue that poetry is not confusing– often, it certainly starts that way! However, I will argue that a poem does not need to be understood in its entirety to be enjoyed. A poem is not a dictionary meant to be learned; it is a memory meant to be made.
“Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toenails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own.”
-Dylan Thomas
The late writer Dylan Thomas, renowned for crafting the poem “Do not go gentle into that good night,” once suggested that a poem can be identified by “what makes your toenails twinkle.” There is no logical explanation for what exactly he meant by this. In a literal sense, my toenails haven’t twinkled since I was a kid with a bedazzling kit. In a metaphorical sense, I don’t have enough context to determine whether these twinkling toenails allude to joy, fear, or something entirely different. But when I sink into Thomas’ diction—when I forfeit logic and surrender to feeling the experience the poet describes—his meaning becomes far clearer.
Personally, this image teleports me to a tap dancing recital. There’s excitement, anxiousness, anticipation. I can hear the sharp snap of metal-bottomed shoes smacking wood, can see the silver sparkles that might skip along the floor upon collision, flickering cartoonishly around my feet.
Your experience may be entirely different. You may be splashing barefoot in the rain, kicking soccer balls at a park, or trimming overgrown toenails with a clipper. But all of these experiences—and many, many more—can spring forth from the words Thomas wrote. Consequently, they are all valid associations to attach to the poetic statement he made. This works because poetry is less concerned with “making sense” and more intent upon “making feeling,” replicating the nonsensical, inexplicable rhythms of thought, emotion, and connection.
By being mindful of the connotations of the words a poet employs (“toenails” and “twinkle,” for example, tend to be playful words), by being open to welcoming your personal associations into a poem’s narrative, and by being realistic with your expectations about how much of a poem’s intent you can detect, perhaps poetry can become less daunting, more delightful, and more accessible to all of us.
Alexandria “Lexi” Fuertes, a young Latina writer, was born and raised in Tampa, Florida. She is currently a third-year senior at Florida State University, where she pursues a degree in creative writing and supports the institution’s undergraduate literary journal, The Kudzu Review, as its head poetry editor. She loves heartfelt stories, smooth animation, and short, scruffy dogs.
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