Perrine Poetry
August 19, 2012

     Before reading Laurence Perrine's article, I had no idea whether or not I would agree with him. And honestly, after reading, I still don't know which side I would take if I were forced to choose. However, as I began reading, I strongly disliked his argument. I really did not like the way he proposed his argument as if it were "in a court of law." Poems are not something so serious that there is one definitive answer and everything else, even slightly different, is wrong, as in court. I believe an imagination is necessary when both writing and interpreting a poem. The poet, when writing, probably does not think about writing a poem that is perfectly logical and economical. The poet uses his imagination, just as the reader should. While I do not necessarily think a poem is "like an ink blot in a Rorschach personality test," I think they are always open for interpretation. I feel if one can give intelligent reasoning for why they feel a poem means what they think, it is correct to them. What may be correct to one student may seem completely wrong to another, but that can always go both ways.
     Another reason I disagree with Perrine's argument is because I feel he spent too much thought on proving others wrong. While explaining why his interpretation of the Emily Dickinson poem was correct, I feel he went into too much detail proving the "garden" interpretation wrong, instead of proving the "sunset" interpretation right. After his explanation of his interpretation, I completely agreed that his interpretation could be right. However, even after he tried to disprove the garden version, I still agreed that that could be just as correct. While I do agree that one should be able to back up their interpretation, I feel someone else can prove a different interpretation to be "right" as well. Something I did agree with, to some extent, was that an interpretation should be somewhat logical. As I previously stated, a writer might not always thing their poem must be perfectly logical. And I think that is ok. But when interpreting a poem, the reader should not be ridiculously far-fetched. However, that being said, if one can offer valid reasoning for their interpretation, who is to say whether it is too far-fetched?