Sometimes poets aspire to match the speech of the woods, with enveloping images and half-rhythmic sound. Of course, that’s only one direction poetry can reach toward.

Thanks, Brenda. We’ll be looking forward to your contribution.

Very busy presently, I’ll send something along in a few weeks, if that’s ok.

Lovely writing, too, btw. A rich set of images phrased as questions. Questions that open imaginative possibilities. For reading aloud – it takes a moment to realize that you don’t mean how to read poetry but how to read poetry.

I like the humour in your style.

I think they’re spread out a little bit, but not by as much as a generation.

There are a lot of rhythmic and sonorous sounds in nature, too. Are they poetry? If it’s not a language we understand, it’s hard to say.

Hah! Sounds like a recurring theme! Were the books one each generation, or bunched together?

Even language drift doesn’t completely undo poetry — back in college, I heard a bit of Beowulf being read in the original (iirc) Old English, and it was still clearly poetry.

It’s your basic cave(wo)man, campfire pose.

Yes indeed. Fortunately, titles are not protected by copyright. There’s How to Read a Poem, by Burton Raffel; How to Read a Poem, by Terry Eagleton; How to Read a Poem, by Edward Hirsch; and The Art of Poetry: How to Read a Poem, by Shira Wolosky.