Perrine Poetry Blog Entry

Perrine Poetry Blog

     An idea that struck me while reading Laurence Perrine’s piece is, “A correct interpretation, if the poem is a successful one, must be able to account satisfactorily for any detail. IF it is contradicted by any detail, it is wrong.” At a first glance, Perrine’s approach to interpretations seemed stiff in the sense that there is only one right interpretation and all other interpretations are blatantly wrong. However, when he presented this concept, I understood what he meant by saying that there are incorrect and correct readings. To find the correct interpretation, the reader needs to think of possible interpretations that will successfully touch all the details in a poem. If someone has an interpretation that does not explain all of the details, how can it be correct? Perrine’s message is that the reader needs to search and dive into the words in a poem to discover the best interpretation they can think of.  Thinking of all the possible situations the poem could entail helps one arrive at the correct interpretation. I agree with Perrine’s assessment that interpretations can be wrong because of his concept on details.

     As readers, we are responsible for putting ourselves “out there” and try to interpret what the poem means. Because we put ourselves “out there,” we have a fear of being wrong. When it comes to finding the correct interpretation, it is all right if we are incorrect because we will better understand why the poem has a different meaning than we thought. We have been taught that poems can have a variety of meanings and multiple interpretations that are correct; however, Perrine’s approach to the interpretation of poetry completely changed how I thought about interpretations. Now, I understand how interpretations to poetry can be incorrect. Poetry is open to interpretations, but only one of those interpretations can be correct. Because that is the case, we cannot get mad or discouraged if our interpretation happens to be wrong. Perrine’s revealed how some interpretations are better than others are.