As I read essay after essay on this "simple" little poem, each student's response had a unique richness. This is where my students got their surprise. And a poem which looks simple and "easy" may in fact communicate to the reader with a depth and complexity that is truly startling. To be powerful, a poem does not have to be long, complex, or filled with difficult words. This, too, is one of the mysteries of poetry. You will learn a great deal about poetry in this book.) But almost all of the students chose to write about "Island." I've been teaching long enough to know that they probably chose this poem because it looked so easy. (If you don't know what a sonnet or a dramatic monologue is, keep reading. Among the other poems were a sonnet by Shakespeare and a dramatic monologue by Robert Browning. I asked the students to choose one poem to analyze. Recently I gave a midterm examination to one of my classes, and the test included several poems, including this brief one by Langston Hughes. I teach poetry among other things at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose, California. Have you ever felt this way? I know you have. One of the great mysteries of poetry is this subtle way in which it communicates to a reader or a listener over time, across cultures, past genders, straight into what William Butler Yeats calls ".the deep heart's core."1 How rare it is in everyday life to communicate with anyone with such intimacy, yet our longing to share thoughts and feelings with others in this deeper way is part of what makes us human. All of these people, and the hundreds of other poets I have known, have changed my life in some way, just as a pebble tossed into a quiet pond changes the dynamics of the pond's world forever. I've known many poets during my lifetime, but the ones with whom I've felt the most intimate kinship have been dead for a very long time- people like Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Matsuo Basho, Emily Dickinson, and Langston Hughes. Poetry is the most mysterious of all professions.
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