Andrey's questions about poems (split from the intro thread)

[AndreyGaganov]

Hi,

I'm a 25-year-old songwriter currently experiencing a writer's block. I turned to poetry because I've recently discovered the concept of bibliotherapy (... Yes, at 25, ... I guess that's because Nevada public education sucks.). I'm hoping that somehow by magic ('cause that's how it works here in the real world, right?) poetry could solve my problems with finding my voice and writing melodies.

To be frank, so far all poetry seems to me like self-indulgent exercises in cryptography/cryptology/whatever, a triumph of style over substance, disdain for communication, treating the meaning of the poem as something subordinate. Please, prove me wrong. I just don't see anything galvanizing about it.

Thanks in advance,

- Andrey.

now, if that isn't the best attitude to have about poetry when joining a poetry forum, i just don't know what is.

My whole point is that I've always been mystified by a natural tug people have towards something that could be easily phrased in prose. 

That's weird, because I purchased a copy of Poetry For Dummies, and it says that poetry is for everyone.

No it's not.

Oh, ... well, that's very encouraging.

=================================================================================

I can't find a place on this website where people can discuss poetry penned by respectable/famous/whatever/people-that-aren't-us figures. Is there a thread for that? I'm asking because I've come across this piece by Randall Jarrell: 

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

The book I'm reading suggests there's irony in the poem. I don't see any irony whatsoever. You are young, you are sent to war, you die. The end. Where's the irony ?