Start by reading the excerpts from Matthew Zapruder’s Why Poetry? You can read them as a Google Doc here, or you can access them here as a .pdf.

Please copy the following questions into a word processer (like Word or Google Docs) and type in your response to each question.

2. Zapruder starts his book by writing a little about what his experience reading poetry was like when he was in school. Does your previous experience with poetry match up with Zapruder’s in any way? Aim for at least 100 words.

3. Based on your reading of Zapruder’s excerpts, what are 2 things that make it difficult for us to read poetry? You could touch on something about poems themselves or something about us as readers. Note: You have to do some inferring here. He doesn’t come out and say, “and another reason why we don’t like poetry is…” Aim for at least 100 words.

4. Along the way in these excerpts, Zapruder does try to get us to see poetry in a new way so that we enjoy it more. Zapruder ends chapter 2 by explaining a major principle behind poetry that he thinks will prove helpful: “‘La terre est bleue comme un orange,’ ‘The earth is blue like an orange,’ is a line written primarily to produce an effect in us, rather than to communicate information.” Explain what this quote means in your own words. 2-3 healthy sentences will work here.