Nine Questions about poetry

I got this survey from scribblingwoman.

1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was...

I don't remember what it was but I distinctly remember being enthralled by Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky when I was a child. The Muppets once performed the poem as a skit on The Muppet Show and I thought it was the weirdest, coolest thing I'd ever seen.

2. I was forced to memorize (Richard II) in school and...

In my senior year of high school I played King Richard in Shakespeare's Richard II. I know it's a play but it also happens to be written entirely in verse so I think that counts. Also, last semester at Columbia my comparative lit prof made the entire class memorize the first paragraph of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude, which has to be one of the greatest first lines in all of literature: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

3. I read/don't read poetry because...

Because poetry is like water.

4. A poem I'm likely to think about when I'm asked about what a favorite poems is...

Too many favorites to mention, but off the top of my head I'd say, Michael Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (Yes, I know it's a book but Ondaatje has referred to the text as a poem so I will too). Or William Carlos Williams' "Danse Russe", "This Is Just To Say", and "The Red Wheelbarrow". Or many of Alden Nowlan's poems. Or Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish". Or Billy Collins... I'm going to stop now.

4.5: There are some poets/poems that I don't like or understand...

I can appreciate what he's trying to do but I still don't get bill bissett. I just don't have the patience.

5. I write poetry but...

Sometimes I have a good idea for a poem but sometimes it takes a while for it to translate into words on a page.

6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature...

You don't have to read poetry from cover to cover. I like to pick a collection up, choose a page at random, and read it out loud. I'm also drawn to the musicality of poetry which I find to be generally rather dormant in prose.

7. I find poetry...

Everywhere. Even on a cereal box. Or in your junk mail. You'd be surprised where you can find poetry.

8. The last time I heard poetry...

Listening to "The Doc", William Carlos Williams on PENNSound.

9. I think poetry is...

Essential.