Tutorial 101: How to Digest Poetry.

First of all, a poem can mean anything, i actually depends on you, the reader. A poem holds a lot of meanings and it is open to interpretation, how you digest and understand a poem is up to you.
Fro example, a little poem from my book(Solitude):

"I am still haunted
by the ghosts
of all the words
that died in my throat."

To one person, this is a poem about supernatural forces, about possession and ghosts. To another person, this is a poem about all the things we don't say, the things we keep inside that end up hurting us or just bothering us. To some other person, it is an illogical poem, the person might think, uhh words are inanimate, they can't just die and lodge themselves in your throat.
We all have individual ways of interpreting poetry. My favourite thing to do when i read poetry is to imagine myself as the writer and feel what the writer felt while writing the poem, that way, i get to find true meanings behind the words of the poet. No one interpretation is correct, a poem could mean so many different things. Poets are vague like that, they like the mystery they create when writing. Most of the time, well all the time, poems are stories, they are conveying a message. You just need to find the story behind the poem. Put yourself in the poem, feel the feels lurking around the corners of the poem and just be the poem. Practicing like that will make it easier for you to easily understand the meanings behind poetry.
Mostly, with the rise of contemporary poetry, you can find meanings of them poems in the title. Another excerpt from my book, Solitude:

"For some people,
home is not a physical place
it is a heart
trapped in the body
of another soul.

-places/people we call Home"

The title of this poem says it all i think. "Places/People we call home", i shows that some of us find our idea of home when we are at a particular place and some of us are at home when we are with certain people. Poetry is beautiful in itself. It gives room for a kind of expression that says a lot about the writer. I mean, aren't all writers just writing about themselves in one way or another, or rather, reflecting themselves in their stories.
Personally, i like to read a poem and go, "oh wow, that is exactly how i feel" and i hope when people read my book, they will find poems which will make them go "oh wow, she is conveying my feelings".
This is not exactly a tutorial but a tutorial is such an attractive title...right? :D I hope you all enjoy poetry as much as i do.

Sayonara
xx