"I don't think there's anything wrong with someone having to read a poem twice. Or even a book"
About this Quote
Murray’s line is a small act of defiance against the speed culture that trains us to treat comprehension like a one-pass scan. It flips the usual shame dynamic: if you have to reread, the problem isn’t you; the problem is the expectation that art should behave like a memo. The dry add-on - “Or even a book” - widens the target from poetry’s usual scapegoat status to literature in general, suggesting the real issue isn’t difficulty but impatience.
The intent is protective, almost pedagogical, but it lands because it’s also a sly critique of how we’ve flattened reading into “getting it.” A poem, Murray implies, isn’t a riddle with an answer key; it’s an experience with layers, the kind you can’t fully register until you’ve lived with it a second time. Rereading becomes not remediation but method: the first pass is the encounter, the second is the conversation. That’s especially true in poetry, where meaning isn’t only semantic; it’s rhythm, tone, ambiguity, and the charged space between lines. Those elements often only click once you know where the poem is going.
Contextually, the quote speaks to a contemporary anxiety around literacy as performance - Goodreads summaries, hot takes, “relatable” lines clipped for sharing. Murray pushes back with a permission slip to slow down, to be uncertain, to return. Under the understatement is a larger claim: the deepest reading is iterative, and any culture that treats rereading as failure is quietly admitting it doesn’t have time for depth.
The intent is protective, almost pedagogical, but it lands because it’s also a sly critique of how we’ve flattened reading into “getting it.” A poem, Murray implies, isn’t a riddle with an answer key; it’s an experience with layers, the kind you can’t fully register until you’ve lived with it a second time. Rereading becomes not remediation but method: the first pass is the encounter, the second is the conversation. That’s especially true in poetry, where meaning isn’t only semantic; it’s rhythm, tone, ambiguity, and the charged space between lines. Those elements often only click once you know where the poem is going.
Contextually, the quote speaks to a contemporary anxiety around literacy as performance - Goodreads summaries, hot takes, “relatable” lines clipped for sharing. Murray pushes back with a permission slip to slow down, to be uncertain, to return. Under the understatement is a larger claim: the deepest reading is iterative, and any culture that treats rereading as failure is quietly admitting it doesn’t have time for depth.
Quote Details
| Topic | Poetry |
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