Reading poetry is hard

I have this book with all the poems of a great Romanian poet, Nichita Stanescu and I've started reading about a poem every day.

I like his poems because they are very imaginative and visual in an unexpected way. I see them as surrealist descriptions, as if someone would put a Dali painting in words and add some more emotions to the mix. Of course, this is just how I see them, I never bothered to read the actual critics review of the poet.

The other day I was reading a nice poem called "Rain in the month of March"  ("Ploaie in luna lui Marte" in original). I can't find a proper translation but this is the first one a search returns.

Well, this poem also became the lyrics of a famous Romanian song by Paula Seling: listen it, it's quite nice.

Now, reading this poem made me realize two things.

First, I couldn't separate the song in my head from the poem. I couldn't read the poem, I was always hearing the tune of the song. The song taught me the only way I could ever read that poem.

Second, I'm probably not good at reading poems. Because the song made me see how beautiful the poem is -- I would have just read it, imagined an interesting visual imagine and be done with it. Reading it would have never shown me how good the poem is, it would have just been another specific Nichita Stanescu poem. But the song showed me it's an excellent poem.

I wonder how many other great poems I've already missed because I couldn't read them the way they are supposed to, with the right state of mind and the right visuals.

Reading poetry is hard.