How have you read it?

[littlemanpoet]

In my first couple of readings I skipped some of the Elvish songs, but not the Hobbity ones. But Tolkien's poetry has grown on me and now I consider them to be integral to the story. In a certain sense, to me anyway, they are the story.

[Eonwe]

sam's poem about the troll is awesomely hillarious. i always relish the time leadnig upt to it . it says so much about sam (the fact taht no one knew he was such a verse writter)...

the poetry is amazing in general. i love coming to a song i know of and rereading it. such as galadrial's song of regret/whatever when the fellowship leaves lorien. or gimli's song about kazad-dum. or sams song of teh oliphant.

i like how becuase i know the plot, i can focus on different things. like sometime i'll puzzle out teh mystery of aragon's kingship. or another time ill focus on sam adn frodo's journey. one thing i've always wanted to do (but it would be increaibley hard. maybe ill do it in the summer when i have time) is draw up a really detailed map of middle-earth and plot things on it. just read through and plot where this person in when sam and frodo are here, etc. i think that would be so awesome. then i could pin it on my wall and worship it every night.

[Holbytlass]

I just really like silly poems, lymericks stuff like that, I prefer things that rhyme.
I should have been more specific, I love and have memorized (singing them to my children) the hobbit poems, but the elvish is "work" to me.

If something is a forced read, like in a class, I certainly do appreciate a person's work, understand the haiku having certain syllables in the three lines, descriptive language and even play on words, etc. But if it's for my own entertainment, I'll be honest, I like "There was a man from Nantucket...." than "Is there anything as lovely as a tree" (or whatever that tree poem is).

I will mirror the sentiments that Tolkien could do so many varieties that there's something for all.