A Few Things You Always Wanted to Know about Poetry and forgot to ask

A Few Things You Wanted to Know About Poetry But Were Afraid to Ask

Out of the goodness of my heart, as well as an inability to shut up, I will attempt to present a really rough guide for LitNet participants interested in getting more out of poetry and perhaps even attempt to write verse.

First of all, what is “Poetry”? Although it began as an oral tradition, poetry is a form of both spoken and written discourse. The subject matter ranges through every aspect of human civilization: from the loftily sacred to the low-down and dirty profane, from Paradise Lost to the notorious young lady from Nantucket. The quick definition is “any piece of crafted writing that isn't prose.” Coleridge described the difference between prose and poetry this way: “Prose is good words in good order. Poetry is the best words in the best order.”

In this thread, I will attempt to look at some of the ways poems can approach that ideal.

It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing:
Meter, Rhythm, and Rhyme

What do Paradise Lost, “Sailing to Byzantium”, and a limerick (clean or dirty) have in common?
They are all written in metric verse. When a poem has meter, the rhythm is regular, and there is a discernible, regular beat falling approximately in the same place in each line. It’s symmetrical in that the lines and the stanzas are all the same length, and the rhythm can be measured or “scanned.”

Ancient epics, such as the two Greek epics by Homer, had and have a different kind of meter than that of poetry written in the English language. In Greek and in Latin, for instance, the meter is quantitative as it derives from the length of vowels within syllables, whether they are long or short vowels. English prosody derives from syllables whether they are “stressed” or “unstressed.” For example, take an English word, any word. In the word “English” there are two syllables; the first is stressed and the second is unstressed. We say “ENG-lish,” not “Eng-LISH.”

In a line of poetry, we don't count vowels or syllables; we count “feet.” A metric foot is a group of syllables connected by their meter. It doesn't matter where the words themselves begin and end; it’s the location, location, location of the stresses.

The most common kind of foot in English verse is the iamb. An iamb consists of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. (“To BE”) If you write a line containing 5 iambs, you have written iambic pentameter, the most common metric form in English poetry. There are several reasons iambic pentameter is number one: first, Shakespeare employed it, and he was no slouch, but more importantly, iambic pentameter most closely resembles the way we speak. It mimics the rhythm of a beating heart and human respiration, breathing in and breathing out:

When I consider every thing that grows

As in this line the stresses often fall on the more important words. The lastsyllable of the line is almost always stressed, with some notable exceptions:
To be or not to be – that is the question.

There are other less common uses of the iambic foot, such as tetrameter, four feet in a line:

Come live with me and be my love

The opposite of the iamb is the trochee, a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Trochaic lines are rare in English:
Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple

I always thought that Longfellow was trying to mimic the sounds of drums in his “Song of Hiawatha,” which the use of the trochee suggests. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, the trochee is occasionally used to vary the opening of iambic lines, and such a line beginning and ending with a stressed syllable is sometimes confusing.

Another kind of metric foot is the anapest. Since it consists of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed, it can occur as a prepositional phrase, when the object of the preposition is monosyllabic: “down the tubes”/ “up the hill”/” ‘round the block.” A word containing three syllables can be an anapest, if the final syllable is stressed: “interrupt.” But since syllables can often be connected to iambs, poems written entirely with anapestic lines are very rare in English. We can find them in limericks. (More about them later.)

The spondee is another kind of foot. It’s two consecutive stressed syllables, such as in the word, “childbirth.” Some modern experts on prosody might argue that not every stressed syllable gets the same amount of stress; there are weak and strong stresses. But to generalize, if you want to slow down the rhythm in order to introduce a solemn mood, you could throw in a spondee.
(Iambs and anapests are useful for “quicker” rhythms.)

The dactyl sounds like the name of a prehistoric reptile, but it really is a metric foot that has one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables, such as in the word “carefully.” There is a relatively-recent form for light verse called the “double dactyl.”

If you want to put end rhyme in your poetry, you have to have meter. The rhymed words have to match up with each other and their stressed have to fall in the same place. This is why you seldom see end rhyme in free verse.

Free verse does not depend on any kind of metrical feet at all. The lines are irregular and asymmetrical. You can write free verse without meter, but you can't write it without rhythm. Free verse is the most common form of modern and contemporary verse. The ordered universe of centuries past was typified by metrical verse, but the modern age with its ambiguity and uncertainly calls for a less orderly response.

A popular misconception is that somehow free verse is “easier” to write than metrical verse.
You don't have to worry about having the appropriate number of syllables or whether the stresses fall in the right places. I think writing effective free verse is just as difficult; the poet has to invent a whole new form for his imagery.

You can't just cut up lines of prose and arrange themthe lines randomly on the page. When you work with the net down, when you take a restriction away, you have to substitute something else to ensure a certain degree of difficulty. When you take something away, you have to put something in to give your poem form. That’s where imagery and “line breaks” come in .

One more misconception: the term “blank verse” is not a synonym for free verse. Shakespeare’s 37 plays are all written in blank verse. Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Free verse lacks both end rhymes and regular meter.

In order to match up the end rhymes, some would-be poets disjoint the syntax and write lines that sound like Yoda from Star Wars. This is called a “wrenched accent.” A current television commercial for a online credit reporting company here on the east coast is irritating to the max. There’s nothing wrong with a jingle or a singing commercial, but this particular one, the stresses in the rhymes don't match. Thus, the stresses in the rhyming words are in the wrong place: Ba-BEE for instance instead of “Baby,” wrenched so it will rhyme with “TV.” To restate the obvious about end rhyme: in each of the rhyming words has to be stressed and be stressed on the same syllable. That is why these two words rhyme: regret/ forget but
these two do not rhyme: regret/egret.

Rhyme was initially designed as a mnemonic device in cultures with oral traditions to help remember the verse when it is recited. We can still use rhyme for aesthetic purposes, to contribute to the “sound effects” of the verse, but predictable and stale rhymes(“Moon/June” “true/blue”) can detract from and trivialize an otherwise good piece of poetry. Compared with other languages, English has a paucity of rhymes, especially for words – as the Oxford Companion to the English Language states – “as semantically important as God, spirit, and life,” concepts that frequently show up in serious verse.

On the other hand, “God, spirit, and life” are abstractions, which only the most adept poets can handle effectively. As a general rule, it’s best to choose more down to earth imagery, often composed of words that rhyme.

Line Breaks: Curse or Free Verse

When a poet writes a piece of free verse, he or she has chosen not use meter and end rhyme. One of the ways to bring form to unmetered verse is the line break.

Free verse is not a piece of prose with broken up lines arbitrarily arranged on the page. In free verse, emphasis is drawn to the first and last words of each line. The way the lines and words fall gives the poem a sense of rhythm, even though there is not a scannable regular meter.

There are three ways to break a line of free verse:
end stop, in which the last word in the line is followed by a punctuation mark, such as a period, a comma, a colon, or a semi-colon. These punctuation marks are not sprinkled upon the page like salt and pepper. In poetry the particular functions of each of these punctuation marks are similar to that of prose.

Enjambment, which can occur in both metered and free verse, is a line break which carries the previous thought over to the next line without punctuation. The next line is not capitalized. Some poets make excellent use of this device, which comes in handy for word play and setting up tension:
Here’s an example from Adrienne Rich’s “Necessities of Life”:
Piece by piece I seem
to re-enter the word: I first began

a small, fixed dot, still see
that old myself, a dark-blue thumbtack

pushed into the scene,
A line can end a certain way, and when the reader reaches the next line, he may be totally surprised at the change in direction.

Caesura is a pause or a space between words. At the end of a line of verse the caesura can be effective, especially in how the verse appears on the page. The poet can use the empty spaces the same way he uses words and thus give the poem shape. Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s lines have this zig-zag quality which creates a appealing effect for the reader’s eye. Creators of pattern or concrete poetry can use caesura to arrange the text so that it resembles the shape the subject. George Herbert’s “Easter Wings” and Appolinaire’s “Il peut” (“It rains”) are good examples.

Some modern and contemporary poets use a kind of reverse caesura and run words together, as in this e. e. cummings line about Buffalo Bill:

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

Speaking of Mr. cummings, he is known for his typographical quirks: the use of parentheses (both closed and unclosed), colons, hyphens, and capital letters in the middle of a word. But he’s known best for his use of the lower case, especially in his signature as well as in the first person singular pronoun. Cummings broke the rules of punctuation for artistic purposes, and it can be argued that he earned the right to do so. But it is the mark of an amateur poet, a “poetaster” to write the word “I” in lower case or type it without using the shift key.

Another mark of the amateur is ending each line of free verse with an ellipsis. The ellipsis, characterized by three periods in a line (. . .) is a punctuation mark used to acknowledge the fact that part of a quoted passage has been left out. The punctuation used to signify a pause
is a comma or a caesura. A dash is used to suggest for an abrupt interruption or to leave one hanging.


Conscientious use of the line break shows that the length of the line in free verse is not supposed to be arbitrary or random. The length of lines can be long, as in the poems of Whitman and Ginsberg, or short, as in some of W.C. Williams’ short poems and in the works of A.R. Ammons, who according to legend, typed his poems on adding machine paper to keep his lines from getting too wide.

great idea, AuntShecky, explaining the mysteries behind poetry :D
I'll keep checking back on this thread.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

First of all, what is “Poetry”? Although it began as an oral tradition, poetry is a form of both spoken and written discourse. The subject matter ranges through every aspect of human civilization: from the loftily sacred to the low-down and dirty profane, from Paradise Lost to the notorious young lady from Nantucket. The quick definition is “any piece of crafted writing that isn't prose.” Coleridge described the difference between prose and poetry this way: “Prose is good words in good order. Poetry is the best words in the best order.”

---

Yes great idea Aunty. I'll definitey be comeing back to this thread. ;) I do still think my definition (not really mine, but something I came across and have kept with me for over twenty something years) is the best. I define poetry as charged language.

Go Figure: Imagery, Figurative Language, and Tricks of the Trade

In a good poem, form and content are as connected as inoperable Siamese twins. This is true for both metered and free verse. The poem’s subject and the way it is presented can't be separated, the “what” and the “how” are equally important. Here’s an analogy. Go listen to an instrumental version of your favorite song. I bet you can't listen to it without filling in the lyrics I your mind.

A poem’s heart and soul is its imagery. Imagery is a concrete expression of the idea behind the poem. The “thought” of the poem is represented by a person, a place, or a thing that can be discerned by the mind’s eye; the plausible subject could theoretically exist in time and space and as such could be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, felt (in a palpable sense.)

The catch-all phrase to describe what happens in a poem is figurative language. The poet “draws” an image just as a painter paints one or a sculptor sculpts one. A figure of speech goes beyond a literal understanding of what a word means. For instance, the cliche “she’s as big as a house,” doesn't really mean that a woman’s size encompasses real estate acreage. (And by the way, some speakers incorrectly insert the word “literally” in front of figures of speech, perhaps in the mistaken belief that the word “literally” is an intensifier: “He literally brought the house down.” “It was literally hot as hell.”)

There are numerous types of poetic figures of speech (called “tropes.”) Some times the entire poem extends a trope for a extended passage or for the entire poem; this is called a “conceit.”
In other cases, a figure of speech may be an added embellishment, like the icing on a cake (the hackneyed phrase itself is a figure of speech.)

The metaphor is one of the most common tropes. A metaphor sets up an equivalence between the object described and the figure invoked, without using the word “like” or “as”:
My love is a red, red rose.
The simile sets up a near-equivalent comparison by the use of like or as. Use “like” for nouns: My love is like a red, red rose and words that modify nouns, such as adjectives: "Mighty like a rose. "
Use “as” to compare verbs and verb-modifiers:
I wandered lonely as a cloud.

Other important tropes include metonymy, which substitutes the name of an object with something closely associated with it. For instance, when Tim Russert “Meets the Press,” he doesn't go one-on-one with the machine that rolls out newspapers; he confronts reporters. When a detective in a 1940s movie refers to “ a skirt,” he’s not making a fashion statement but referring
to a woman character.
Synecdoche (pronounced “sin-NEC-doe-kee) is a kind of metonymy in which a part is substituted for the whole: “All hands on deck.” (By the way, the title of a current American movie hitting the festival circuit, “Synecdoche, New York ” stole a joke I made about “Schenectady” years ago. If I had the energy, I'd sue.)

Personification means just that: blending inanimate objects, animals, or abstractions with human characteristics. “Procrastination is the mother of invention.”

Poets often borrow poetic devices from the realm of rhetoric. In the original Greek irony meant “pretense against the lesser.” According to The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, irony is a seemingly straightforward statement consciously undermined by the context. Often , but not always intended to be humorous, irony is an extremely important aspect of postmodern literature.
It can– according to context – have a tone of sarcasm or poignancy, or even, going back to the original source, Oedipus Rex, cathartic tragedy.

Litotes is an understatement. When a poet uses litotes effectively, that’s no small feat.
Meiosis is a refined type of litotes, meant to belittle or minimize. The Oxford Dictionary uses as an example Mercutio referring to his fatal wound as a “scratch.”


Hyperbole (“Hy PER bo LEE”) is an overstatement, puffing up the subject to a position of greater importance. If you use millions of tropes, you will write the most magnificent poem the world has ever seen.

Making Sense from Sound Effects

After examining some of the ways a poem can look good to the eye, let’s turn our attentionto the techniques that help a poem appeal to the ear.

In the centuries since the invention of printing, poetry has been considered to be primarily a visual art rather than an aural one. Yet the fact remains that poetry was born as a spoken medium, hence the historic importance of meter and rhyme. The rhythmic origins remain in several types of “sonics” or sound effects that poems use. Except for the “beat” of ametrical poem in which the stressed syllables fall in a prescribed regular pattern, the following
poetic devices can be found in both metered and free verse.

Repetition is the main way of pounding rhythm into lines of verse. Most sonics depend on repetition of phrases, words, syllables. In a sense, most sound effects are a form of “rhyme.”

Alliteration refers to the repeated first letter of words within a line or passage of verse. This is also called “head rhyme” or “initial rhyme.” In a single line the alliterative words follow each other or at least are close by. Now considered to be an embellishment or a way to give otherwise formless lines some form, alliteration was a requirement in Old English poetry (such as Beowulf) in which end rhyme was virtually unknown. Here’s a more relatively-recent example from Swinburne (1866):
B lown buds of barren flowers

When the repeated sound is a vowel, the alliteration is called assonance. Assonance can occur in the
middle of words, usually on a stressed syllable. Here are examples of assonance from The Oxford
Dictionary of Literary Terms:
sweet dreams, hit or miss.

Consonance is repetition of similar consonants in neighboring words when the vowel sounds are different. According to the Oxford Dictionary again, the term consonance is “for the special case when
the words are identical except for the stressed vowel sound (group/grope, middle/muddle, wonder/wander); this device, combining alliteration and terminal consonance, is sometimes . . .known as ‘rich consonance.’ “ Writers of free verse may use it instead of end rhyme at the end of
lines.

Another type of repetition uses words rather than syllables. Anaphora (an-AN-a-for-a)
is the repetition of the same word at the beginning of lines, such as this example from Emily Dickinson:
Mine–by the Right of the White Election!
Mine–by the Royal Seal!
Mine -by the Sign in the Scarlet prison
Bars– cannot conceal!

Epistrophe (e-PIS-tro-phee) repeats words at the end of lines. Oxford offers this example from
Walt Whitman:
The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place.
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.
To be continued, next time: More About Rhyme

moved to the end of the thread, at AuntSheckys request

Time to Rhyme

“[P]oetry exists in a realm between song and speech: if it leans too far toward speech, it is merely prosaic.”

Those are wise words from the late Judson Jerome who was a long-time poetry columnist for the Writer’s Digest. In an article written in 1989, he reminded us that “ancient poetry probably took the form of chanting, a component of magic, in the effort to control the supernatural forces that rule.”

That sounds really ancient, but in truth, what we think of when we hear the word “rhyme” is end-rhyme, which really didn't appear in English verse until the 14th century. Up until then, poetry depended on alliteration.

Just like a magic spell, when a poem rhymes well, it almost seems to have some mystical power. If nothing else, the power of rhyme is kinetic – moving the lines along and edging them closer to song and farther away from ordinary, everyday palaver. But the secret is making rhyme not merely pleasant-sounding embellishments but making it essential to the poem.

Earlier in this thread, I mentioned how bad rhymes can trivialize an otherwise good poem, but apt rhymes can make a good poem better. The cardinal rule is that most rhymes fall on stressed syllables.

Jerome, however, offers the trisyllabic word, “reverence” as one in which the reader could “linger” on all three syllables, adding that the last one can take a stress and thus a rhyme. He offers another example, this time from Garrison Keillor: “From this, dear children, you should sense/The value of obedience.”

A “weak” rhyme occurs when it falls on an unstressed syllable, but in not every case is a “weak” rhyme a no-no. For instance, in “Sailing to Byzantium” Yeats has the word “wall” rhyme with the final syllable
of the word “animal.” Jerome explains: “The dictionary records no stress on the last syllable of animal, but, in metrical verse, any syllable stronger than the one that precedes it can bear a stress, and -al is certainly stronger than the i in animal. In this remarkable poem, the -al seems to howl with the heart’s long pain.”

Jerome concludes: “Any intonation that draws out unnatural stresses, sounds, echoes in words moves language toward song. . .Rhyme, especially end-rhyme (that is, at the ends of lines instead of buried within them), is one of the least subtle but potentially most powerful elements of that craft. It is to be used with caution–by experts and beginners alike.”

Types of Rhyme
(Source: The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms)

Types of “Full” Rhyme:
When the last stressed vowel in the line and all subsequent sounds compose the end rhyme, this is called masculine rhyme: love/above

Feminine or double rhymes occur in two-syllable words: together/ forever or in three-syllables: glamorous/ amorous (The Oxford Dictionary neglected to mention how that last rhyming pair was actually used by a great American lyricist, Johnny Mercer.)

When a feminine rhyme uses more than one word, this is a mosaic rhyme: famous/ shame us.

Departures from full rhyme:
Rime riche – the consonants are the same, though the spellings and meanings of the word differ:
maid/made

Eye rhyme: the two words appear to rhyme in print, but the actual sounds don't really sound alike: love/prove

and slant rhyme or “half-rhyme”: the vowel sounds don't match, but the end consonants do:

(love/have)
or the beginning consonants are identical: love/leave

Rhyme scheme
Certain forms of metered poetry prescribe set patterns of where the end rhymes will fall within the stanza. When designing a poem, the poet will have the pattern in mind, to which each of the rhyming words will be clustered. Thus, giving the end of each proposed line the same
letter of the alphabet: a or b or so on.
Thus the rhyme scheme of a couplet is “aa,” “bb” and so on. A quatrain (4-line stanza) with alternate rhymes would be: abab.

The Lazy “I,” Abstraction Distraction, and Other Poetic Demons

Those of us steeped in modern poetry automatically assume that the “I” of the poem – the speaker with his or her first person singular point of view and the poet him/herself are one and the same. Of course, this isn't always the case, even now in the 21st century.

This was certainly not always the case in English literature. The late medieval “courtly love” tradition of poetry had the speaker declaring his love for the lady, usually the very-married noblewoman of the manor, but there was no chance in Christendom that this “love” would ever be consummated in reality. That was a given. By the Renaissance, with the emerging romantic love sonnets, the line between the speaker and the “I” of the poem began to blur a little, more so for the metaphysical poets. By the appearance of the Romantic poets, the lines really seemed to merge.

But even Keats – a poet synonymous with the word “Romantic” – railed against making the poem too personal, and he warned against total surrendering to “feelings.” According to Edward Gordon, Keats tried to achieve an “imaginative discipline” which would “free him from . . .’the egotistical sublime’ –the setting up of a huge ‘I.’ “

Among the later Victorians, Browning’s dramatic monologues, such as “My Last Duchess,” featured narrators or speakers who were not the poet himself. (Cf. “Tweak Your Speaker.” )

Closer to our own age, T.S. Eliot as well weighed in on this issue in a famous essay, “Tradition and Individual Talent”:
"[T]he poet has, not a 'personality' to express, but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways. . .
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. "
When Eliot considers "emotion" in a poem he means "emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet."

When reading a poem from any age, the reader should perhaps not automatically equate the “I” with the poem’s by-line. We might do well to remember this when attempting to write verse ourselves. Long, self-pitying tirades or recaps of a love affair gone south may indeed provide the stuff of poetry; however, the subject matter requires the imposition of form to make it palatable for -- let alone resonate with -- the reader.

Often journal entries have import and value only for the journal-keeper himself. There is nothing wrong with the concept of “self-expression,” but the would-be poet should perhaps take care to emphasize the latter rather than the former.

Abstractions/ Distractions

When a poet sits down to philosophize about Life, Love, Spirit, God, Humanity, Death, and the other amorphous“ideas” floating around the cultural ether, he realizes that these concepts are as slippery to capture a soil-slicked eels. Unless the poet’s name is Yeats or Auden, it’s better to pare those abstractions down to manageable size and shape, to depict them in images that can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted and “felt” (in a tactile way.) Generally speaking, the more specific an image is, the more a reader can comprehend the intended concept which the image represents.

Another pitfall a poet should avoid is the cliche. If a piece of verse is rife with tired old expressions, phrases we've heard a thousand times before, how can the poet assume that he or she is presenting something new? What is it about “LOVE” that has never been written about before, or at least hasn't been written about it in a brand-new way? Young would-be poets, perhaps adolescents, arguably haven't had enough life experience to realize that the pleasant or depressing “feelings” they are currently experiencing are common to many, and that this particular experience has already been the subject of thousands upon thousands of songs and poems. The way to avoid this is to read hundreds if not thousands of previously-written poems; that way a versifier will know whether what he’s offering is indeed something unique. A quick – but not necessarily fool-proof – way to check whether one has written a cliche is to “Google “it, make an Internet search of the questionable phrase. If the words show up in several web sites, the poet knows it’s time to go back to the proverbial drawing board.

And speaking of time-worn phrasing, I've just checked my calendar and I see that it’s 2008. There’s no reason then for putting archaic words and expressions – such as “doth,” or “ e’er” or “ ‘twas” in verses that we compose today. They appear in poems of the past – long past – and contemporary amateurs feel compelled to use them because they seem “poetic.” Use a more up-to-date word or phrase for making your meter fit, and use the archaic words only when the subject requires it, such as in humorous or light verse, and even then, sparingly.

Conclusion
(and it’s about time!)

What started out to be a “few things” about poetry has nearly turned into a manifesto, but let me conclude with a “few” more things:

In a 1996 essay, Miller Williams (former U.S. Poet Laureate and father of Lucinda) recalled an incident from the Sixties in which a poet was “ booed for reading a poem in rhymed quatrains.” In those free-wheeling hippy dippy days, folks looked askance at formalism.

But – do you still think meter and rhyme are “passé,” like Disco fever? Think again. Over 90% of English verse is in iambic pentameter, and the other 10% are variations of that form. To give you an example, one of most emblematic representations of what we think of as “free verse” is “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by the aforementioned T.S. Eliot.
But as Miller Williams points out, that poem is actually iambic pentameter with line breaks. While you're at it, get a few poems by the ultra-modern e e cummings and scan some of his lines. You're in for a big surprise.

Perhaps you think formal verse somehow inhibits creativity or reins in free expression. Maybe it’s too rich or “artificial” for one’s earnestly sensitive soul. Here’s Miller Williams again:
“Of course the patterns of poetry are artificial. All art is artifice wrestling with ordinary life; all discussion of art is at heart a discussion of the relationship between the artificial and the natural.”

So in my humble opinion (English for “imho”) I believe that understanding the techniques of meter and rhyme open up a window for comprehending modern and contemporary poetry. I also truly believe that unless 90% of the verses I attempt to write aren't remotely like iambic pentameter, I am doing something wrong.

And finally, let me leave you (at last!) with more Miller Williams wisdom:

“Not every worthy poem is written in rhyme and meter. . .But all of the poet’s tools are there for us to use, and I can't think of any reason not to use them.”

This Thread is now open for comments, criticism, additions, subtractions, detractions.

Thank you for this thread. I enjoy it very much.

Here is a playful addition to your section "Go Figure: Imagery, Figurative Language, and Tricks of the Trade" , that I hope you might enjoy.

Metaphorazine
by Jeff noon

Johnny takes Metaphorazine. Every clockwork day. Says it burns his
house down, with a haircut made of wings. You could say he eats a
problem. You could say he stokes his thrill. Every clingfilm evening,
climb inside a little pill. Intoxicate the feelings. Play those skull-piano blues.
Johnny takes Metaphorazine.
He's a dog.

Lucy takes Simileum. That's not half as bad. She's only like a moon
goose gone slithering, upside-down the sky. Like a tidal wave of
perfume, like a spillage in the heard. With eyes stuck tight like
envelopes, an posted like a teardrop. Like a syringe, of teardrops
<sic>. Like a dripfeed aphrodesiac, swallowed like a Cadillac, Lucy
takes Simileum.
She's like a dog.

Graham takes Litotezol. Brain the size of particules, that cloud inside
of parasites, that live inside the paradise of a pair of lice. He's a
surge of melted ice cream, when he makes love like a ghost. Sparkles
like a graveyard, but never gets the urge, and then sings Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! like a turgid flatfoot dirge. Graham takes
Litotezol.
He's a small dog.

Josie takes Hyperbolehyde. Ten thousand every second. See her face go
touch the sky, when she climbs that rollercoaster high. That mouth!
Such bliss! All the planets and the satellites make their home inside her
lips. It's a four-minute warning! Atomic tounge! Nitrokisserene! Josie
takes Hyberbolehyde.
She's a big dog.

Alanis takes Alliterene. It drags a deeper ditch. And all her dirty
dealings display a debonair disdain. Her dynamo is dangerous, ditto her
dusky dreams. Dummies devise diverse deluxe debacles down dingy
darkened detox driveways. Alanis takes Alliterene.
She's a dead dog, ya dig?

Desmond takes Onamatopiates.
He's a woof woof.

Sylvia takes oxymorox. She' got the teenage menopause. Gets her
winder-sugar somersaults from sniffing non-stick glue. She wears the
V-necked trousers, in the blind-eye looking-glass. Does the amputated
tango, and then finds herself quite lost, in the new old English
style!. Sylvia takes Oxymorox.
She's a cat dog.

But Johnny takes Metaphorazine. Look at those busted street lamp eyes,
that midnight clockface of a smile. That corrugated tinflesh roof of a
brow. The knife, fork and spoon of his fingers, the sheer umbrella of
the man's hairdo! the coldwater bedsit of his brain. He's a fanfare of
atoms, I tell you! And you know that last, exquisite mathematical
formula rubbed off the blackboard before the long summer holidays
begin?
Well, that's him. Speeding language through the veins, Johnny takes
Metaphorazine.
He's a real dog.

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” –Emily Dickinson

First off, AuntShecky, I have very much appreciated this thread and the time you have taken to pass along these very worthwhile notes.

I do have to take some issue with your thoughts on rhyme and meter, however. Maybe it’s just my preference for free verse, I don’t know. I think I have to question the 90% figure. Maybe of all times, that may be true. But I just don’t see iambic pentameter or “variations of that form” as being what one commonly finds in today’s literary magazines.

That’s not to say that there isn’t some leaning towards structure of some description. I’m in the midst of reading Adam Kirsch’s “The Modern Element, Essays on Contemporary Poetry”, and he, for one, certainly seems to prefer a bit more structure, and certainly more meaning; over formlessness and abstract thoughts. (It’s my belief, though, that the two seem to get unfortunately lumped in together when people talk about modern poetry. Free form can be every bit as meaningful as more structured poetry.)

Some examples from my poetry subscription of choice over the past year:

Sorrows, Lucille Clifton: http://poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0...em_180005.html
The Train, David Orr: http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazi...em_180280.html
Repetition, Kay Ryan: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/arch...html?id=180543
Johnny One Note, W.S. Di Piero: http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazi...em_181180.html
The Pear, Jane Hirschfield: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/arch...html?id=181481


These are some of my recent favorites and taken together they represent what I (at least) am finding to be what is being published these days. That’s not to say they’re completely without structure. One can find some structure in anything. Such is the way the universe is built, I suppose.

But if one were to look just at Sorrows, for example, one would find – in my opinion – an exquisitely beautiful, painful poem; the likes of which I think, at least in this case, depend on its very freedom from the structure of rhyme and meter.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antiquarian

I don't really have a personal definition for poetry, Virgil. I do think poetry has to begin with an idea, though. Poetry is even more focused than the short story, but not much.

I think the most important element in any poem is the idea, not the rhyme, meter, structure, etc. By idea, I don't mean content or topic, such as "a tree." I mean the actual idea. For example, I think the idea behind Frost's beautiful poem, "After Apple-Picking" has nothing at all to do with apple picking. ;) It has everything to do with a memory of apple picking.

---

I'm not sure what you mean by an idea. All forms of art need an idea. If the memory of apple picking were the key, then why not write a personal essay on the subject. What distinguishes all art forms is their inherent craft. The craft of the short story is that of telling a tale (which is the arrangement of scenes, narrative, and descritption); the craft of poetry is arrangement of language. The reason I say that poetry is charged language is because one could craft a poem with banalities and trites and cliches. Like hallmark card for instance. A hallmark card isn't poetry because the language has lost its vitality, or as I put it, its charge. I think this is the most encompassing definition I have ever run across. It includes writing that was not meant to be poetry, but bcause of it's richness is raised to a poetic level. This for instance:

Quote:

---

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?- Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster- tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling And there they stand- miles of them- leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets avenues- north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?

---

This of course is laid out in prose, but it is shear poetry. It's a couple of paragraghs from the beginning of Melville's Moby Dick, one of the truly greatest novels ever.

Quote:

---

I do think a poem has to contain an epiphany or a peak experience.

---

It has to reach a climax or, as I prefer to think of it, resolve built up tension. An epiphany I think would be a sub set of reolving tension. I woud think you could have a poem that doesn't have an epiphany.

Quote:

---

Most of the novelists I love are English, but for poetry, I love Frost and Whitman. :)

---

I tend to prefer American poets too. ;) For me T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens stand out. I like Whitman and Emily Dickenson. Not as crazy on Frost, but I've grown to appreciate him. Yeats (an Irishman of course) may be my all time favorite of the moderns.

Quote:

---

Edit - I found this definition of poetry in a book by Robert Frost. This is Frost's definition of poetry and I love it:

"It begins with a lump in the throat, a homesickness or a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought, and the thought has found the words."

I love that.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chester

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” –Emily Dickinson

---

I find both of those definitions highly romanticized notions of poetry. I have almost no idea what the Dickinson defintion means. I've seen mathematical equations that take my head off. ;) As to the Frost's, "poem is one where an emotion has found its thought, and the thought has found the words," that's a variation of William Wordsworth's concept of poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." These are all notons from the Romantic era that have come down to us and which we have not gotten over. Well, a hallmark card can take people's heads off and it too is emotion that has found the words. How does that definition encompass this wonderful, great poem by Wallace Stevens:

Quote:

---

The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is

---

.

While there is some subtle emotion there, that's not what this poem is about. It's about making you see a particular thng, which may metaphorically (based on the context of Stevens' other poems and ideas) communicate something. Again he could have written an essay if all he wanted to do was to express an emotion in words. It's the craft of the language that makes this an incredible poem, especially the way the word "nothing" takes on increased meaning (it has become charged) through the various poetic techniques he employs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Virgil

I've seen mathematical equations that take my head off.

---

And I would submit that there is great poetry in such equations. Now, this might be highly romanticized, but the truth is there are moments that make one stop in one’s tracks. These are the "poetic" moments of life. If one is particularly aware, I truly think one can find poetry in everything. But of course a definition so broad is no definition at all. So I would say instead that one’s relating of such moments with the written word is what, in its essence, poetry is and what Dickinson meant. Sure, this can encompass prose as well, but why split hairs. One man’s prose is another man’s poetry, just as one man’s poetic moment is another’s indifferent one. It might be highly personal and very subjective. But I think Emily’s definition works.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chester

And I would submit that there is great poetry in such equations. Now, this might be highly romanticized, but the truth is there are moments that make one stop in one’s tracks. These are the "poetic" moments of life. If one is particularly aware, I truly think one can find poetry in everything. But of course a definition so broad is no definition at all. So I would say instead that one’s relating of such moments with the written word is what, in its essence, poetry is and what Dickinson meant. Sure, this can encompass prose as well, but why split hairs. One man’s prose is another man’s poetry, just as one man’s poetic moment is another’s indifferent one. It might be highly personal and very subjective. But I think Emily’s definition works.

---

As you wish. But I still think the focus of a definition needs to rely on the craft, not the response.

To borrow phraseology from a currently irritating commercial catch-phrase, "I'm lovin' it!" -- this discussion, I mean.

Thanks so much to Isagel for moving her nice reply so that the two sections on rhyme are reunited.

Thanks Amanda Isabel, Virgil, Antiquarian, and Chester for your thoughtful responses.

Virgil, I think you and I are of one mind regarding the purpose of poetry. The language itself is foremost. I also have to add that for the most part I agree with T. S. Eliot's view of the individual artist. Here's the link to his famous essay on the topic:
Tradition and Individual Talent

As to the vaunted "epiphany" and Maslow-type "peak experience," those phenomena are highly-subjective, depending on the response of the reader, rather than the artist. On the other hand, Wordsworth's definition of "emotions recollected in tranquillity" certainly may be valid on the individual poet's part; yet I still maintain
that the poem itself is a separate entity and that "emotion"if anything, is an effect, not a cause.

Also, Chester, I used to think that "free verse" by definition eschewed meter, of which iambic pentameter is one kind.
But having studied the topic ad infinitum-- if not nauseum, I now tend to think that iambic pentameter very closely approximates human speech (in English.) Therefore I don't doubt that 90% of English poetry is in that form if not a variation of that form, with the possible exception of really abstract experimental pieces.

Also, if you have time, please take up Miller Williams's challenge and go scan a few e e cummings poems as well as a few lines of "Prufrock."

To all of you, thanks again for your comments. Keep 'em coming!

Auntie

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Also, Chester, I used to think that "free verse" by definition eschewed meter, of which iambic pentameter is one kind.
But having studied the topic ad infinitum-- if not nauseum, I now tend to think that iambic pentameter very closely approximates human speech (in English.) Therefore I don't doubt that 90% of English poetry is in that form if not a variation of that form, with the possible exception of really abstract experimental pieces.

Also, if you have time, please take up Miller Williams's challenge and go scan a few e e cummings poems as well as a few lines of "Prufrock."

---

Well I never cared much for cummings or Eliot, so I'll just take you at your word on their body of work. My overall point was that most of the poetry I am finding being published today, such as the examples I posted, doesn't seem to fit iambic pentameter. But I suppose strictly speaking, everything is some variation thereof. Words are constructed from syllables after all and I suppose one can find some sense of rhythm if one looks hard enough.

Oh, I just couldn't disagree more. There are some simply wonderful poets out there. I'm amazed at what I've been seeing. Please follow the links I left in my earlier post. "Sorrows" for example is hauntingly beautiful. I know this stuff is very subjective, and if what's out there now is not your cup of tea, it's not your cup of tea. But as for me, I can't get enough of it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antiquarian

I've never like those poets, either, Chester, and I do agree that what's being published today isn't, for the most part, iambic pentameter, but I don't think what's being published today is really very good. Do you?

---

I'd have to strongly disagree with you here Antiquarian, there's a lot of very excellent poetry being published these days. Perhaps this isn't so true in the American market (Gluck & Olds aside) but in UK there is a very strong contemporary poetry market - check out pretty much anything published by either Bloodaxe http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ or the Carcenet press http://www.carcanet.co.uk/ both of which are widely recognised as excellent poetry publishers.

Aside from those already mentioned (Gluck & Olds - not to labour the point ;) ) I'd personally name the following as excellent modern poets: John Kinsella, Carol Ann Duffy, Moniza Alvi, Simon Armitage, Sean O'Brien, Elizabeth Garrett, Kapka Kassabova, Imtiaz Dharker, Galway Kinnell, U A Fanthorpe, Jenny Joseph, Fleur Adcock, Michael Ondaatje, Connie Bensley, Adrian Mitchell, Jo Shapcott...and they're just the ones I can think of! What you enjoy, of course, will be down to personal choice but here are a couple (apologies copywrite laws!) I particularly like:

Quote:

---

Ecstasy

As we made love for the third day,
cloudy and dark, as we did not stop
but went into it and into it and
did not hesitate and did not hold back we
rose through the air, until we were up above
the timber line. The lake lay
icy and silver, the surface shirred,
reflecting nothing. The black rocks
lifted around it into the grainy
sepia air, the patches of snow
brilliant white, and even though we
did not know where we were, we could not
speak the language, we could hardly see, we
did not stop, rising with the black
rocks to the black hills, the black
mountains rising from the hills. Resting
on the crest of the mountains, one huge
cloud with scalloped edges of blazing
evening light, we did not turn back,
we stayed with it, even though we were
far beyond what we knew, we rose
into the grain of the cloud, even though we were
frightened, the air hollow, even though
nothing grew there, even though it is a
place from which no one has ever come back.

Sharon Olds

---

Quote:

---

Living Space

There are just not enough
straight lines. That
is the problem.
Nothing is flat
or parallel. Beams
balance crookedly on supports
thrust off the vertical.
Nails clutch at open seams.
The whole structure leans dangerously
towards the miraculous.

Into this rough frame,
someone has squeezed
a living space

and even dared to place
these eggs in a wire basket,
fragile curves of white
hung out over the dark edge
of a slanted universe,
gathering the light
into themselves,
as if they were
the bright, thin walls of faith.

Imtiaz Dharker

---

Just to throw another opinion into the debate, this is from the Bloodaxe anthology Staying Alive:

"The essence of all poetry has always been rhythm" (Neil Astley)

hehehe, I'm not sure I'd have referred to it as romantic, but I guess I see where you're coming from! Anyway, there are a lot of great poets out there, even in these days of literature overload. From Staying Alive Neil Astley makes the following comments on this very point:

Quote:

---

The best contemporary poetry is life-affirming and directly relevant to all our lives. Yet most of us could only name one or two modern poems which have moved us profoundly and unforgettably. These are the kinds of poems which speak to us with the same unnerving power now as when we first came across them, like W. H. Auden's 'Funeral Blues' in Four Weddings and a Funeral ('Stop all the clocks...')...Such poems are remarkable because there seem to be so few of them. Or so we believe. For most people think contemporary poetry is either boring and irrelevant or pretentious and superficial. And that these single, powerful poems are somehow the exceptions. But they aren't. One of the problems with modern poetry is that because there is so much of it - and so many poems hold little interest for the general reader - you don't know where to find those exceptional poems...

---

so, it seems poetry suffers from the same problem as most modern literature, the market is flooded and it is hard to find the exceptional from in amongst the ordinary.

Anyway, I'm on a roll now (sorry) one from Fleur Adcock, it'll be my last (honest!):

Quote:

---

For a Five Year Old

A snail is climbing up the window-sill
into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
that it would be unkind to leave it there:
it might crawl to the floor, we must take care
that no one squashes it. You understand,
and carry it outside, with careful hand,
to eat a daffodil.

I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
your gentleness is moulded still by words
from me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
your closest relatives, and who purveyed
the harshest kind of truth to many another.
But, that is how things are: I am your mother,
and we are kind to snails.

---

it was only on the third or fourth read that I noticed the rhyme, too caught up, perhaps because as a parent this poem speaks to me, in the spirit of it.

If you're interested in poetry then there are poets out there, and poems, which will affect you as much as Frost's After Apple Picking. But like with all published works in these days it takes perseverence to find them.

Wonderful choices, TheFifthElement.

Excellent stuff.

to authenticate the existence of a wall:

1) Walk right into it. Your forehead, chest or knees may be bruised but you will have experienced the 'wallness' of it.

2) Stand back and wait for the sun to cast a shadow of it; then, measure the shadow.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Virgil, I think you and I are of one mind regarding the purpose of poetry. The language itself is foremost. I also have to add that for the most part I agree with T. S. Eliot's view of the individual artist. Here's the link to his famous essay on the topic:
Tradition and Individual Talent

---

That is a famous essay and worth re-reading. Yes I agree with you that the language is the basis of poetry. Everyone has the same emotions, it's how you write them. And as to ideas, if ideas were the foundation of poetry, then why does a writer write an essay about the ideas. It's not the emotion, it's not the ideas, it's the craft of poetry. And it's not just the act of expression either. An infant wailing is expressing very powerful emotions. But's not poetry.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Virgil

It's not the emotion, it's not the ideas, it's the craft of poetry. And it's not just the act of expression either. An infant wailing is expressing very powerful emotions. But's not poetry.

---

Perhaps we could say that the writer works the ideas into the piece through his craft.
Emotions can be and often are part of the "experience," but as T.S. Eliot suggest, the emotions are more part of the reader's reaction to the piece. Indeed, the best poems are reader, rather than writer, directed. In other words, so-called "poems" which are thinly-disguised journal entries, all focused on "I" and "me" rarely resonate with the reader.

I always say that the problem with "self-expression" is that
all too often there is too much emphasis on the former and not enough on the latter.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Perhaps we could say that the writer works the ideas into the piece through his craft.
Emotions can be and often are part of the "experience," but as T.S. Eliot suggest, the emotions are more part of the reader's reaction to the piece. Indeed, the best poems are reader, rather than writer, directed. In other words, so-called "poems" which are thinly-disguised journal entries, all focused on "I" and "me" rarely resonate with the reader.

---

I dunno Aunt Shecky, that seems kind of a sweeping statement. There's a lot of really good poetry out there written from the perspective of 'I'. Imagine, a world without John Donne? Or Louise Gluck, Sharon Olds? I agree, there's a thin line sometimes between what is presented as poetry and a journal entry but then writing from the perspective of 'I' can still resonate with the reader and still be poetic. Like Virgil said, it's what you do with the language that counts. If your poem is just 'you dumped me, I'm angry...rant, rant, rant.' then yes, this is guilty of what you describe, but put it into the perspective of something like 'Don't hesitate to call' by Louise Gluck and it's something different entirely.

I'd have to agree with this statement though:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

I always say that the problem with "self-expression" is that all too often there is too much emphasis on the former and not enough on the latter

---

I think, with poetry, there are a number of things at work, many of which have been mentioned: idea, emotion, language, rhythm. No one on their own is enough and the craft is in putting together the right balance of these things to present your image in a way that resonates with the reader, in a way that is more memorable and compelling than mere words alone.

Thanks for responding to this long thread, Fifth Element.
Just for the record, I never would characterize the poetry
of John Donne, Louise Gluck, or Sharon Olds (one of my "faves") as writing journal entries.

I agree with you completely about the importance of rhythm because, as Judson Jerome often suggested, poetry is the bridge between music and the spoken word.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Thanks for responding to this long thread, Fifth Element.
Just for the record, I never would characterize the poetry
of John Donne, Louise Gluck, or Sharon Olds (one of my "faves") as writing journal entries.

---

I agree, though they do all write from the perspective of 'I'. Sometimes this results in the 'journal' style, but it doesn't have to. I think we agree on this point.

I'm so glad to find another Olds fan (yippee!)! I read Monarchs and Ecstacy and fell in love with her poetry. She writes very passionately, I love that about her work.

ERRATA:

It's not that I'm deliberately "bumping" this old thread o' mine, but when I was looking up something, I noticed a glaring error that really needs fixing. (Too much "misinformation" already appears on the Web, and I really don't want to be guilty of posting wrong, however inadvertently.)

I wanted to "edit" reply #11 above, but evidently the thread is too old. SO-- the statement that Miller Williams is a former US poet laureate is incorrect. Either I confused him w. someone else or it was wishful thinking on my part, as maybe Mr. Williams deserves that accolade.

PLEASE-- if anyone spots any other errors I made in this thread, please correct them in a reply. Thanks.

Refreshing, really. A professor I had once decided that there was no real law, order, or definition for poetry, that many words jumbled strangely together on a page without any kind of purpose or order constituted poetry if that is what the author decided it was and that a single word repeated over and over also constituted poetry if the author decided it was. Any thoughts on that? I am inclined to argue against him.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by isidro

Refreshing, really. A professor I had once decided that there was no real law, order, or definition for poetry, that many words jumbled strangely together on a page without any kind of purpose or order constituted poetry if that is what the author decided it was and that a single word repeated over and over also constituted poetry if the author decided it was. Any thoughts on that? I am inclined to argue against him.

---

I'll be the first to admit, isidro, that many contemporary poems seem inacessible to me, even though I've spent a lifetime trying to understand it. I think that there are some poems that are "abstract" in the way a contemporary
painting is abstract -- but in such a painting at least I can appreciate the colors or the shapes or the composition. With a difficult and dense poem, however, I am totally asea-- though I warrant that in most cases the problem might be w. yours truly rather than the work itself.

Not every contemporary poet writes incomprehensible stuff, though, and there are several poets writing today who produce works that are accessible yet still rich in meaning.

(Please don't forget to point out any mistakes or erroneous info you may see in my "manifesto.")

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by isidro

Refreshing, really. A professor I had once decided that there was no real law, order, or definition for poetry, that many words jumbled strangely together on a page without any kind of purpose or order constituted poetry if that is what the author decided it was and that a single word repeated over and over also constituted poetry if the author decided it was. Any thoughts on that? I am inclined to argue against him.

---

I'm glad you disagree with him Isador. That professor ought to be fired. Babbling does not constitute poetry. First and foremost there has to be cohesion not just in poetry but in all works of art. next there has to be charged language, and babbling s not language.