Monday, November 17, 2003
=== Week 6, Titles, First Lines, Last Lines ===
--- Week 6 ---
Look at the titles, first lines and last lines. Are they strong, useful? Will the first line keep the reader reading? Will the last line keep the reader thinking about the poem?
Ponder the title before reading the poem. What is your expectation?
Look at titles by Wallace Stevens
--- Opening Poems ---
Martin Espada, "Clemente's Bullets"
Cleopatra Mathis, from What to Tip the Boatman, p. 28
Mark Jarman, "Wave"
David Graham, "Worcester, Next Nine Exits"
Mark Cox, "Like a Simile"
Zbigniew Herbert, "Elegy of Fortinbras"
--- Lecture ---
The Title
What's It Good For, Anyway? The First Words The first words of a story or poem that the reader reads are the title. It may even be the title that interested them enough to begin reading in the first place. Because of that, those few seemingly unimportant words can have a huge impact. Sometimes a story begins with a title. There are writers who have titles pop into their heads out of nowhere, and so they write those titles down. Later, one title may grow into an entire story. Other times, a writer may discover the perfect title in the midst of writing. Or it may take until the story is finished, even edited and re-edited, before the right title appears. Many writers use a "working title" when they are composing a story or poem. The working title gives them a way to refer to the piece as something other than "Untitled" (imagine having a computer full of files of stories all called "untitled"!). The working title can end up being the actual title if the writer is unable to think of anything better by the time the piece is finished. Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods got its title that way. It may very well be that the working title turns out to be the perfect title after all. What a Title Does Those few words that name your work have a job to do far beyond their (usually) short length. Because the title is the fist thing of your work that a reader sees it has more emphasis placed on it than any other group of words, except possibly the first and last lines. The title can say what the work is going to be about, or sum up the central theme. It may point out or highlight a particular aspect, theme or motif in the work that you, the writer, want the reader to notice or pay especial attention to. In other words, the title serves to focus the reader's attention, or at least gives them a big hint about what is important in the story or poem. The title seems at first to be such an inconsequential thing; after all, the story or poem itself is the real work of art. Yet that inconsequential-seeming word or group of words can have great power. Where Titles Come From A title can come from almost anywhere. It can be a line or phrase from another literary work -- an example is Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes (from Shakespeare's Macbeth) -- or a line from the work itself; like So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish by Douglas Adams. It can be a word or phrase that sums up the work, like Possession by A.S. Byatt or "Fidelity" by Wendell Berry. Some works take their title from an important character, such as The King's Swift Rider by Mollie Hunter or Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Similarly, the title can come from a place, like Medicine River by Thomas King and Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. Objects, themes and motifs are also useful sources of titles. The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia McKillip, The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti and Holes by Louis Sachar are good examples. Does it Matter? Of course it matters! The title is one more tool you can use to control how the reader reads your work. It may seem like a small thing, but in a true work of art, every aspect counts. Still, every writer creates work that resists a title. These stories and poems end up being called "Untitled" or else get titles that aren't quite right. But in many -- maybe most -- cases, especially with short stories and novels, the wrong title can be better than no title at all.
~ Mary Nicole Silvester
Copyright © 2003 About, Inc. About and About.com are registered trademarks of About, Inc. The About logo is a trademark of About, Inc. All rights reserved.
Thomas Lux writes: "I do believe a poem begins with the title and should engage the reader, make the reader want to read the poem."
The poem is announced by its title. This is where the poet first encounters the reader and the page. If the writer finds the title boring, so does the reader. This is the introducing of the poem to reader. Imagine that the poem is a living thing and capable of being introduced or of introducing itself. Think of it as a person introducing himself to an audience of one. This allows for intimacy, allows you to touch the other person on the arm, shake hands. If the other person expects a handshake and gets none, the first impression will not be very good. So with the poem title. This is your first chance to touch the reader, to get her attention, to make contact. First, it cannot be offensive. Second, it ought to be interesting and engaging. I think Thomas Lux uses opening lines as titles for this reason. They get the reader immediately immersed in the action of the poem. This doesn't work for all writers. If the invitation to read, that is, the title, is good enough then the first line must affirm the reader's decision to continue beyond the title. The first move is to show the reader he chose well by giving him an unforgettable opening line, one that will commit him to getting further involved. The rest of the moves then lead to a fullfillment in the last line that affirms the promise that the diligent reader will get one hell of a payoff. The reader will not know what to expect other than a poem but he will trust his experience to you if you start him off right. Your responsibility for your words begins with the title.
Look at the titles of today's poems: "Clemente's Bullets," "Wave," "Worcester, Next Nine Exits," "Like a Simile," "Elegy of Fortinbras." These are interesting people. "Hello, I am Clemente's Bullets. Would you like to learn more?" The title should meet your need to say to the reader "I have to tell you this..." It should begin to create an imperative that, with the first line, compels the reader to sign on to your experience. Beginning with the title, take the reader by the collar and do not bore the him/her. This done, you take his hand and walk him exactly as you want him to go right to the last word of the poem where he will find himself gripping your hand tightly in the presence of the vision that she now recognizes as her own.
Note also the book titles: Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover's Hands, What to Tip the Boatman, Magic Shows, Thirty Seven Years From the Stone, Questions for Eccliastes, most of which are poem titles as well.
So we begin to come full circle: Getting into the zone, sounds, rythm-meter-rhyme, words and meanings, does the poem make sense and, with titles and opening lines and closing lines-- does the poem make the right kind of sense so that it rises to the level of art by moving us from our individual particulars into a more universal recognition of that alien vision which comes from darkness and blood?
--- Discussion ---
Read the titles around the room and have students assign them a rating of 1-5, 5 being the best.
Same for opening lines.
Same for closing lines.
Add the totals by poet and, without giving names, tell us what the scores are.
15 would be great, anything less means something in the three items wants improvement.
Now read the poems. Give them the tests:
Is the title interesting, the first line gripping.
Does the poem make sense?
Is the language appropriate to the subject matter?
Does the language leap, surprising us?
Does each line advance the poem without repeating itself?
Does craft obscure the art?
Is the language so interesting that the poet slipped by without getting to the truth?
Does the poem pass the "holy shit!" test?
Would you read it again?
What would you change?
--- Conclusion ---
--- Week 6 ---
Look at the titles, first lines and last lines. Are they strong, useful? Will the first line keep the reader reading? Will the last line keep the reader thinking about the poem?
Ponder the title before reading the poem. What is your expectation?
Look at titles by Wallace Stevens
--- Opening Poems ---
Martin Espada, "Clemente's Bullets"
Cleopatra Mathis, from What to Tip the Boatman, p. 28
Mark Jarman, "Wave"
David Graham, "Worcester, Next Nine Exits"
Mark Cox, "Like a Simile"
Zbigniew Herbert, "Elegy of Fortinbras"
--- Lecture ---
The Title
What's It Good For, Anyway? The First Words The first words of a story or poem that the reader reads are the title. It may even be the title that interested them enough to begin reading in the first place. Because of that, those few seemingly unimportant words can have a huge impact. Sometimes a story begins with a title. There are writers who have titles pop into their heads out of nowhere, and so they write those titles down. Later, one title may grow into an entire story. Other times, a writer may discover the perfect title in the midst of writing. Or it may take until the story is finished, even edited and re-edited, before the right title appears. Many writers use a "working title" when they are composing a story or poem. The working title gives them a way to refer to the piece as something other than "Untitled" (imagine having a computer full of files of stories all called "untitled"!). The working title can end up being the actual title if the writer is unable to think of anything better by the time the piece is finished. Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods got its title that way. It may very well be that the working title turns out to be the perfect title after all. What a Title Does Those few words that name your work have a job to do far beyond their (usually) short length. Because the title is the fist thing of your work that a reader sees it has more emphasis placed on it than any other group of words, except possibly the first and last lines. The title can say what the work is going to be about, or sum up the central theme. It may point out or highlight a particular aspect, theme or motif in the work that you, the writer, want the reader to notice or pay especial attention to. In other words, the title serves to focus the reader's attention, or at least gives them a big hint about what is important in the story or poem. The title seems at first to be such an inconsequential thing; after all, the story or poem itself is the real work of art. Yet that inconsequential-seeming word or group of words can have great power. Where Titles Come From A title can come from almost anywhere. It can be a line or phrase from another literary work -- an example is Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes (from Shakespeare's Macbeth) -- or a line from the work itself; like So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish by Douglas Adams. It can be a word or phrase that sums up the work, like Possession by A.S. Byatt or "Fidelity" by Wendell Berry. Some works take their title from an important character, such as The King's Swift Rider by Mollie Hunter or Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Similarly, the title can come from a place, like Medicine River by Thomas King and Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. Objects, themes and motifs are also useful sources of titles. The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia McKillip, The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti and Holes by Louis Sachar are good examples. Does it Matter? Of course it matters! The title is one more tool you can use to control how the reader reads your work. It may seem like a small thing, but in a true work of art, every aspect counts. Still, every writer creates work that resists a title. These stories and poems end up being called "Untitled" or else get titles that aren't quite right. But in many -- maybe most -- cases, especially with short stories and novels, the wrong title can be better than no title at all.
~ Mary Nicole Silvester
Copyright © 2003 About, Inc. About and About.com are registered trademarks of About, Inc. The About logo is a trademark of About, Inc. All rights reserved.
Thomas Lux writes: "I do believe a poem begins with the title and should engage the reader, make the reader want to read the poem."
The poem is announced by its title. This is where the poet first encounters the reader and the page. If the writer finds the title boring, so does the reader. This is the introducing of the poem to reader. Imagine that the poem is a living thing and capable of being introduced or of introducing itself. Think of it as a person introducing himself to an audience of one. This allows for intimacy, allows you to touch the other person on the arm, shake hands. If the other person expects a handshake and gets none, the first impression will not be very good. So with the poem title. This is your first chance to touch the reader, to get her attention, to make contact. First, it cannot be offensive. Second, it ought to be interesting and engaging. I think Thomas Lux uses opening lines as titles for this reason. They get the reader immediately immersed in the action of the poem. This doesn't work for all writers. If the invitation to read, that is, the title, is good enough then the first line must affirm the reader's decision to continue beyond the title. The first move is to show the reader he chose well by giving him an unforgettable opening line, one that will commit him to getting further involved. The rest of the moves then lead to a fullfillment in the last line that affirms the promise that the diligent reader will get one hell of a payoff. The reader will not know what to expect other than a poem but he will trust his experience to you if you start him off right. Your responsibility for your words begins with the title.
Look at the titles of today's poems: "Clemente's Bullets," "Wave," "Worcester, Next Nine Exits," "Like a Simile," "Elegy of Fortinbras." These are interesting people. "Hello, I am Clemente's Bullets. Would you like to learn more?" The title should meet your need to say to the reader "I have to tell you this..." It should begin to create an imperative that, with the first line, compels the reader to sign on to your experience. Beginning with the title, take the reader by the collar and do not bore the him/her. This done, you take his hand and walk him exactly as you want him to go right to the last word of the poem where he will find himself gripping your hand tightly in the presence of the vision that she now recognizes as her own.
Note also the book titles: Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover's Hands, What to Tip the Boatman, Magic Shows, Thirty Seven Years From the Stone, Questions for Eccliastes, most of which are poem titles as well.
So we begin to come full circle: Getting into the zone, sounds, rythm-meter-rhyme, words and meanings, does the poem make sense and, with titles and opening lines and closing lines-- does the poem make the right kind of sense so that it rises to the level of art by moving us from our individual particulars into a more universal recognition of that alien vision which comes from darkness and blood?
--- Discussion ---
Read the titles around the room and have students assign them a rating of 1-5, 5 being the best.
Same for opening lines.
Same for closing lines.
Add the totals by poet and, without giving names, tell us what the scores are.
15 would be great, anything less means something in the three items wants improvement.
Now read the poems. Give them the tests:
Is the title interesting, the first line gripping.
Does the poem make sense?
Is the language appropriate to the subject matter?
Does the language leap, surprising us?
Does each line advance the poem without repeating itself?
Does craft obscure the art?
Is the language so interesting that the poet slipped by without getting to the truth?
Does the poem pass the "holy shit!" test?
Would you read it again?
What would you change?
--- Conclusion ---
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
=== Week 5, Revision, the Crucible of Art ===
--- Opening ---
Week 1, get in the zone faster, easier
Week 2, the beginning of sonics-- sounds of letters and words repeated for conscious sound effect
Week 3, sonics continued, more fomally with attention to meter and rhyme
Week 4, responsibility for language-- words and what they mean connotatively, denotatively and sonically
Week 5, Further look at how we exercise the responsibility for words by reviewing Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" as it was revised by the author. Then we'll begin to discuss revision as we look at our own new poems and suggest ways to make them better.
This week we'll involve each other much more directly by spending most of the time reading our poems and making recommendations, suggestions and comments about any aspect of the poem we wish to speak about.
Which of the three poems is the best?
Which of the three poems does the writer feel is the best
What is the strongest aspect of this poem?
Does the poem make narrative sense?
Does the writer mean it?
Does it sound like poetry?
What is the weakest aspect of the poem?
What specific recommendations do you have to make the weaknesses measure up to the strengths?
by Jennifer Bosveld
Reprinted from the chapter,
"Critiquing Toward Clarification: Part of the Process"
from Topics for Getting in Touch
After the initial pouring out that becomes a poem in some condition, most poems will greatly benefit from revision. Revision, re-vision, re-seeing, requires a coming-back-around to the poem time after time to reconsider various aspects of it (see "Romancing the Stone" section) in order to maximize the impact of the poem on its readers. There are particular things you can consider. Not all of these issues are relevant for every poem. Not all poems must MEAN anything. Poetry does not need to be written in sentences, for example. And I consider e.e. cummings the king of punctuation because of how he used language graphically on the page. He punctuated with words and spacing and word relationships.
If you evaluate the following aspects of your poem with an open mind, ready to be the makar of the best possible poem, it will not only make better "art", but it can clarify personal issues or perceptions.
STRANGE
My first word of advice comes out of my bias. "Make it strange!" It is comfortable and tempting to use word relationships and common phrases you've always relied on. But consider this. Stanton Samenow says "The therapist's job is not to comfort the afflicted, but to afflict the comfortable." This thinking is applicable in the making of art and especially poetry. So I say, "The poet's job is not to comfort us with the familiar but to afflict the subject with new and bothersome light." Perhaps it isn't a poem yet unless you've made me uncomfortable. Make me MOVE--shift in my seat, yell Yes!, get the dictionary, tell my brother about these two lines you wrote, change where I shop, make me take a walk, drive me to call the travel agent... or any combination of those and more. Change me. Make me wonder about your mental state, what you've put in that pipe, whether you've had too much caffeine. Make me wonder if we live on the same planet. Take me to YOUR leader. Give me the hic-cups from a gasp of awe. Distract me from the news, the kids, the thesis, make me late for the party because I was driven to read that poem four times because every time I peeled away a different meaning. Make me wonder where I've been all my life. I want to be terrified for the quality of my own work. Show me that I haven't been working hard enough on my own poems compared to yours. Make Joan of Arc Kidney Beans, Al Gore, Aunt Sadie's stained glass bird cage, and your Magnavox monitor all relevant in the same poem. Or call me a liar. Show me that every poem doesn't need concrete objects afterall. WOW us without a single one but with a twist of qualifiers nouned to ... what am I talking about, figure out what I'm talking about. Make it stranger than anything I've imagined so far but bring me a new sense of things. Whether you agree with me on this, probably most teachers of poetry would agree with the rest of this list.
THEME
What is the point of the poem? After we would problem-solve the syntax, parallel construction, or spelling, and after we look at language choice and focus on the subject, would we still be left with a trite theme? If so, you're better off getting on to the next poem. We can try to fix all those grammatical aspects of the poem but if after you've done all that you're left with nothing new to tell me, it will never be a poem. "I just wrote this for therapy" is an attitude (whether the writer's or the mentor's) that dis-serves growth or healing every bit as much as it dis-serves "the product" (the poem).
LANGUAGE
A.
Is the language used appropriately for the objective of the poem? Is the language fresh, innovative, creative? Is there any trite language that can be eliminated? Are cliches present? Are you sure you can recognize a cliche when it is present in your own work? Only one who reads and listens a great deal has a chance of recognizing a cliche. Since current statistics show that most people do not read that much and listen even less effectively, it is important to look closely with the cliche detector. Any familiar sounding phrase is suspect. Any metaphor or simile you've heard before is suspect. If this is "hotter than a firecracker" then it is only the "hot" of the common person, and not of the poem-maker. Remember, by definition, a poet sees differently, casts new and bothersome light, nearly afflicts the subject with uncomfortable freshness.
Is the tone consistent and appropriate to the theme or with the mood? Think scene and dialogue perhaps, rather than shifting into a summation or becoming philosophical.
Is the language concrete, full of specific and intriguing details? Have "big words" like "love," "beautiful," and "nice" been translated into words that mean something? Is language sharp and detailed (crystal rowboats and Kelloggs Cornflakes) rather than vague and full of abstractions--"a beautiful forest", what does that mean? Are there too many adjectives and adverbs? Say "Pledge" instead of furniture polish. Say "Pepsi" instead of soft drink. (Usually) Think "product placement" and use the products of your life or the life of the character in your poem. Rely on hard-working action verbs and specific nouns.
B.
Test your word choices and word placement. Test for meaning including denotation and connotation. Test for exactness or effectiveness of relating your message. Test for best position in the sentence, phrase, line ending/beginning. If you're writing free verse or experimental work, become aware of the many reasons for beginning and ending a line where you do. The last word in a line is often an easily accentuated word/sound. Or it can set us up for what's coming next. Sometimes I try to place action verbs at the beginnings of lines because it thrusts the poem forward.
C.
Question each word's right to inhabit the poem. That is the difference between most poetry and most prose. In a poem each word is crucial. Does a word appear to be cute? Cute doesn't last long. Cute is the terminal disease of a poem. Does the word say enough?
LOGIC
Is construction parallel? What about unity? Does X plus Y equal XY? Do images and concepts excite the focus of the poem without betraying your lack of knowledge in a field? Have you lied to the reader? Are you sure all references to nature are accurate, that you haven't embarrassed yourself by putting two birds together in a tree they'd never share?
MEANING
Clarity! Will the reader understand the poem at least on some level so that there is a key provided to unlock other levels? Is it unnecessarily difficult? Is the audience considered? Avoid pretentious or unnecessary and unfair allusions to obscure historical or scientific data unless THAT is exactly what you are writing about and at least a targetted audience will understand. Is enough information provided? Would a talented reader be confused? And, is the meaning new? That is important.
VOICE
Is it the omniscient POET we hear on a platform? Hope not! The poem should have a life of its own, a separate energy. It should be a personal experience for the reader without the poet getting in the way. Is the poet bragging about his ethics, perceptions, vocabulary? If so, revise. Does the sound of sense seem whole throughout the work? But what of rants and political poetry? Those take some nerve and finesse to pull off. Allen Ginsberg did it well, others do it well once in a while. I tend to overwrite when I write rants; I have to hone down considerably. Keep me interested in hearing your voice, buying what it is you have to sell, without beating me over the head.
FOCUS
Is the poet confused about his own point? Is too much trying to be said? What IS the focus? What is the method of exposure? Is this an extended metaphor? Is it well and clearly extended? Or is it mixed up with other comparisons that disrupt the picture? Are you trying to paint too many pictures, solve too many problems in this one poem?
FORM
What is the form? All poems have form; I am certainly not necessarily recommending a "traditional" form although that can have value too. Is the form so close to a traditional form that you might as well go ahead and perfect it? If it is a traditional form, did you avoid the pitfalls of same? (Forced rhyme, inverted expressions, etc.) If free verse, is it tight/carved/sweated over? Or did you allow the handle, "free verse," to imply free to do what you want no matter how ineffective? Does the form feel good around the poem? Or is the message at all sacrificed for the sake of the form? Watch for forced rhymes. Consider writing the piece without rhyming. Experiment with various sprinklings of the words across the lines. Pay attention to where the breaths are that begin and end lines (if that's the case). Have a reason for stopping a line where it bends around to the next, even if it isn't for breath or sentence chunks.
PUNCTUATION
Including lack of. Use either uniformly, or with some kind of rationale ready. If there is no punctuation, are line breaks or spaces used creatively in order to assist the reader? Are commas, semi-colons, and dashes used correctly? And surely ellipses have not been abused all over the page. Why do I say e.e. cummings is the king of punctuation?
CONCLUSION
Is the poem concluded WITHOUT summing itself up or stating the obvious or restating and being redundant? Is there an interesting whip at the end, perhaps? Does the reader have a sense of closure, yet a probability of being haunted by the poem (I hope so). Leave something for the reader to bring to the poem.
SHELF LIFE
Would you like to come back to this poem every now and then? Can it withstand close attention? If it is topical, does it at least offer a sociological looking glass for a day in history? Is it framed in such a way that it won't be worthless once the subject is out of the news?
IS IT A POEM YET?
Revisit the muse! Sometimes after you have critiqued and repaired according to all these guidelines, you finally reread the poem and discover it has lost its original freshness or that you have lost some of your initial passion for the subject or excitement for the poem. That's when it is time to go back and revisit the muse. Put yourself back into that time and space where inspiration or "need to write" first hit and make adjustments.
POLISHING
Spelling and other grammatical editing and proofreading can now be considered. What are this poem's major strengths and weaknesses? Feel free to revise again! I've been known to create up to 49 generations of a poem. It is unfortunate that most of us don't revise by hand now that we're composing on computer. Seeing a pile of revisions for a single poem is rather exhilerating and validating. Some people argue that poems are like people, they're never DONE, they're always in process. Some days I believe that and some days I don't.
I do know there comes a time when we must let the poem go, like a healed bird, or like a child. Your poetry is to be treated, eventually, like the people in your life who you treat with respect. Apply the words of the singer, Sting, "If you love someone, set them free." If you love this poem enough to be possessive and hypersensitive to any critiquing of it, you DO NOT love it enough. Love this poem enough to work on it; love it enough to set it free of cliches and poor word choice; love it enough to set it free of vague language. Set it free of this fog caused by a lack of focus. Set it free of the hiding place caused by resistance to change, resistance to work, resistance to turn your back on the original aha! Bring the situation of this poem into clear and bothersome light and simultaneously you will free the spirit of the poem and free the poet of the need to beat it to death. You will free the poet. You will free yourself.
Make the poem more important than YOU if you want to grow as a poet. Because in doing so, you might create art that is higher than what you have brought us thus far. No poem is worth the making unless it informs the maker.
* * *
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--- Poems ---
Elizabeth Bishop poem
Dana Gioia poem
EG poem
Ronnie’s Death and A Whole Lot of Shaking
Ronnie Twible was my first corpse.
I loved Jerry Lee Lewis at the same time.
Both were seductions
in the hormonal migration of nineteen sixty
when I was first copping feels.
We got to Rose Hill too early
so my sisters and I went for ice cream
because it was our first funeral and it was hot.
Ronnie was in a suit--
without the ring of his girlfriend--
(fiancee if you were outside his family)
surreally waxed as the dead are
to the nervous mourners
when you die at nineteen.
The football team in the front row
wept the reality of tumor
and I watched them and longed
to go home to the misery
of weeding my father’s strawberry beds.
Ronnie’s mother’s powdered cheek was dry as death
to my tentative lips in the receiving line.
I wiped my mouth as I stepped
out onto cold marble,
wished I was barefoot.
It may have been a Sunday
and I may have gone home to homework.
I didn’t know what I was doing there
but life was rocking away
and I needed somebody to feel.
I Am Fifteen
Ronnie Twible is my first death:
when I am too early
at Rose Hill for his funeral,
I go for ice cream
then to the humid granite room
where the corpse waits
under muted yellow funeral-parlor lights.
I sit behind the football team.
Each player huddles alone,
powerless, and weeps.
Seeing the tears I’m embarrassed and look at my feet.
Mr. McCarthy rises, says being so young
at least all Ronnie knew was good.
This doesn’t change the powder on his mother’s cheek
to anything less dusty than the death
I try to brush from my quivering lips after I kiss her.
Walking home through a field of razor grass, I throw up.
--- Lecture ---
Write Poems That Get Published! Craft a poem that editors and judges can't pass up by incorporating these seven techniques. by Miriam Sagan No poet likes to hear the expression "slush pile"-it implies that our creations have gone into a heap of unsolicited poems that, like yesterday's snow, are gray, dirty, useless and melting fast. But slush piles do exist. Magazines, even small ones, receive hundreds of submissions a month, sometimes even more, and contest judges have to read thousands of submissions in a brief period of time. Most of these poems are written in free verse-and are completely unstructured. There are many simple but elegant techniques, however, that can put structure into your poem without inhibiting it. Free verse, despite its anarchistic sounding name, doesn't mean that a poem should be formless. The name comes from the French "vers libre," and simply means poetry that is written without a strict form of rhyme, meter or repetition. What follows are seven techniques you can use to make your poem stand up like a good piece of meringue pie-just enough structure to give it form, not too much to make it overly stiff. 1. The title Don't neglect this opportunity, for that is exactly what a title is-an opportunity to introduce the reader to the poem. Avoid one word abstract titles, like "Autumn" or "Death," which are timeworn and cliched. Instead, use the title to create interest. Santa Fe poet Leo Romero's title What Trees Dream About encourages the reader's curiosity. So do highly specific and intriguing titles like Li-Young Lee's poem on Manhattan, The City in Which I Love You. Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti's The Pennycandystore Beyond the El, and African-American poet June Jordan's If You Saw a Negro Lady use the first line as a title-a rapid way to draw the reader in. You can also use the title in a painterly or descriptive fashion; instead of "Autumn" try for a phrase that truly captures the season. 2. Line breaks In prose the basic unit is the sentence, but in poetry it is something shorter and more partial-the line. When writing a poem, you naturally have to break it into lines. There are two basic methods for this-breaking it where it feels right and breaking it according to a set form. In free verse, there is no pattern to the line breaks, but two rules of thumb can help: 1. Break the line where you would typically take a breath. 2. Break it where it makes sense in terms of syntax, and where it will help the reader. To practice breaking poetic lines, start with a prose block that of course has no such breaks. Try the following exercise to help acquaint yourself with your own inclinations in terms of line breaks. • Step A. Pick one of the following topics: "I remember ..." or "Things I have lost." Start with the topic and write for 10 minutes or about two notebook pages. Be loose, wild, and do not write poetry-no rhyme, no line breaks. • Step B. Take the prose block you have written and break it into poetry. This will work best if you type the words out, so you can see them clearly. Discard any material you don't like-for example, the opening may be warm up that can just be dropped. Break the lines where it feels natural. Read aloud and break where you breathe. Use long lines if possible. And avoid one word lines-they tend to add undue emphasis and look amateurish. Now read the poem over and see how your own natural rhythm as a poet has emerged. 3. Syllabics Counting the number of syllables per line is another way to gain control over your free verse. Traditionally, English lines run 10 syllables with five of them stressed or emphasized. This is basically iambic pentameter. It isn't usually that strict, however. If you look at any line from Shakespeare's sonnets you will see it is rarely in rigid iambic pentameter. To make the lines of a poem sound natural, like human speech, you can use the technique of syllabics, which is much freer than any traditional meter. In syllabics, you count the number of syllables per line and attempt to standardize this throughout the poem. For example, if line No. 1 has seven syllables, all the rest should have the same. You can also be looser, and run lines, say, from six to eight syllables or some such range. Many contemporary poets use this, including Robert Creeley and Lucille Clifton. You might look at a poem you like, count the syllables, and see what is going on. To learn the technique directly, take an old poem of yours and rewrite it with syllabics. Try for lines of at least five syllables and less than 12. Stay in a moderate range. It is best to start with something already written so you can practice without interfering with inspiration. When you feel comfortable with syllable counting, incorporate it into your routine for writing a new poem, counting as you go. 4. Strong front words The way most poems work, the last word in each line gets the emphasis. Counting syllables and creating smooth line breaks enhances the end of each line. But don't neglect the front words in each as well. As an experiment, draw a line down the front of your poem, isolating the first word in each line. You might be surprised to see a batch of very uninspiring words, such as "and" and "the." Now try and replace some of these with strong individual words, including verbs and nouns. The easiest way to do this is by dropping off some modifiers; this also creates a tighter line in general. Not every front word has to be strong, but do improve a few for an overall better effect in the poem. 5. Fresh images Poems that linger in the slush pile have one fault in common-they rely on abstractions and cliches rather than on individual observation. For example, a poem that talks of the "colored leaves" of autumn isn't exactly fresh. To create a stronger poem, observe the outside world with your senses. Share your perceptions of your own time and place with the reader. The yellow cottonwoods along a dry river might be a better image of autumn in the arid West than those colored leaves. Or maybe a Japanese maple is dropping red star-shaped leaves in the middle of a busy city complex. Children jumping in leaves is a cliche-a memory of mother ironing leaves in wax paper for a school project is not. Be specific, and enliven the poem with your own perceptions. The reader wants to experience what you know, not something generic. 6. Endings
Here are quick tips to make your poems strong:
A title should do more than name; it should engage the reader's curiosity. Line breaks should feel natural, not forced. Repetition of lines with a similar number of syllables can add form to free verse. The opening word of each line should be compelling; use nouns and verbs whenever possible. Cut cliches, and add unexpected images and ideas in your work. Your ending line should strive for maximum reader impact. Revise your poem to ensure all the above is addressed.
The ending of a poem should be distinctive. That is, don't have the last line be any old thing that could appear anywhere in the poem. When you write the last line, be clear-you don't want it to be something that simply sounds good but is obscure. There is a tendency to tie up the end with a homiletic feel-but that often limits the poem. Avoid summaries that are cliched, like "Autumn is a time of change" or "Love is the greatest power" or "Death ends it all." Instead, try the following: • End when you have said everything you meant to say but no more. • End on a luminous image that allows the reader to exit the poem. • End on a feeling or tone-but know beforehand what that is. • End by coming back to the start, but in a fresh way. 7. The process of revision Of course, just having a great last line doesn't mean you are truly done with the poem. You still need to revise. Many poems that end up in the slush pile have never been revised at all. But don't forget that the word "revision" itself means to see something freshly, or one more time. Take the same creative energy you used to start the poem to revise it. Double-check some of the useful techniques for free verse-is the title interesting, is the end clear and uncliched, do the lines break smoothly, and does the poem sound right when read aloud? If the flow seems off, count the syllables in the awkward lines and adjust for a smoother effect. Double-check that you've been as specific as possible, and added your own original details. Now relax. Let your poem go forth on its own. This article appeared in the April 2003 issue of Writer's Digest.
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1) Radical Revision of three poems. INCLUDE DRAFTS.
This means total transformation, giant translation, (turn it over and cook the other side.) Meaning you will go back to three poems and rework them using them to think through what you have learned in class, and what you have read in the texts/poems.
Options for revising poems:
1-formal revision (example: transform pantoum into fragmentary montage; transform translation into a performance poem or a sound poem mixing two or more languages; transform concrete/visual poem into a pantoum or 3/d object/)
2-content revision (revise a poem by rewriting abstract concepts as concrete details; rewrite a poem by editing out unnecessary words; revise a long poem by adding stanza breaks; elongate a short poem into a long poem and then revise again with stanza breaks; revise a concrete poem by making it even more concrete, or more visual.)
3-conceptual revision (take a poem and use it to conceive an entirely new poem or series of poems; take a poem and revise it to imitate the structure of a poem you have read for this class.)
2) Process page to accompany each poem. (What happened to this poem? What did it go through in the process of revision?) 1 page for each poem.
3) Revision of two responses. (2-3 pages each.)
Look back through your response pages and find three that you want to think about in more depth. Possible modes of revision: 1) Return to the texts to which you are responding and read them again. 2) Find a point of connection between something you are saying and another idea/concept covered in class. 3) Find a link with another response, and merge them together.
Magazine: ANQ, SPRING 1998
ROETHKE'S REVISIONS AND THE TONE OF "MY PAPA'S WALTZ"
Written in the early stages of his career and counted among the "Greenhouse" poems, Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" certainly lacks the length and complexity of the poems from "The Lost Son" and "The North American Sequence." Yet, this poem has an intriguing ambiguity that elicits startlingly different interpretations. Kennedy calls it a scene of "comedy" and "persistent love" (421), and Balakian, in part, labels it a "comic romp" (62). In contrast, Ciardi sees it as a "poem of terror" (369). Roethke's father, Otto, is commonly recognized as a model for the Papa figure in the poem (Seager 26). Galvin more recently echoes Ciardi: "In `My Papa's Waltz,' . . . Otto Roethke . . . is a figure of terror to his young son" (103). Janssen agrees, suggesting that the "poem's energy" comes from "dual vectors" of feeling, that is, "light-hearted" and "grimmer" (43-44). He concludes that the poem ends with a primarily negative texture portraying a "drunken father, angry mother, and desperate child" who have a "desperate hope" for some fun in the face of "a real fear of violence and disruption" (44). Other critics see the poem as a mixture of positive and negative textures engendered by Roethke's ambivalent feelings toward his father, Otto Roethke, whose "strength was . . . a source of both admiration and fear, of comfort and restriction" (Malkoff 3). Balakian agrees, adding that in "My Papa's Waltz," Roethke "feels an odd and ambivalent closeness to his drunken papa" (62). Clearly, the major differences of critics' opinions involve interpretations of the tone of the poem: whether it is positive, negative, or a clever balance of the two (Fong 79).
Evidence from the original, handwritten manuscripts adds support for allowing and validating contradictory interpretations of this poem. The holograph manuscripts of "My Papa's Waltz" confirm that Roethke himself tried to balance the negative and positive tones of the poem, resulting in its rich ambiguity. The archives at the University of Washington contain two holograph manuscripts of "My Papa's Waltz." Each of these manuscripts, "MS-A" and "MS-B," consists of two sheets of paper. Differences in the two manuscripts attest to an identifiable sequence of composition, including revisions. These changes throw valuable light on Roethke's attempts to achieve just the right tone for his poem.
An interesting change, especially in view of some readings that see the poem as a collusion between males (father and son) against a female (mother), involves the gender of the child in the poem. In "MS-A," the child was a girl. In its earliest version, line two read: "is enough to [?] make [?] dizzy." Roethke crossed this line out (except for the word "dizzy") and wrote above it: "Could make a small girl dizzy." Indeed, "MS-B," as it was first transcribed, retained "girl." In a final revision of "MS-B," Roethke crossed out "girl" and substituted "boy." Clearly, at least as he first conceived of the poem, this was not a boys-against-the-girls poem. Why did Roethke make the change from "girl" to "boy"? It seems plausible that he did recognize the rough-house nature of this working-class father's waltz. Certainly American society of 1941, the year of the poem's composition, would see this rough play as more appropriate for a boy than for a girl. By substituting "boy" for "girl," then, Roethke could keep the dual tone of this dance: a little rough and scary and a little dear and loving.
A second change from "MS-A" to "MS-B" involves line 4 of the second stanza. "MS-A" originally read: "Did not unscrew itself." Later, but still on "MS-A," Roethke crossed out "unscrew" and substituted "unfrown." Perhaps the word "unscrew" had sexual connotations that Roethke wanted to avoid as he tried to recapture his father's rough attempts at love. This change may be linked to the change in the speaker's gender. Whatever his motivations for this change, Roethke portrays the mother's view of events as sternly disapproving, highlighted by the change from "unscrew" to "unfrown."
At this moment in the dance, the speaker directs his focus toward the mother and away from the father, thus heightening the opposition between his parents. With a further revision, Roethke cleverly enhanced this focus on the mother's reaction to the father's romp. "MS-B" contains "Did" as the first word of this line. Roethke then wrote "Could" above "Did," scratched out "Could" and let "Did" stand. The published version, however, reads "Could." By returning to "Could," Roethke picked up the consonance of "countenance" in the prior line, and with that bit of euphony further highlighted the mother's disapproval.
The third stanza also contains an important revision and clue to Roethke's search for just the right tone for his poem. The fourth line of stanza 3 in "MS-A" originally read: "My forehead scraped a buckle." Roethke scratched out "forehead" (with a single pen stroke) and wrote in "right ear" on "MS-A." Initially, "MS-B" repeated "forehead," but Roethke again scratched it out (with two pen strokes this time, as if he was then certain of the change) and again substituted "right ear." In the revised version, then, the speaker's head is turned to the side, more in the attitude of a child's embrace. In "MS-B," the child has turned away from the father. This change in posture, suggested by the change from "forehead" to "right ear," is a more apt description of a child dancing with an adult and less like a description of the more formal tete-a-tete dance of adults elegantly waltzing. Thus, the effect is positive on the tone because the dance becomes an informal, impromptu romp.
The fourth stanza occasioned the greatest number of revisions. In "MS-A," the first two lines originally read: "The hand wrapped round my head/Was harsh from weeds and dirt." Significantly, these two lines describing the father's hand actually touching the son/daughter were greatly revised. Apparently, Roethke wanted to get just the right "feel" to the images and language in this particularly intimate part of the dance. On "MS-A," Roethke crossed out line 1 and replaced it with: "You kept time on my head." In the first draft of "MS-A," Roethke wrote this fourth stanza near the top of page 2 in "MS-A." During the revision of "MS-A," Roethke wrote out a revised version of the fourth stanza near the center of page 2 of "MS-A." It reads:
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt:
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
The substitutions here are very significant. In line 1, Roethke replaced the rather benign "kept" with "beat," thus making the situation more ominous, more negative. Certainly, "beat" is a word nearly all respondents refer to when giving the texture of the poem a negative spin. Roethke almost completely revised the second line. "Palm" in place of "hand" (which appeared in the earliest version of "MS-A") is among the most important substitutions. "Hand" disappeared in the revision of line 1. Also, the focus changes from "weeds" to the father. The father's palm is indeed hard, albeit from honest work; he is a hard man as well as a hard worker. He even plays hard. The changes in these two lines personalize the dance between the speaker and his father. At the same time, they add an undeniably negative tone with the words "beat" and "palm caked hard." In addition, the three stressed syllables in "palm caked hard" emphasize the insistent, invasive power of the father over the child.
Roethke's revisions of the title are the most interesting of all his changes, for they show his efforts to capture just the right texture for this emotionally complex vignette. There are no fewer than six versions of the title. Ironically, after all the changes, Roethke came around again to his first title. In the order of their creation, the revisions are as follows: "My Papa's Waltz" (MS-A); "Papa's Dance" (MS-A); "The Dance" (MS-A); "Dance with Papa" (MS-A); "Dance with Papa" (MS-B); "Dance with Father" (MS-B); "My Papa's Waltz" (MS-B).
In choosing a title, Roethke struggled with two choices: "Waltz/Dance" and "Papa/Father." After penning the first title, "My Papa's Waltz," Roethke substituted "Dance" which probably had a more egalitarian connotation for this son of a working man. He may have had a hard time imagining his father doing an elegant waltz but could see him dancing something less pretentious, like a polka. In fact, "Dance" appeared in all of the intervening variations, only disappearing when Roethke finally returned to the original version--"My Papa's Waltz." Nevertheless, return to "Waltz" he did, suggesting that the elegant, refined texture of a waltz was what he wanted. This allowed him to add a more genteel aspect to the depicted scene. The choice of "Waltz" is his attempt to elevate this experience for the boy above the mere rough-house lurchings of an inebriated working-class father.
Although "Papa" is the predominant choice in the "Papa/Father" duality, Roethke tried "Father" once. In the version simply titled "The Dance," he also experimented with excising all reference to his father in the title. Because all versions except this one include either "Papa" or "Father," Roethke reveals the central significance of Otto to the poem. Moreover, Roethke clearly preferred the more familiar "Papa" to the formal "Father." In a traditional German-American household like the Roethke's, "Papa" would be particularly appropriate for a young child's affectionate address for his father. Surely, this experience and his transformation of it into literature were, for him, a very personal moment filled with all the pride, affection, compulsion, and even fear that intimate family relationships so often engender.
Quite remarkably, then, Roethke tried, through careful revisions, to balance negative and positive tones in "My Papa's Waltz." The result is a poem rich in ambiguity that speaks eloquently to a wide audience. Readers of this poem often hold quite contradictory interpretations of it, depending on what personal experience they filter it through. The poet's revisions suggest that the poem need not be read exclusively as a positive or a negative portrait of this family moment. Surely this was a moment characterized by conflicting emotions for the speaker: love and fright; excitement and concern; a rough tenderness. Family relationships are seldom simple, seldom one-dimensional, and this is true also of "My Papa's Waltz."
WORKS CITED
Balakian, Peter. Theodore Roethke's Far Fields. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1989.
Ciardi, John, and Miller Williams. How Does A Poem Mean? 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton, 1975.
Fong, Bobby. "Roethke's `My Papa's Waltz.'" College Literature 17.1 (1990): 79-82.
Galvin, Brendan. "Kenneth Burke and Theodore Roethke's `Lost Son' Poems." Theodore Roethke. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. 85-112.
Janssen, Ronald R. "Roethke's `My Papa's Waltz.'" Explicator 44.2 (Winter 1986): 43-44.
Kennedy, X. J. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 4th ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1987.
Malkoff, Karl. Theodore Roethke. New York: Columbia UP, 1966.
Seager, Allan. The Glass House: The Life of Theodore Roethke. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.
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By JOHN J. MCKENNA, University of Nebraska at Omaha
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Source: ANQ, Spring98, Vol. 11 Issue 2, p34, 5p.
Titles, first lines, last lines
Revision is where craft and art collide. It is the crucible. You know you have to make poetry-- rhyme, rhythm, other sonic devices,words with sound and meaning, lines, stanzas must be melded with the passionate impulse that began it all. Yo started with a vision. You must now let the poem tell you what its own vision is and must be and you must let it have that vision for it is more important and truer than yours. It is no longer about you. It is about th ep;oem. It is like a kid grtowing up. You must let it be while you must nurture it. The oem will never be what you want it to be. It will take on its own life and will interrogate you to get what it wants and what you, ultimately, want although you cannot know this. this is a radical event and cannot be under your control. In revision you give your poem scrupulous attention but never your will.
Revision can occur at any time in the process. I edit on the fly (contrary to the advice of my closest friends who believe in letting it all spread out onto the paper at first (a process probably good for all beginning writers)). Revision comes from the caring attention of self, readers and mentors, especially until you become yor own best critic. Revision amends the narrative structure, form, relatinohship of the narrator to the poem, makes the truth you are after the poem's truth, not yours as the author but the greater truth of the art that you have become the caretaker of.
Author--Inspiration--Editing/Revision--Realized Truth-Art
You must divorce yourself from your original passion for the first draft. You must realize passion for getting the art right, not your poem.This will bring you, childlike, to a new and utterly profound truth about yourself which is the one you began with but could not know. Out of this mystery, written in darkness and blood, comes poetry.
{THE REVISION IS PART OF DISCOVERING THAT WE ARE NOT THE SAME ANY MORE AND SO THE VISION OF THE POEM IS CHANGED AND DISCOVERING THAT THE VISION WE HAD OF THE POEM IS NOT THE POEM'S VISION OF ITSELF. THEREFORE, REVISION IS POSSIBLE SINCE, ALTHOUGH WE SEE IT ANEW, WE ARE IN SERVICE TO ITS VISION OF ITSELF.}
by Jennifer Bosveld
Reprinted from the chapter,
"Critiquing Toward Clarification: Part of the Process"
from Topics for Getting in Touch
After the initial pouring out that becomes a poem in some condition, most poems will greatly benefit from revision. Revision, re-vision, re-seeing, requires a coming-back-around to the poem time after time to reconsider various aspects of it (see "Romancing the Stone" section) in order to maximize the impact of the poem on its readers. There are particular things you can consider. Not all of these issues are relevant for every poem. Not all poems must MEAN anything. Poetry does not need to be written in sentences, for example. And I consider e.e. cummings the king of punctuation because of how he used language graphically on the page. He punctuated with words and spacing and word relationships.
If you evaluate the following aspects of your poem with an open mind, ready to be the makar of the best possible poem, it will not only make better "art", but it can clarify personal issues or perceptions.
STRANGE
My first word of advice comes out of my bias. "Make it strange!" It is comfortable and tempting to use word relationships and common phrases you've always relied on. But consider this. Stanton Samenow says "The therapist's job is not to comfort the afflicted, but to afflict the comfortable." This thinking is applicable in the making of art and especially poetry. So I say, "The poet's job is not to comfort us with the familiar but to afflict the subject with new and bothersome light." Perhaps it isn't a poem yet unless you've made me uncomfortable. Make me MOVE--shift in my seat, yell Yes!, get the dictionary, tell my brother about these two lines you wrote, change where I shop, make me take a walk, drive me to call the travel agent... or any combination of those and more. Change me. Make me wonder about your mental state, what you've put in that pipe, whether you've had too much caffeine. Make me wonder if we live on the same planet. Take me to YOUR leader. Give me the hic-cups from a gasp of awe. Distract me from the news, the kids, the thesis, make me late for the party because I was driven to read that poem four times because every time I peeled away a different meaning. Make me wonder where I've been all my life. I want to be terrified for the quality of my own work. Show me that I haven't been working hard enough on my own poems compared to yours. Make Joan of Arc Kidney Beans, Al Gore, Aunt Sadie's stained glass bird cage, and your Magnavox monitor all relevant in the same poem. Or call me a liar. Show me that every poem doesn't need concrete objects afterall. WOW us without a single one but with a twist of qualifiers nouned to ... what am I talking about, figure out what I'm talking about. Make it stranger than anything I've imagined so far but bring me a new sense of things. Whether you agree with me on this, probably most teachers of poetry would agree with the rest of this list.
THEME
What is the point of the poem? After we would problem-solve the syntax, parallel construction, or spelling, and after we look at language choice and focus on the subject, would we still be left with a trite theme? If so, you're better off getting on to the next poem. We can try to fix all those grammatical aspects of the poem but if after you've done all that you're left with nothing new to tell me, it will never be a poem. "I just wrote this for therapy" is an attitude (whether the writer's or the mentor's) that dis-serves growth or healing every bit as much as it dis-serves "the product" (the poem).
LANGUAGE
A.
Is the language used appropriately for the objective of the poem? Is the language fresh, innovative, creative? Is there any trite language that can be eliminated? Are cliches present? Are you sure you can recognize a cliche when it is present in your own work? Only one who reads and listens a great deal has a chance of recognizing a cliche. Since current statistics show that most people do not read that much and listen even less effectively, it is important to look closely with the cliche detector. Any familiar sounding phrase is suspect. Any metaphor or simile you've heard before is suspect. If this is "hotter than a firecracker" then it is only the "hot" of the common person, and not of the poem-maker. Remember, by definition, a poet sees differently, casts new and bothersome light, nearly afflicts the subject with uncomfortable freshness.
Is the tone consistent and appropriate to the theme or with the mood? Think scene and dialogue perhaps, rather than shifting into a summation or becoming philosophical.
Is the language concrete, full of specific and intriguing details? Have "big words" like "love," "beautiful," and "nice" been translated into words that mean something? Is language sharp and detailed (crystal rowboats and Kelloggs Cornflakes) rather than vague and full of abstractions--"a beautiful forest", what does that mean? Are there too many adjectives and adverbs? Say "Pledge" instead of furniture polish. Say "Pepsi" instead of soft drink. (Usually) Think "product placement" and use the products of your life or the life of the character in your poem. Rely on hard-working action verbs and specific nouns.
B.
Test your word choices and word placement. Test for meaning including denotation and connotation. Test for exactness or effectiveness of relating your message. Test for best position in the sentence, phrase, line ending/beginning. If you're writing free verse or experimental work, become aware of the many reasons for beginning and ending a line where you do. The last word in a line is often an easily accentuated word/sound. Or it can set us up for what's coming next. Sometimes I try to place action verbs at the beginnings of lines because it thrusts the poem forward.
C.
Question each word's right to inhabit the poem. That is the difference between most poetry and most prose. In a poem each word is crucial. Does a word appear to be cute? Cute doesn't last long. Cute is the terminal disease of a poem. Does the word say enough?
LOGIC
Is construction parallel? What about unity? Does X plus Y equal XY? Do images and concepts excite the focus of the poem without betraying your lack of knowledge in a field? Have you lied to the reader? Are you sure all references to nature are accurate, that you haven't embarrassed yourself by putting two birds together in a tree they'd never share?
MEANING
Clarity! Will the reader understand the poem at least on some level so that there is a key provided to unlock other levels? Is it unnecessarily difficult? Is the audience considered? Avoid pretentious or unnecessary and unfair allusions to obscure historical or scientific data unless THAT is exactly what you are writing about and at least a targetted audience will understand. Is enough information provided? Would a talented reader be confused? And, is the meaning new? That is important.
VOICE
Is it the omniscient POET we hear on a platform? Hope not! The poem should have a life of its own, a separate energy. It should be a personal experience for the reader without the poet getting in the way. Is the poet bragging about his ethics, perceptions, vocabulary? If so, revise. Does the sound of sense seem whole throughout the work? But what of rants and political poetry? Those take some nerve and finesse to pull off. Allen Ginsberg did it well, others do it well once in a while. I tend to overwrite when I write rants; I have to hone down considerably. Keep me interested in hearing your voice, buying what it is you have to sell, without beating me over the head.
FOCUS
Is the poet confused about his own point? Is too much trying to be said? What IS the focus? What is the method of exposure? Is this an extended metaphor? Is it well and clearly extended? Or is it mixed up with other comparisons that disrupt the picture? Are you trying to paint too many pictures, solve too many problems in this one poem?
FORM
What is the form? All poems have form; I am certainly not necessarily recommending a "traditional" form although that can have value too. Is the form so close to a traditional form that you might as well go ahead and perfect it? If it is a traditional form, did you avoid the pitfalls of same? (Forced rhyme, inverted expressions, etc.) If free verse, is it tight/carved/sweated over? Or did you allow the handle, "free verse," to imply free to do what you want no matter how ineffective? Does the form feel good around the poem? Or is the message at all sacrificed for the sake of the form? Watch for forced rhymes. Consider writing the piece without rhyming. Experiment with various sprinklings of the words across the lines. Pay attention to where the breaths are that begin and end lines (if that's the case). Have a reason for stopping a line where it bends around to the next, even if it isn't for breath or sentence chunks.
PUNCTUATION
Including lack of. Use either uniformly, or with some kind of rationale ready. If there is no punctuation, are line breaks or spaces used creatively in order to assist the reader? Are commas, semi-colons, and dashes used correctly? And surely ellipses have not been abused all over the page. Why do I say e.e. cummings is the king of punctuation?
CONCLUSION
Is the poem concluded WITHOUT summing itself up or stating the obvious or restating and being redundant? Is there an interesting whip at the end, perhaps? Does the reader have a sense of closure, yet a probability of being haunted by the poem (I hope so). Leave something for the reader to bring to the poem.
SHELF LIFE
Would you like to come back to this poem every now and then? Can it withstand close attention? If it is topical, does it at least offer a sociological looking glass for a day in history? Is it framed in such a way that it won't be worthless once the subject is out of the news?
IS IT A POEM YET?
Revisit the muse! Sometimes after you have critiqued and repaired according to all these guidelines, you finally reread the poem and discover it has lost its original freshness or that you have lost some of your initial passion for the subject or excitement for the poem. That's when it is time to go back and revisit the muse. Put yourself back into that time and space where inspiration or "need to write" first hit and make adjustments.
POLISHING
Spelling and other grammatical editing and proofreading can now be considered. What are this poem's major strengths and weaknesses? Feel free to revise again! I've been known to create up to 49 generations of a poem. It is unfortunate that most of us don't revise by hand now that we're composing on computer. Seeing a pile of revisions for a single poem is rather exhilerating and validating. Some people argue that poems are like people, they're never DONE, they're always in process. Some days I believe that and some days I don't.
I do know there comes a time when we must let the poem go, like a healed bird, or like a child. Your poetry is to be treated, eventually, like the people in your life who you treat with respect. Apply the words of the singer, Sting, "If you love someone, set them free." If you love this poem enough to be possessive and hypersensitive to any critiquing of it, you DO NOT love it enough. Love this poem enough to work on it; love it enough to set it free of cliches and poor word choice; love it enough to set it free of vague language. Set it free of this fog caused by a lack of focus. Set it free of the hiding place caused by resistance to change, resistance to work, resistance to turn your back on the original aha! Bring the situation of this poem into clear and bothersome light and simultaneously you will free the spirit of the poem and free the poet of the need to beat it to death. You will free the poet. You will free yourself.
Make the poem more important than YOU if you want to grow as a poet. Because in doing so, you might create art that is higher than what you have brought us thus far. No poem is worth the making unless it informs the maker.
* * *
See the publications list on this website
for information to order
Topics for Getting in Touch: A Poetry Therapy Sourcebook
the largest compilation of writing exercises under one cover.
$25, we pay postage/handling.
Pudding House, 81 Shadymere Ln., Columbus OH 43213
or VISA/MC by phone (614) 967-1881 or email
--- Workshop ---
--- Closing ---
Write a reverse poem
Revise the poem the group thought the most interesting of the three new ones
--- Opening ---
Week 1, get in the zone faster, easier
Week 2, the beginning of sonics-- sounds of letters and words repeated for conscious sound effect
Week 3, sonics continued, more fomally with attention to meter and rhyme
Week 4, responsibility for language-- words and what they mean connotatively, denotatively and sonically
Week 5, Further look at how we exercise the responsibility for words by reviewing Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" as it was revised by the author. Then we'll begin to discuss revision as we look at our own new poems and suggest ways to make them better.
This week we'll involve each other much more directly by spending most of the time reading our poems and making recommendations, suggestions and comments about any aspect of the poem we wish to speak about.
Which of the three poems is the best?
Which of the three poems does the writer feel is the best
What is the strongest aspect of this poem?
Does the poem make narrative sense?
Does the writer mean it?
Does it sound like poetry?
What is the weakest aspect of the poem?
What specific recommendations do you have to make the weaknesses measure up to the strengths?
by Jennifer Bosveld
Reprinted from the chapter,
"Critiquing Toward Clarification: Part of the Process"
from Topics for Getting in Touch
After the initial pouring out that becomes a poem in some condition, most poems will greatly benefit from revision. Revision, re-vision, re-seeing, requires a coming-back-around to the poem time after time to reconsider various aspects of it (see "Romancing the Stone" section) in order to maximize the impact of the poem on its readers. There are particular things you can consider. Not all of these issues are relevant for every poem. Not all poems must MEAN anything. Poetry does not need to be written in sentences, for example. And I consider e.e. cummings the king of punctuation because of how he used language graphically on the page. He punctuated with words and spacing and word relationships.
If you evaluate the following aspects of your poem with an open mind, ready to be the makar of the best possible poem, it will not only make better "art", but it can clarify personal issues or perceptions.
STRANGE
My first word of advice comes out of my bias. "Make it strange!" It is comfortable and tempting to use word relationships and common phrases you've always relied on. But consider this. Stanton Samenow says "The therapist's job is not to comfort the afflicted, but to afflict the comfortable." This thinking is applicable in the making of art and especially poetry. So I say, "The poet's job is not to comfort us with the familiar but to afflict the subject with new and bothersome light." Perhaps it isn't a poem yet unless you've made me uncomfortable. Make me MOVE--shift in my seat, yell Yes!, get the dictionary, tell my brother about these two lines you wrote, change where I shop, make me take a walk, drive me to call the travel agent... or any combination of those and more. Change me. Make me wonder about your mental state, what you've put in that pipe, whether you've had too much caffeine. Make me wonder if we live on the same planet. Take me to YOUR leader. Give me the hic-cups from a gasp of awe. Distract me from the news, the kids, the thesis, make me late for the party because I was driven to read that poem four times because every time I peeled away a different meaning. Make me wonder where I've been all my life. I want to be terrified for the quality of my own work. Show me that I haven't been working hard enough on my own poems compared to yours. Make Joan of Arc Kidney Beans, Al Gore, Aunt Sadie's stained glass bird cage, and your Magnavox monitor all relevant in the same poem. Or call me a liar. Show me that every poem doesn't need concrete objects afterall. WOW us without a single one but with a twist of qualifiers nouned to ... what am I talking about, figure out what I'm talking about. Make it stranger than anything I've imagined so far but bring me a new sense of things. Whether you agree with me on this, probably most teachers of poetry would agree with the rest of this list.
THEME
What is the point of the poem? After we would problem-solve the syntax, parallel construction, or spelling, and after we look at language choice and focus on the subject, would we still be left with a trite theme? If so, you're better off getting on to the next poem. We can try to fix all those grammatical aspects of the poem but if after you've done all that you're left with nothing new to tell me, it will never be a poem. "I just wrote this for therapy" is an attitude (whether the writer's or the mentor's) that dis-serves growth or healing every bit as much as it dis-serves "the product" (the poem).
LANGUAGE
A.
Is the language used appropriately for the objective of the poem? Is the language fresh, innovative, creative? Is there any trite language that can be eliminated? Are cliches present? Are you sure you can recognize a cliche when it is present in your own work? Only one who reads and listens a great deal has a chance of recognizing a cliche. Since current statistics show that most people do not read that much and listen even less effectively, it is important to look closely with the cliche detector. Any familiar sounding phrase is suspect. Any metaphor or simile you've heard before is suspect. If this is "hotter than a firecracker" then it is only the "hot" of the common person, and not of the poem-maker. Remember, by definition, a poet sees differently, casts new and bothersome light, nearly afflicts the subject with uncomfortable freshness.
Is the tone consistent and appropriate to the theme or with the mood? Think scene and dialogue perhaps, rather than shifting into a summation or becoming philosophical.
Is the language concrete, full of specific and intriguing details? Have "big words" like "love," "beautiful," and "nice" been translated into words that mean something? Is language sharp and detailed (crystal rowboats and Kelloggs Cornflakes) rather than vague and full of abstractions--"a beautiful forest", what does that mean? Are there too many adjectives and adverbs? Say "Pledge" instead of furniture polish. Say "Pepsi" instead of soft drink. (Usually) Think "product placement" and use the products of your life or the life of the character in your poem. Rely on hard-working action verbs and specific nouns.
B.
Test your word choices and word placement. Test for meaning including denotation and connotation. Test for exactness or effectiveness of relating your message. Test for best position in the sentence, phrase, line ending/beginning. If you're writing free verse or experimental work, become aware of the many reasons for beginning and ending a line where you do. The last word in a line is often an easily accentuated word/sound. Or it can set us up for what's coming next. Sometimes I try to place action verbs at the beginnings of lines because it thrusts the poem forward.
C.
Question each word's right to inhabit the poem. That is the difference between most poetry and most prose. In a poem each word is crucial. Does a word appear to be cute? Cute doesn't last long. Cute is the terminal disease of a poem. Does the word say enough?
LOGIC
Is construction parallel? What about unity? Does X plus Y equal XY? Do images and concepts excite the focus of the poem without betraying your lack of knowledge in a field? Have you lied to the reader? Are you sure all references to nature are accurate, that you haven't embarrassed yourself by putting two birds together in a tree they'd never share?
MEANING
Clarity! Will the reader understand the poem at least on some level so that there is a key provided to unlock other levels? Is it unnecessarily difficult? Is the audience considered? Avoid pretentious or unnecessary and unfair allusions to obscure historical or scientific data unless THAT is exactly what you are writing about and at least a targetted audience will understand. Is enough information provided? Would a talented reader be confused? And, is the meaning new? That is important.
VOICE
Is it the omniscient POET we hear on a platform? Hope not! The poem should have a life of its own, a separate energy. It should be a personal experience for the reader without the poet getting in the way. Is the poet bragging about his ethics, perceptions, vocabulary? If so, revise. Does the sound of sense seem whole throughout the work? But what of rants and political poetry? Those take some nerve and finesse to pull off. Allen Ginsberg did it well, others do it well once in a while. I tend to overwrite when I write rants; I have to hone down considerably. Keep me interested in hearing your voice, buying what it is you have to sell, without beating me over the head.
FOCUS
Is the poet confused about his own point? Is too much trying to be said? What IS the focus? What is the method of exposure? Is this an extended metaphor? Is it well and clearly extended? Or is it mixed up with other comparisons that disrupt the picture? Are you trying to paint too many pictures, solve too many problems in this one poem?
FORM
What is the form? All poems have form; I am certainly not necessarily recommending a "traditional" form although that can have value too. Is the form so close to a traditional form that you might as well go ahead and perfect it? If it is a traditional form, did you avoid the pitfalls of same? (Forced rhyme, inverted expressions, etc.) If free verse, is it tight/carved/sweated over? Or did you allow the handle, "free verse," to imply free to do what you want no matter how ineffective? Does the form feel good around the poem? Or is the message at all sacrificed for the sake of the form? Watch for forced rhymes. Consider writing the piece without rhyming. Experiment with various sprinklings of the words across the lines. Pay attention to where the breaths are that begin and end lines (if that's the case). Have a reason for stopping a line where it bends around to the next, even if it isn't for breath or sentence chunks.
PUNCTUATION
Including lack of. Use either uniformly, or with some kind of rationale ready. If there is no punctuation, are line breaks or spaces used creatively in order to assist the reader? Are commas, semi-colons, and dashes used correctly? And surely ellipses have not been abused all over the page. Why do I say e.e. cummings is the king of punctuation?
CONCLUSION
Is the poem concluded WITHOUT summing itself up or stating the obvious or restating and being redundant? Is there an interesting whip at the end, perhaps? Does the reader have a sense of closure, yet a probability of being haunted by the poem (I hope so). Leave something for the reader to bring to the poem.
SHELF LIFE
Would you like to come back to this poem every now and then? Can it withstand close attention? If it is topical, does it at least offer a sociological looking glass for a day in history? Is it framed in such a way that it won't be worthless once the subject is out of the news?
IS IT A POEM YET?
Revisit the muse! Sometimes after you have critiqued and repaired according to all these guidelines, you finally reread the poem and discover it has lost its original freshness or that you have lost some of your initial passion for the subject or excitement for the poem. That's when it is time to go back and revisit the muse. Put yourself back into that time and space where inspiration or "need to write" first hit and make adjustments.
POLISHING
Spelling and other grammatical editing and proofreading can now be considered. What are this poem's major strengths and weaknesses? Feel free to revise again! I've been known to create up to 49 generations of a poem. It is unfortunate that most of us don't revise by hand now that we're composing on computer. Seeing a pile of revisions for a single poem is rather exhilerating and validating. Some people argue that poems are like people, they're never DONE, they're always in process. Some days I believe that and some days I don't.
I do know there comes a time when we must let the poem go, like a healed bird, or like a child. Your poetry is to be treated, eventually, like the people in your life who you treat with respect. Apply the words of the singer, Sting, "If you love someone, set them free." If you love this poem enough to be possessive and hypersensitive to any critiquing of it, you DO NOT love it enough. Love this poem enough to work on it; love it enough to set it free of cliches and poor word choice; love it enough to set it free of vague language. Set it free of this fog caused by a lack of focus. Set it free of the hiding place caused by resistance to change, resistance to work, resistance to turn your back on the original aha! Bring the situation of this poem into clear and bothersome light and simultaneously you will free the spirit of the poem and free the poet of the need to beat it to death. You will free the poet. You will free yourself.
Make the poem more important than YOU if you want to grow as a poet. Because in doing so, you might create art that is higher than what you have brought us thus far. No poem is worth the making unless it informs the maker.
* * *
See the publications list on this website
for information to order
Topics for Getting in Touch: A Poetry Therapy Sourcebook
the largest compilation of writing exercises under one cover.
$25, we pay postage/handling.
Pudding House, 81 Shadymere Ln., Columbus OH 43213
or VISA/MC by phone (614) 967-1881 or email
--- Poems ---
Elizabeth Bishop poem
Dana Gioia poem
EG poem
Ronnie’s Death and A Whole Lot of Shaking
Ronnie Twible was my first corpse.
I loved Jerry Lee Lewis at the same time.
Both were seductions
in the hormonal migration of nineteen sixty
when I was first copping feels.
We got to Rose Hill too early
so my sisters and I went for ice cream
because it was our first funeral and it was hot.
Ronnie was in a suit--
without the ring of his girlfriend--
(fiancee if you were outside his family)
surreally waxed as the dead are
to the nervous mourners
when you die at nineteen.
The football team in the front row
wept the reality of tumor
and I watched them and longed
to go home to the misery
of weeding my father’s strawberry beds.
Ronnie’s mother’s powdered cheek was dry as death
to my tentative lips in the receiving line.
I wiped my mouth as I stepped
out onto cold marble,
wished I was barefoot.
It may have been a Sunday
and I may have gone home to homework.
I didn’t know what I was doing there
but life was rocking away
and I needed somebody to feel.
I Am Fifteen
Ronnie Twible is my first death:
when I am too early
at Rose Hill for his funeral,
I go for ice cream
then to the humid granite room
where the corpse waits
under muted yellow funeral-parlor lights.
I sit behind the football team.
Each player huddles alone,
powerless, and weeps.
Seeing the tears I’m embarrassed and look at my feet.
Mr. McCarthy rises, says being so young
at least all Ronnie knew was good.
This doesn’t change the powder on his mother’s cheek
to anything less dusty than the death
I try to brush from my quivering lips after I kiss her.
Walking home through a field of razor grass, I throw up.
--- Lecture ---
Write Poems That Get Published! Craft a poem that editors and judges can't pass up by incorporating these seven techniques. by Miriam Sagan No poet likes to hear the expression "slush pile"-it implies that our creations have gone into a heap of unsolicited poems that, like yesterday's snow, are gray, dirty, useless and melting fast. But slush piles do exist. Magazines, even small ones, receive hundreds of submissions a month, sometimes even more, and contest judges have to read thousands of submissions in a brief period of time. Most of these poems are written in free verse-and are completely unstructured. There are many simple but elegant techniques, however, that can put structure into your poem without inhibiting it. Free verse, despite its anarchistic sounding name, doesn't mean that a poem should be formless. The name comes from the French "vers libre," and simply means poetry that is written without a strict form of rhyme, meter or repetition. What follows are seven techniques you can use to make your poem stand up like a good piece of meringue pie-just enough structure to give it form, not too much to make it overly stiff. 1. The title Don't neglect this opportunity, for that is exactly what a title is-an opportunity to introduce the reader to the poem. Avoid one word abstract titles, like "Autumn" or "Death," which are timeworn and cliched. Instead, use the title to create interest. Santa Fe poet Leo Romero's title What Trees Dream About encourages the reader's curiosity. So do highly specific and intriguing titles like Li-Young Lee's poem on Manhattan, The City in Which I Love You. Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti's The Pennycandystore Beyond the El, and African-American poet June Jordan's If You Saw a Negro Lady use the first line as a title-a rapid way to draw the reader in. You can also use the title in a painterly or descriptive fashion; instead of "Autumn" try for a phrase that truly captures the season. 2. Line breaks In prose the basic unit is the sentence, but in poetry it is something shorter and more partial-the line. When writing a poem, you naturally have to break it into lines. There are two basic methods for this-breaking it where it feels right and breaking it according to a set form. In free verse, there is no pattern to the line breaks, but two rules of thumb can help: 1. Break the line where you would typically take a breath. 2. Break it where it makes sense in terms of syntax, and where it will help the reader. To practice breaking poetic lines, start with a prose block that of course has no such breaks. Try the following exercise to help acquaint yourself with your own inclinations in terms of line breaks. • Step A. Pick one of the following topics: "I remember ..." or "Things I have lost." Start with the topic and write for 10 minutes or about two notebook pages. Be loose, wild, and do not write poetry-no rhyme, no line breaks. • Step B. Take the prose block you have written and break it into poetry. This will work best if you type the words out, so you can see them clearly. Discard any material you don't like-for example, the opening may be warm up that can just be dropped. Break the lines where it feels natural. Read aloud and break where you breathe. Use long lines if possible. And avoid one word lines-they tend to add undue emphasis and look amateurish. Now read the poem over and see how your own natural rhythm as a poet has emerged. 3. Syllabics Counting the number of syllables per line is another way to gain control over your free verse. Traditionally, English lines run 10 syllables with five of them stressed or emphasized. This is basically iambic pentameter. It isn't usually that strict, however. If you look at any line from Shakespeare's sonnets you will see it is rarely in rigid iambic pentameter. To make the lines of a poem sound natural, like human speech, you can use the technique of syllabics, which is much freer than any traditional meter. In syllabics, you count the number of syllables per line and attempt to standardize this throughout the poem. For example, if line No. 1 has seven syllables, all the rest should have the same. You can also be looser, and run lines, say, from six to eight syllables or some such range. Many contemporary poets use this, including Robert Creeley and Lucille Clifton. You might look at a poem you like, count the syllables, and see what is going on. To learn the technique directly, take an old poem of yours and rewrite it with syllabics. Try for lines of at least five syllables and less than 12. Stay in a moderate range. It is best to start with something already written so you can practice without interfering with inspiration. When you feel comfortable with syllable counting, incorporate it into your routine for writing a new poem, counting as you go. 4. Strong front words The way most poems work, the last word in each line gets the emphasis. Counting syllables and creating smooth line breaks enhances the end of each line. But don't neglect the front words in each as well. As an experiment, draw a line down the front of your poem, isolating the first word in each line. You might be surprised to see a batch of very uninspiring words, such as "and" and "the." Now try and replace some of these with strong individual words, including verbs and nouns. The easiest way to do this is by dropping off some modifiers; this also creates a tighter line in general. Not every front word has to be strong, but do improve a few for an overall better effect in the poem. 5. Fresh images Poems that linger in the slush pile have one fault in common-they rely on abstractions and cliches rather than on individual observation. For example, a poem that talks of the "colored leaves" of autumn isn't exactly fresh. To create a stronger poem, observe the outside world with your senses. Share your perceptions of your own time and place with the reader. The yellow cottonwoods along a dry river might be a better image of autumn in the arid West than those colored leaves. Or maybe a Japanese maple is dropping red star-shaped leaves in the middle of a busy city complex. Children jumping in leaves is a cliche-a memory of mother ironing leaves in wax paper for a school project is not. Be specific, and enliven the poem with your own perceptions. The reader wants to experience what you know, not something generic. 6. Endings
Here are quick tips to make your poems strong:
A title should do more than name; it should engage the reader's curiosity. Line breaks should feel natural, not forced. Repetition of lines with a similar number of syllables can add form to free verse. The opening word of each line should be compelling; use nouns and verbs whenever possible. Cut cliches, and add unexpected images and ideas in your work. Your ending line should strive for maximum reader impact. Revise your poem to ensure all the above is addressed.
The ending of a poem should be distinctive. That is, don't have the last line be any old thing that could appear anywhere in the poem. When you write the last line, be clear-you don't want it to be something that simply sounds good but is obscure. There is a tendency to tie up the end with a homiletic feel-but that often limits the poem. Avoid summaries that are cliched, like "Autumn is a time of change" or "Love is the greatest power" or "Death ends it all." Instead, try the following: • End when you have said everything you meant to say but no more. • End on a luminous image that allows the reader to exit the poem. • End on a feeling or tone-but know beforehand what that is. • End by coming back to the start, but in a fresh way. 7. The process of revision Of course, just having a great last line doesn't mean you are truly done with the poem. You still need to revise. Many poems that end up in the slush pile have never been revised at all. But don't forget that the word "revision" itself means to see something freshly, or one more time. Take the same creative energy you used to start the poem to revise it. Double-check some of the useful techniques for free verse-is the title interesting, is the end clear and uncliched, do the lines break smoothly, and does the poem sound right when read aloud? If the flow seems off, count the syllables in the awkward lines and adjust for a smoother effect. Double-check that you've been as specific as possible, and added your own original details. Now relax. Let your poem go forth on its own. This article appeared in the April 2003 issue
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1) Radical Revision of three poems. INCLUDE DRAFTS.
This means total transformation, giant translation, (turn it over and cook the other side.) Meaning you will go back to three poems and rework them using them to think through what you have learned in class, and what you have read in the texts/poems.
Options for revising poems:
1-formal revision (example: transform pantoum into fragmentary montage; transform translation into a performance poem or a sound poem mixing two or more languages; transform concrete/visual poem into a pantoum or 3/d object/)
2-content revision (revise a poem by rewriting abstract concepts as concrete details; rewrite a poem by editing out unnecessary words; revise a long poem by adding stanza breaks; elongate a short poem into a long poem and then revise again with stanza breaks; revise a concrete poem by making it even more concrete, or more visual.)
3-conceptual revision (take a poem and use it to conceive an entirely new poem or series of poems; take a poem and revise it to imitate the structure of a poem you have read for this class.)
2) Process page to accompany each poem. (What happened to this poem? What did it go through in the process of revision?) 1 page for each poem.
3) Revision of two responses. (2-3 pages each.)
Look back through your response pages and find three that you want to think about in more depth. Possible modes of revision: 1) Return to the texts to which you are responding and read them again. 2) Find a point of connection between something you are saying and another idea/concept covered in class. 3) Find a link with another response, and merge them together.
Magazine: ANQ, SPRING 1998
ROETHKE'S REVISIONS AND THE TONE OF "MY PAPA'S WALTZ"
Written in the early stages of his career and counted among the "Greenhouse" poems, Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" certainly lacks the length and complexity of the poems from "The Lost Son" and "The North American Sequence." Yet, this poem has an intriguing ambiguity that elicits startlingly different interpretations. Kennedy calls it a scene of "comedy" and "persistent love" (421), and Balakian, in part, labels it a "comic romp" (62). In contrast, Ciardi sees it as a "poem of terror" (369). Roethke's father, Otto, is commonly recognized as a model for the Papa figure in the poem (Seager 26). Galvin more recently echoes Ciardi: "In `My Papa's Waltz,' . . . Otto Roethke . . . is a figure of terror to his young son" (103). Janssen agrees, suggesting that the "poem's energy" comes from "dual vectors" of feeling, that is, "light-hearted" and "grimmer" (43-44). He concludes that the poem ends with a primarily negative texture portraying a "drunken father, angry mother, and desperate child" who have a "desperate hope" for some fun in the face of "a real fear of violence and disruption" (44). Other critics see the poem as a mixture of positive and negative textures engendered by Roethke's ambivalent feelings toward his father, Otto Roethke, whose "strength was . . . a source of both admiration and fear, of comfort and restriction" (Malkoff 3). Balakian agrees, adding that in "My Papa's Waltz," Roethke "feels an odd and ambivalent closeness to his drunken papa" (62). Clearly, the major differences of critics' opinions involve interpretations of the tone of the poem: whether it is positive, negative, or a clever balance of the two (Fong 79).
Evidence from the original, handwritten manuscripts adds support for allowing and validating contradictory interpretations of this poem. The holograph manuscripts of "My Papa's Waltz" confirm that Roethke himself tried to balance the negative and positive tones of the poem, resulting in its rich ambiguity. The archives at the University of Washington contain two holograph manuscripts of "My Papa's Waltz." Each of these manuscripts, "MS-A" and "MS-B," consists of two sheets of paper. Differences in the two manuscripts attest to an identifiable sequence of composition, including revisions. These changes throw valuable light on Roethke's attempts to achieve just the right tone for his poem.
An interesting change, especially in view of some readings that see the poem as a collusion between males (father and son) against a female (mother), involves the gender of the child in the poem. In "MS-A," the child was a girl. In its earliest version, line two read: "is enough to [?] make [?] dizzy." Roethke crossed this line out (except for the word "dizzy") and wrote above it: "Could make a small girl dizzy." Indeed, "MS-B," as it was first transcribed, retained "girl." In a final revision of "MS-B," Roethke crossed out "girl" and substituted "boy." Clearly, at least as he first conceived of the poem, this was not a boys-against-the-girls poem. Why did Roethke make the change from "girl" to "boy"? It seems plausible that he did recognize the rough-house nature of this working-class father's waltz. Certainly American society of 1941, the year of the poem's composition, would see this rough play as more appropriate for a boy than for a girl. By substituting "boy" for "girl," then, Roethke could keep the dual tone of this dance: a little rough and scary and a little dear and loving.
A second change from "MS-A" to "MS-B" involves line 4 of the second stanza. "MS-A" originally read: "Did not unscrew itself." Later, but still on "MS-A," Roethke crossed out "unscrew" and substituted "unfrown." Perhaps the word "unscrew" had sexual connotations that Roethke wanted to avoid as he tried to recapture his father's rough attempts at love. This change may be linked to the change in the speaker's gender. Whatever his motivations for this change, Roethke portrays the mother's view of events as sternly disapproving, highlighted by the change from "unscrew" to "unfrown."
At this moment in the dance, the speaker directs his focus toward the mother and away from the father, thus heightening the opposition between his parents. With a further revision, Roethke cleverly enhanced this focus on the mother's reaction to the father's romp. "MS-B" contains "Did" as the first word of this line. Roethke then wrote "Could" above "Did," scratched out "Could" and let "Did" stand. The published version, however, reads "Could." By returning to "Could," Roethke picked up the consonance of "countenance" in the prior line, and with that bit of euphony further highlighted the mother's disapproval.
The third stanza also contains an important revision and clue to Roethke's search for just the right tone for his poem. The fourth line of stanza 3 in "MS-A" originally read: "My forehead scraped a buckle." Roethke scratched out "forehead" (with a single pen stroke) and wrote in "right ear" on "MS-A." Initially, "MS-B" repeated "forehead," but Roethke again scratched it out (with two pen strokes this time, as if he was then certain of the change) and again substituted "right ear." In the revised version, then, the speaker's head is turned to the side, more in the attitude of a child's embrace. In "MS-B," the child has turned away from the father. This change in posture, suggested by the change from "forehead" to "right ear," is a more apt description of a child dancing with an adult and less like a description of the more formal tete-a-tete dance of adults elegantly waltzing. Thus, the effect is positive on the tone because the dance becomes an informal, impromptu romp.
The fourth stanza occasioned the greatest number of revisions. In "MS-A," the first two lines originally read: "The hand wrapped round my head/Was harsh from weeds and dirt." Significantly, these two lines describing the father's hand actually touching the son/daughter were greatly revised. Apparently, Roethke wanted to get just the right "feel" to the images and language in this particularly intimate part of the dance. On "MS-A," Roethke crossed out line 1 and replaced it with: "You kept time on my head." In the first draft of "MS-A," Roethke wrote this fourth stanza near the top of page 2 in "MS-A." During the revision of "MS-A," Roethke wrote out a revised version of the fourth stanza near the center of page 2 of "MS-A." It reads:
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt:
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
The substitutions here are very significant. In line 1, Roethke replaced the rather benign "kept" with "beat," thus making the situation more ominous, more negative. Certainly, "beat" is a word nearly all respondents refer to when giving the texture of the poem a negative spin. Roethke almost completely revised the second line. "Palm" in place of "hand" (which appeared in the earliest version of "MS-A") is among the most important substitutions. "Hand" disappeared in the revision of line 1. Also, the focus changes from "weeds" to the father. The father's palm is indeed hard, albeit from honest work; he is a hard man as well as a hard worker. He even plays hard. The changes in these two lines personalize the dance between the speaker and his father. At the same time, they add an undeniably negative tone with the words "beat" and "palm caked hard." In addition, the three stressed syllables in "palm caked hard" emphasize the insistent, invasive power of the father over the child.
Roethke's revisions of the title are the most interesting of all his changes, for they show his efforts to capture just the right texture for this emotionally complex vignette. There are no fewer than six versions of the title. Ironically, after all the changes, Roethke came around again to his first title. In the order of their creation, the revisions are as follows: "My Papa's Waltz" (MS-A); "Papa's Dance" (MS-A); "The Dance" (MS-A); "Dance with Papa" (MS-A); "Dance with Papa" (MS-B); "Dance with Father" (MS-B); "My Papa's Waltz" (MS-B).
In choosing a title, Roethke struggled with two choices: "Waltz/Dance" and "Papa/Father." After penning the first title, "My Papa's Waltz," Roethke substituted "Dance" which probably had a more egalitarian connotation for this son of a working man. He may have had a hard time imagining his father doing an elegant waltz but could see him dancing something less pretentious, like a polka. In fact, "Dance" appeared in all of the intervening variations, only disappearing when Roethke finally returned to the original version--"My Papa's Waltz." Nevertheless, return to "Waltz" he did, suggesting that the elegant, refined texture of a waltz was what he wanted. This allowed him to add a more genteel aspect to the depicted scene. The choice of "Waltz" is his attempt to elevate this experience for the boy above the mere rough-house lurchings of an inebriated working-class father.
Although "Papa" is the predominant choice in the "Papa/Father" duality, Roethke tried "Father" once. In the version simply titled "The Dance," he also experimented with excising all reference to his father in the title. Because all versions except this one include either "Papa" or "Father," Roethke reveals the central significance of Otto to the poem. Moreover, Roethke clearly preferred the more familiar "Papa" to the formal "Father." In a traditional German-American household like the Roethke's, "Papa" would be particularly appropriate for a young child's affectionate address for his father. Surely, this experience and his transformation of it into literature were, for him, a very personal moment filled with all the pride, affection, compulsion, and even fear that intimate family relationships so often engender.
Quite remarkably, then, Roethke tried, through careful revisions, to balance negative and positive tones in "My Papa's Waltz." The result is a poem rich in ambiguity that speaks eloquently to a wide audience. Readers of this poem often hold quite contradictory interpretations of it, depending on what personal experience they filter it through. The poet's revisions suggest that the poem need not be read exclusively as a positive or a negative portrait of this family moment. Surely this was a moment characterized by conflicting emotions for the speaker: love and fright; excitement and concern; a rough tenderness. Family relationships are seldom simple, seldom one-dimensional, and this is true also of "My Papa's Waltz."
WORKS CITED
Balakian, Peter. Theodore Roethke's Far Fields. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1989.
Ciardi, John, and Miller Williams. How Does A Poem Mean? 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton, 1975.
Fong, Bobby. "Roethke's `My Papa's Waltz.'" College Literature 17.1 (1990): 79-82.
Galvin, Brendan. "Kenneth Burke and Theodore Roethke's `Lost Son' Poems." Theodore Roethke. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. 85-112.
Janssen, Ronald R. "Roethke's `My Papa's Waltz.'" Explicator 44.2 (Winter 1986): 43-44.
Kennedy, X. J. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 4th ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1987.
Malkoff, Karl. Theodore Roethke. New York: Columbia UP, 1966.
Seager, Allan. The Glass House: The Life of Theodore Roethke. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.
~~~~~~~~
By JOHN J. MCKENNA, University of Nebraska at Omaha
[Go To Citation]
Copyright of ANQ is the property of Heldref Publications and its content may not be copied without the copyright holder's express written permission except for the print or download capabilities of the retrieval software used for access. This content is intended solely for the use of the individual user.
Source: ANQ, Spring98, Vol. 11 Issue 2, p34, 5p.
Titles, first lines, last lines
Revision is where craft and art collide. It is the crucible. You know you have to make poetry-- rhyme, rhythm, other sonic devices,words with sound and meaning, lines, stanzas must be melded with the passionate impulse that began it all. Yo started with a vision. You must now let the poem tell you what its own vision is and must be and you must let it have that vision for it is more important and truer than yours. It is no longer about you. It is about th ep;oem. It is like a kid grtowing up. You must let it be while you must nurture it. The oem will never be what you want it to be. It will take on its own life and will interrogate you to get what it wants and what you, ultimately, want although you cannot know this. this is a radical event and cannot be under your control. In revision you give your poem scrupulous attention but never your will.
Revision can occur at any time in the process. I edit on the fly (contrary to the advice of my closest friends who believe in letting it all spread out onto the paper at first (a process probably good for all beginning writers)). Revision comes from the caring attention of self, readers and mentors, especially until you become yor own best critic. Revision amends the narrative structure, form, relatinohship of the narrator to the poem, makes the truth you are after the poem's truth, not yours as the author but the greater truth of the art that you have become the caretaker of.
Author--Inspiration--Editing/Revision--Realized Truth-Art
You must divorce yourself from your original passion for the first draft. You must realize passion for getting the art right, not your poem.This will bring you, childlike, to a new and utterly profound truth about yourself which is the one you began with but could not know. Out of this mystery, written in darkness and blood, comes poetry.
{THE REVISION IS PART OF DISCOVERING THAT WE ARE NOT THE SAME ANY MORE AND SO THE VISION OF THE POEM IS CHANGED AND DISCOVERING THAT THE VISION WE HAD OF THE POEM IS NOT THE POEM'S VISION OF ITSELF. THEREFORE, REVISION IS POSSIBLE SINCE, ALTHOUGH WE SEE IT ANEW, WE ARE IN SERVICE TO ITS VISION OF ITSELF.}
by Jennifer Bosveld
Reprinted from the chapter,
"Critiquing Toward Clarification: Part of the Process"
from Topics for Getting in Touch
After the initial pouring out that becomes a poem in some condition, most poems will greatly benefit from revision. Revision, re-vision, re-seeing, requires a coming-back-around to the poem time after time to reconsider various aspects of it (see "Romancing the Stone" section) in order to maximize the impact of the poem on its readers. There are particular things you can consider. Not all of these issues are relevant for every poem. Not all poems must MEAN anything. Poetry does not need to be written in sentences, for example. And I consider e.e. cummings the king of punctuation because of how he used language graphically on the page. He punctuated with words and spacing and word relationships.
If you evaluate the following aspects of your poem with an open mind, ready to be the makar of the best possible poem, it will not only make better "art", but it can clarify personal issues or perceptions.
STRANGE
My first word of advice comes out of my bias. "Make it strange!" It is comfortable and tempting to use word relationships and common phrases you've always relied on. But consider this. Stanton Samenow says "The therapist's job is not to comfort the afflicted, but to afflict the comfortable." This thinking is applicable in the making of art and especially poetry. So I say, "The poet's job is not to comfort us with the familiar but to afflict the subject with new and bothersome light." Perhaps it isn't a poem yet unless you've made me uncomfortable. Make me MOVE--shift in my seat, yell Yes!, get the dictionary, tell my brother about these two lines you wrote, change where I shop, make me take a walk, drive me to call the travel agent... or any combination of those and more. Change me. Make me wonder about your mental state, what you've put in that pipe, whether you've had too much caffeine. Make me wonder if we live on the same planet. Take me to YOUR leader. Give me the hic-cups from a gasp of awe. Distract me from the news, the kids, the thesis, make me late for the party because I was driven to read that poem four times because every time I peeled away a different meaning. Make me wonder where I've been all my life. I want to be terrified for the quality of my own work. Show me that I haven't been working hard enough on my own poems compared to yours. Make Joan of Arc Kidney Beans, Al Gore, Aunt Sadie's stained glass bird cage, and your Magnavox monitor all relevant in the same poem. Or call me a liar. Show me that every poem doesn't need concrete objects afterall. WOW us without a single one but with a twist of qualifiers nouned to ... what am I talking about, figure out what I'm talking about. Make it stranger than anything I've imagined so far but bring me a new sense of things. Whether you agree with me on this, probably most teachers of poetry would agree with the rest of this list.
THEME
What is the point of the poem? After we would problem-solve the syntax, parallel construction, or spelling, and after we look at language choice and focus on the subject, would we still be left with a trite theme? If so, you're better off getting on to the next poem. We can try to fix all those grammatical aspects of the poem but if after you've done all that you're left with nothing new to tell me, it will never be a poem. "I just wrote this for therapy" is an attitude (whether the writer's or the mentor's) that dis-serves growth or healing every bit as much as it dis-serves "the product" (the poem).
LANGUAGE
A.
Is the language used appropriately for the objective of the poem? Is the language fresh, innovative, creative? Is there any trite language that can be eliminated? Are cliches present? Are you sure you can recognize a cliche when it is present in your own work? Only one who reads and listens a great deal has a chance of recognizing a cliche. Since current statistics show that most people do not read that much and listen even less effectively, it is important to look closely with the cliche detector. Any familiar sounding phrase is suspect. Any metaphor or simile you've heard before is suspect. If this is "hotter than a firecracker" then it is only the "hot" of the common person, and not of the poem-maker. Remember, by definition, a poet sees differently, casts new and bothersome light, nearly afflicts the subject with uncomfortable freshness.
Is the tone consistent and appropriate to the theme or with the mood? Think scene and dialogue perhaps, rather than shifting into a summation or becoming philosophical.
Is the language concrete, full of specific and intriguing details? Have "big words" like "love," "beautiful," and "nice" been translated into words that mean something? Is language sharp and detailed (crystal rowboats and Kelloggs Cornflakes) rather than vague and full of abstractions--"a beautiful forest", what does that mean? Are there too many adjectives and adverbs? Say "Pledge" instead of furniture polish. Say "Pepsi" instead of soft drink. (Usually) Think "product placement" and use the products of your life or the life of the character in your poem. Rely on hard-working action verbs and specific nouns.
B.
Test your word choices and word placement. Test for meaning including denotation and connotation. Test for exactness or effectiveness of relating your message. Test for best position in the sentence, phrase, line ending/beginning. If you're writing free verse or experimental work, become aware of the many reasons for beginning and ending a line where you do. The last word in a line is often an easily accentuated word/sound. Or it can set us up for what's coming next. Sometimes I try to place action verbs at the beginnings of lines because it thrusts the poem forward.
C.
Question each word's right to inhabit the poem. That is the difference between most poetry and most prose. In a poem each word is crucial. Does a word appear to be cute? Cute doesn't last long. Cute is the terminal disease of a poem. Does the word say enough?
LOGIC
Is construction parallel? What about unity? Does X plus Y equal XY? Do images and concepts excite the focus of the poem without betraying your lack of knowledge in a field? Have you lied to the reader? Are you sure all references to nature are accurate, that you haven't embarrassed yourself by putting two birds together in a tree they'd never share?
MEANING
Clarity! Will the reader understand the poem at least on some level so that there is a key provided to unlock other levels? Is it unnecessarily difficult? Is the audience considered? Avoid pretentious or unnecessary and unfair allusions to obscure historical or scientific data unless THAT is exactly what you are writing about and at least a targetted audience will understand. Is enough information provided? Would a talented reader be confused? And, is the meaning new? That is important.
VOICE
Is it the omniscient POET we hear on a platform? Hope not! The poem should have a life of its own, a separate energy. It should be a personal experience for the reader without the poet getting in the way. Is the poet bragging about his ethics, perceptions, vocabulary? If so, revise. Does the sound of sense seem whole throughout the work? But what of rants and political poetry? Those take some nerve and finesse to pull off. Allen Ginsberg did it well, others do it well once in a while. I tend to overwrite when I write rants; I have to hone down considerably. Keep me interested in hearing your voice, buying what it is you have to sell, without beating me over the head.
FOCUS
Is the poet confused about his own point? Is too much trying to be said? What IS the focus? What is the method of exposure? Is this an extended metaphor? Is it well and clearly extended? Or is it mixed up with other comparisons that disrupt the picture? Are you trying to paint too many pictures, solve too many problems in this one poem?
FORM
What is the form? All poems have form; I am certainly not necessarily recommending a "traditional" form although that can have value too. Is the form so close to a traditional form that you might as well go ahead and perfect it? If it is a traditional form, did you avoid the pitfalls of same? (Forced rhyme, inverted expressions, etc.) If free verse, is it tight/carved/sweated over? Or did you allow the handle, "free verse," to imply free to do what you want no matter how ineffective? Does the form feel good around the poem? Or is the message at all sacrificed for the sake of the form? Watch for forced rhymes. Consider writing the piece without rhyming. Experiment with various sprinklings of the words across the lines. Pay attention to where the breaths are that begin and end lines (if that's the case). Have a reason for stopping a line where it bends around to the next, even if it isn't for breath or sentence chunks.
PUNCTUATION
Including lack of. Use either uniformly, or with some kind of rationale ready. If there is no punctuation, are line breaks or spaces used creatively in order to assist the reader? Are commas, semi-colons, and dashes used correctly? And surely ellipses have not been abused all over the page. Why do I say e.e. cummings is the king of punctuation?
CONCLUSION
Is the poem concluded WITHOUT summing itself up or stating the obvious or restating and being redundant? Is there an interesting whip at the end, perhaps? Does the reader have a sense of closure, yet a probability of being haunted by the poem (I hope so). Leave something for the reader to bring to the poem.
SHELF LIFE
Would you like to come back to this poem every now and then? Can it withstand close attention? If it is topical, does it at least offer a sociological looking glass for a day in history? Is it framed in such a way that it won't be worthless once the subject is out of the news?
IS IT A POEM YET?
Revisit the muse! Sometimes after you have critiqued and repaired according to all these guidelines, you finally reread the poem and discover it has lost its original freshness or that you have lost some of your initial passion for the subject or excitement for the poem. That's when it is time to go back and revisit the muse. Put yourself back into that time and space where inspiration or "need to write" first hit and make adjustments.
POLISHING
Spelling and other grammatical editing and proofreading can now be considered. What are this poem's major strengths and weaknesses? Feel free to revise again! I've been known to create up to 49 generations of a poem. It is unfortunate that most of us don't revise by hand now that we're composing on computer. Seeing a pile of revisions for a single poem is rather exhilerating and validating. Some people argue that poems are like people, they're never DONE, they're always in process. Some days I believe that and some days I don't.
I do know there comes a time when we must let the poem go, like a healed bird, or like a child. Your poetry is to be treated, eventually, like the people in your life who you treat with respect. Apply the words of the singer, Sting, "If you love someone, set them free." If you love this poem enough to be possessive and hypersensitive to any critiquing of it, you DO NOT love it enough. Love this poem enough to work on it; love it enough to set it free of cliches and poor word choice; love it enough to set it free of vague language. Set it free of this fog caused by a lack of focus. Set it free of the hiding place caused by resistance to change, resistance to work, resistance to turn your back on the original aha! Bring the situation of this poem into clear and bothersome light and simultaneously you will free the spirit of the poem and free the poet of the need to beat it to death. You will free the poet. You will free yourself.
Make the poem more important than YOU if you want to grow as a poet. Because in doing so, you might create art that is higher than what you have brought us thus far. No poem is worth the making unless it informs the maker.
* * *
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--- Workshop ---
--- Closing ---
Write a reverse poem
Revise the poem the group thought the most interesting of the three new ones
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
=== Week 4, Words, Meaning, Diction ===
--- Introduction ---
We've talked about getting the first draft down on paper and accelerating that process by way of more quickly getting into the zone, using our time there better by increasing our skill set available when we get there, by being more aware of sonic elements and their formal counterparts. Now we come to the words and what they mean. As we seek to define the architecture of the vision that made us write as accurately as we can we need to pay attention to the word choices available to us. One key aspect of this is that as you write the poem predicts the vocabulary available to you. There will be no circus humor in an elegy, no epic battles in odes to beauty, no limericks in laments. Also, the language available changes with each line of the poem. As the poem advances the language available is increasingly restricted. Thus, word selection becomes easier in that you have fewer choices, harder in that you must expand your word-knowledge to maximize the creative choices available. And you must get rid of your pre-conceived notions about what you want to say and make the best possible use of what you CAN say. The poem thus becomes its own architect and you must serve this architecture. The poem needs your attention, not your will. This is one of the hardest things to get about writing poetry: the poem will never be what you want it to be and you will never know at the outset how the poem will end. You must treat the poem as a child just released from the hospital-- attend to its needs, not your own. It will come to serve you.
So we get to what the words mean, not emotionally, but rationally. Although we write from the left side of our brains, we must integrate the right side way of expression with that of the left to the extent that the alien impulse may be conveyed, understood. In order to do this we need to know what the words mean and I refer to the single, individual words as well as how that meaning is coerced into our special meanings by their relationships to their surrounding words. In short they must mean something, must mean enough.
--- Lecture ---
Wallace Stevens tells us the poem must challenge the intelligence almost successfully.
POETIC VS. EVERYDAY LANGUAGE. Sound is the key difference between poetic language and everyday usage. The autonomy of the poetic word is to be achieved through sound texture. This will attract attention to the word itself. Jakobson contends that "poetic form is the organized coercion of language." (Boris Eikhenbaum, "The Theory of the ‘Formal Method’", 127) Surprisingly enough the Formalists position themselves in an Aristotelian tradition in which "poetic language must appear strange and wonderful." (Shklovsky, "Art as Technique", 22) Leo Jakubinsky demonstrates that poetic language is "roughened". This "roughening" is both phonetic and rhythmic. Behind the notion of "roughened" language lurks the idea of defamiliarisation.
"Should the disordering of rhythm become a convention, it would be ineffective as a device for the roughening of language." (Shklovsky, "Art as Technique", 24)
"Common in feeling, uncommon in expression." Frost
Every word in a poem should be able to justify itself as to why it and no other word is there. As we've discussed, we make choices based in great part upon sound-- we have not yet asked what the words mean. Here we begin to shift from the lyric to the narrative content.
Words must be appropriate to the occasion of the poem, that is, true to the subject. That is, we intend to use words to bring the truth of the matter to the reader. Settling for less than truth (less than the best words in the best order), less than darkness and blood, is to use our words too lightly and without sufficient regard for or courage to get to the truth. We tell the wrong lie. With the advent of language, lies became possible. Our responsibilities as poets weigh heavily upon us and our word use.
You are responsible for every meaning of every word you choose. Know your words. Know words. As poets we celebrate having words for our truth. The responsibility is to select words equal to the alien vision, equal to the architecture inherent in that vision. We feel the impulse that compels us to write as a physical demand wanting exposition through words. We are obligated to select words, use language, that measures up to our compelling visions.
Adjectives, synonyms, etymologies, homonyms
Whether reading or writing, ask this: Why this word? Learn histories of words you read in poems. Alan Tate: "the appalling snow". Appalling, literally making things pale but also appalling in its effect.
--- Opening Poems ---
"The Chimney Sweeper", Songs of Innocence, Blake p. 10
"The Chimney Sweeper," Songs of Experience, Blake p. 22
Review the history of the poem, the use of small boys for sweeping, the echoes with "weeping", etc.
"My Papa's Waltz", Roethke, p.53
Hung on like death, pans slid, hand that held my wrist(?!), battered on one knuckle (fight), step you missed (drunk), ear scraped a buckle, beat time on my head, still clinging to your shirt.
These words all do their work both sonically and in their varied meanings. This poem, at first blush, may look like a harmless little tetrameter piece but on study reveals it to be a synopsis of a violent childhood event, an inescapable horror. Look at the mother whose countenance could not unfrown itself. Why "unfrown"?
"Rodney Dying," Jean Valentine, p.12
35 words, 39 syllables, 1 universe
Each word does its work. Look at the economy. Look at the turn that takes the poem from narrative to lyric.
"The Haircut," Baron Wormser, Mulrooney and Others, p.23
"And no one thought much about him and then he was dead." Having no way to show us this because it has been done, he chooses 13 1-syllable words, 1 2-syllable word and turns the poem toward home, where it wants to go.
How do the specific names contribute to the poem? How does the line quoted above relate to the specific names?
"Curse," An Unkindness of Ravens, p.43
What is the fourth stanza about? Poetry? Us? Why words are so important: we're just trying to name it.
We're naming our visions and every name is wrong. It will never be the thing itself. We can only come closer yet we are compelled to try.
"Rubbing,", Stephen Dunn, p. 81
"...beauty comes out of what vbarely can be endured." Compare this with "Poetry must resist the intelligence almost successfully." And Berryman: "Nouns, verbs do not exist for the way I feel." Yet they are all we have.
"Body and Soul," B.H. Fairchild, The Art of the Lathe, p.35
Sometimes lengthy exposition has its place. By the time you reach the end of the poem you do not want less. Or more either..
--- Conclusion ---
http://www.sommestad.com/lm.htm Literary Machine, database
http://www.voxworx.com/ Speech to text (70 lines)
http://bluefive.pair.com/beyondo.htm Temporary date changer
http://www.yankee-clipper.net/index.htm Clipboard par excellance
http://www.phraseexpress.com/ Text inserter
http://www.jarte.com/ Word processor
http://wordweb.info/free/ Wordweb
http://www.tranglos.com/free/ Keynote
--- Assignment ---
Write three new poems, the last one to be written next Thursday
--- Introduction ---
We've talked about getting the first draft down on paper and accelerating that process by way of more quickly getting into the zone, using our time there better by increasing our skill set available when we get there, by being more aware of sonic elements and their formal counterparts. Now we come to the words and what they mean. As we seek to define the architecture of the vision that made us write as accurately as we can we need to pay attention to the word choices available to us. One key aspect of this is that as you write the poem predicts the vocabulary available to you. There will be no circus humor in an elegy, no epic battles in odes to beauty, no limericks in laments. Also, the language available changes with each line of the poem. As the poem advances the language available is increasingly restricted. Thus, word selection becomes easier in that you have fewer choices, harder in that you must expand your word-knowledge to maximize the creative choices available. And you must get rid of your pre-conceived notions about what you want to say and make the best possible use of what you CAN say. The poem thus becomes its own architect and you must serve this architecture. The poem needs your attention, not your will. This is one of the hardest things to get about writing poetry: the poem will never be what you want it to be and you will never know at the outset how the poem will end. You must treat the poem as a child just released from the hospital-- attend to its needs, not your own. It will come to serve you.
So we get to what the words mean, not emotionally, but rationally. Although we write from the left side of our brains, we must integrate the right side way of expression with that of the left to the extent that the alien impulse may be conveyed, understood. In order to do this we need to know what the words mean and I refer to the single, individual words as well as how that meaning is coerced into our special meanings by their relationships to their surrounding words. In short they must mean something, must mean enough.
--- Lecture ---
Wallace Stevens tells us the poem must challenge the intelligence almost successfully.
POETIC VS. EVERYDAY LANGUAGE. Sound is the key difference between poetic language and everyday usage. The autonomy of the poetic word is to be achieved through sound texture. This will attract attention to the word itself. Jakobson contends that "poetic form is the organized coercion of language." (Boris Eikhenbaum, "The Theory of the ‘Formal Method’", 127) Surprisingly enough the Formalists position themselves in an Aristotelian tradition in which "poetic language must appear strange and wonderful." (Shklovsky, "Art as Technique", 22) Leo Jakubinsky demonstrates that poetic language is "roughened". This "roughening" is both phonetic and rhythmic. Behind the notion of "roughened" language lurks the idea of defamiliarisation.
"Should the disordering of rhythm become a convention, it would be ineffective as a device for the roughening of language." (Shklovsky, "Art as Technique", 24)
"Common in feeling, uncommon in expression." Frost
Every word in a poem should be able to justify itself as to why it and no other word is there. As we've discussed, we make choices based in great part upon sound-- we have not yet asked what the words mean. Here we begin to shift from the lyric to the narrative content.
Words must be appropriate to the occasion of the poem, that is, true to the subject. That is, we intend to use words to bring the truth of the matter to the reader. Settling for less than truth (less than the best words in the best order), less than darkness and blood, is to use our words too lightly and without sufficient regard for or courage to get to the truth. We tell the wrong lie. With the advent of language, lies became possible. Our responsibilities as poets weigh heavily upon us and our word use.
You are responsible for every meaning of every word you choose. Know your words. Know words. As poets we celebrate having words for our truth. The responsibility is to select words equal to the alien vision, equal to the architecture inherent in that vision. We feel the impulse that compels us to write as a physical demand wanting exposition through words. We are obligated to select words, use language, that measures up to our compelling visions.
Adjectives, synonyms, etymologies, homonyms
Whether reading or writing, ask this: Why this word? Learn histories of words you read in poems. Alan Tate: "the appalling snow". Appalling, literally making things pale but also appalling in its effect.
--- Opening Poems ---
"The Chimney Sweeper", Songs of Innocence, Blake p. 10
"The Chimney Sweeper," Songs of Experience, Blake p. 22
Review the history of the poem, the use of small boys for sweeping, the echoes with "weeping", etc.
"My Papa's Waltz", Roethke, p.53
Hung on like death, pans slid, hand that held my wrist(?!), battered on one knuckle (fight), step you missed (drunk), ear scraped a buckle, beat time on my head, still clinging to your shirt.
These words all do their work both sonically and in their varied meanings. This poem, at first blush, may look like a harmless little tetrameter piece but on study reveals it to be a synopsis of a violent childhood event, an inescapable horror. Look at the mother whose countenance could not unfrown itself. Why "unfrown"?
"Rodney Dying," Jean Valentine, p.12
35 words, 39 syllables, 1 universe
Each word does its work. Look at the economy. Look at the turn that takes the poem from narrative to lyric.
"The Haircut," Baron Wormser, Mulrooney and Others, p.23
"And no one thought much about him and then he was dead." Having no way to show us this because it has been done, he chooses 13 1-syllable words, 1 2-syllable word and turns the poem toward home, where it wants to go.
How do the specific names contribute to the poem? How does the line quoted above relate to the specific names?
"Curse," An Unkindness of Ravens, p.43
What is the fourth stanza about? Poetry? Us? Why words are so important: we're just trying to name it.
We're naming our visions and every name is wrong. It will never be the thing itself. We can only come closer yet we are compelled to try.
"Rubbing,", Stephen Dunn, p. 81
"...beauty comes out of what vbarely can be endured." Compare this with "Poetry must resist the intelligence almost successfully." And Berryman: "Nouns, verbs do not exist for the way I feel." Yet they are all we have.
"Body and Soul," B.H. Fairchild, The Art of the Lathe, p.35
Sometimes lengthy exposition has its place. By the time you reach the end of the poem you do not want less. Or more either..
--- Conclusion ---
http://www.sommestad.com/lm.htm Literary Machine, database
http://www.voxworx.com/ Speech to text (70 lines)
http://bluefive.pair.com/beyondo.htm Temporary date changer
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--- Assignment ---
Write three new poems, the last one to be written next Thursday
Friday, October 24, 2003
Week 3 Rhythm and Meter
Last week we moved from the first week's look at how to start writing (writing more often, regularly, in many places, at many different times of day-- reading a lot of poetry too) into a look at some of the sonic elements of our poems with special emphasis on sounds that are similar and repeated with an ear to enhancing those repititions so that the language could become more imaginative and thus a better vehicle for the darkness and blood within us. Tonight we'll continue looking at sonics but with an ear to the more formal aspects of rhyme and meter with further comments about line length, which we alluded to briefly last week.
Why care about meter?
You may not write much metrical poetry but the knowledge of it, the ability to recognize what you see/hear when you see/hear it will not only enable heightened appreciation of it but will enable you to employ parts of it in your own poetry, thus improving your imaginative language and making that language a better vehicle for your passionate ideas. This will help you recognize the architecture of the vision that brought you to the page. Sometimes that architecture may include metrical, stanzaic verse, sometimes not. Broadening your range of understanding will also broaden the available range of experssion.
What a poem says or means is the result of how it is said, a fact that poets are often at pains to emphasise. James Knapp
"All my life," said W. H. Auden,"I have been more interested in technique than anything else".
T. S. Eliot claimed that "the conscious problems with one is concerned in the actual writing are more those of a quasi-musical nature, in the arrangement of metric and pattern, than of a conscious exposition of ideas."
As with events, so is it with thoughts. When I watch that flowing river, which, out of regions I see not, pours for a season its streams into me, I see that I am a pensioner; not a cause, but a surprised spectator of this ethereal water; that I desire and look up, and put myself in the attitude of reception, but from some alien energy the visions come.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Over-Soul"
“It is not meters, but a meter-making argument, that makes a poem-a thought so passionate and alive that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Poet”
This does not mean that you are a technician, but it does mean that if you get the craft right (the study of the architecture of your vision) then the ideas will find their exposition. No artist in any medium is able to create her art without learning the basics. Additionally, the occasional line of metered verse can be a wonderful asset to an otherwise apparently unmetered poem. Furthermore, to paraphrase Eliot: Attention to the technique, the arrangement, the tools (all the sonic elements), the craft will enable the unconscious exposition of ideas, or rather, the unconcious exposition of your compelling idea or vision. When you are aware of metrical feet you will know as you write whether to end the line on a stressed or unstressed syllable, when to change the sound patterns for better effect, for heightened language. Remember, it is the nature of poetic language that makes poetry what it is.
**********************************
Types of Meter
Iambic...........u / ......... the Foot
Trochee ....... / u ........ Foot ing
Anapest........ u u /........on the Foot
Dactyl........../ u u ........Foot fall ing
Spondee....... / / ........ In Sensed
Pyrric ..........u u........ be gin
Units of Rhythm
Monometer
Each line is only one foot
It is a wonderful way to convey strength and meaning with its brevity and sense of isolation.
Step back!
Step back!
Step back!
I say.
No pain!
No pain!
No pain!
I pray
"Loves retreat"
In these two stanzas I think you can feel her pushing away her lover, step BACK and his anguish, no PAIN.
Dimeter (Two Feet).
Step back, step back
step back you say.
No pain, no pain
no pain I pray
Using exactly the same words this way, almost makes it as though he is taking it too lightly. So we can see how important choosing the right meter can be.
Perhaps one of the finest examples of Trimeter (Three Feet), is by Sir Walter Raleigh's.
The Lie
Go, Soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.
Sir Walter also give a fine example of Tetrameter (Four Feet) as well with:
The Nymph's Reply
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.
The most popular poetic form of all has to be Pentameter (Five Feet) and the master of Iambic Pentameter in my opinion has to be Shakespeare and his Sonnet XVIII the most well known.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Hexameter (Six Feet).Also known as an Alexandrine.
A single Alexandrine is often used to present a resonant termination to a stanza as in Hardy's "The Convergence of the Twain". In which the shape of the stanza suggests the Iceberg that is the subject of the poet. "The last oracle" by Swinburne is an example of trochaic hexameter.
Blank Verse
Blank Verse is constructed with unrhymed (therefore blank) Iambic Pentameters. No other verse form is able to convey the natural rhythm of spoken English or able to used for the various levels of speech. It is often used in dramatic monologues:
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
from "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Blank Verse was first used in English in Surrey's translation of Virgil's Aeneid. The most famous uses of Blank Verse (aside from that used by Shakespeare in his plays) were in Milton's Paradise Lost and Wordsworth's The Prelude.
Blank Verse is usually divided into verse paragraphs of varying length, though it can be used in stanzas of equal length, as in the following example:
Tears, Idle Tears
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise up in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!
Regardless of how the Blank Verse is divided, the poems are of no set length. Any poet should read Paradise Lost. Also, to see an example of how perfectly Blank Verse can capture the rhythms of spoken English, read Shakespeare.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Heroic Couplet
Two successive lines of rhymed poetry in iambic pentameter, so called for its use in the composition of epic poetry in the 17th and 18th centuries. In neo-classical usage the two lines were required to express a complete thought, thus a closed couplet, with a subordinate pause at the end of the first line. Heroic couplets are also often used for epigrams, such as Pope's:
You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come.
Knock as you please--there's nobody at home.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ottava Rima
Originally Italian, a stanza of eight lines of heroic verse, rhyming abababcc. This verse form was used in Don Juan, by George Gordon, Lord Byron.
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan,
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the Devil somewhat ere his time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ode
An ode is a poem that is written for an occasion or on a particular subject. Originally they were a serious and dignified form but with modern societies irreverence, it has been the tool for comedians with a distinct low respect for propriety, morality, and dignity.
There are three distinct forms:
The first is the Pindaric Ode and is written in accentual-syllabic verse, the stanza length and rhyme scheme are determined by the poet. The poem is divided into three sections, first section the strophe, the second section the anti-strophe and the final section the stand or epode.
The second form of Ode is the English or Keatsian Ode and consists of three ten line Iambic Pentameter stanzas rhyming a. b. a. b. c. d. e. c. d. e..
Stanzas two and three have the same scheme but their own rhyme. Although Keats is credited for this form, he did not follow this form exactly and varied the rhyme forms.
The third form is the Horatian Odeand consists of number of nonce stanzas. An example of this form of Ode I found would be:
Ode to Myself
Just as Walt Whitman would say,
if he were with me today.....
For I have true love inside
Any egotisms have surely died.
The beautiful song that strives to be heard
this song is clearer than any songbird.
There is no reason to feel pity
for my God and his love is always with me.
And I will try to learn as much as I should,
knowing that there are no problems,
just oppurtunities to be good.
ITALIAN SONNET FORMS
Of the more precisely defined variations of the form that we have today, the oldest is the Italian Sonnet, also known as the Petrarchan Sonnet, after its creator, Francesco Petrarca. It had no set structure originally and it was only after it's adoption by the English that defined the Italian Sonnet to be of Iambic pentameter and consist of an octave, or 8-line stanza, followed by a sestet, or 6-line stanza.
The octave sets up a situation upon which the sestet comments. Alternatively, the octave makes a statement, the sestet a counter statement as in the following example by John Milton:
When I Consider How My Light Is Spent
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."
There are three basic Italian Sonnet Forms;
Italian.
Sicilian and
Sonetto Rispetto.
The difference is in the octave.The octave is constructed of two quatrains.
The Italian has a rhyming scheme of, a.b.b.a....a.b.b.a.
The Sicilian has a rhyming scheme of, a.b.b.a....c.d.d.c.
The Sonetto Rispetto (or Ottava Rima Octave) is very different and has a rhyming scheme of a.b.a.b.a.b.c.c.
Each of these forms can also have a choice of two sestets, Italian and Sicilian:
The Italian sestet consists of two tercets (of 3 lines) with the rhyme scheme.. .1.2.3....1.2.3.
The Sicilian Sestet, has a rhyme scheme of .1.2.1.2.1.2.
This gives a permutation of six poetry forms. "Reflections in an Attic Room" by Wesley Court, gives excellent examples of the variations of these forms.
back to list
ENGLISH (SHAKESPEARIAN) SONNET
Gradually the Italian sonnet pattern was changed and since Shakespeare attained fame for the greatest poems of this modified type his name has often been given to the English form.
Instead of an octave and a sestet, a Shakespearian sonnet has three quatrains a.b.a.b....c.d.c.d....e.f.e.f. and a rhymed couplet. g.g.
Sonnet LXV
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! Where alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Times chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
back to list
SPENSERIAN SONNET
As a variation to the Shakespearean Sonnet, the Spenserian Sonnet combines both the Italian and the English forms, using three quatrains and a couplet but employing linking rhymes between the quatrains, a.b.a.b....b.c.b.c....c.d.c.d....ee.
Twilight III
Twilight glimmers with unclaimed hopes and dreams
It is the dawn of night promising things to come
What love of day is not bettered by the moons beams
And reluctant newfound love easier to be won?
Often loves words are smothered by the light and sun
Yet freely given and warmly received at night.
Shyness is a curse, and words at night are easier won
So speak, your heart will guide your tongue what's right.
There you'll find your words will with love ignite
And come the dawn side by side you will lay
Your words of love no longer fearful of the light
And smile together still as united you greet the day.
Welcome the Sun, but be not afraid to watch it go
Be thankful knowing somewhere a love will grow.
Teagan De Danaan
back to list
KEATS SONNET
Another interesting variation to the English Sonnet form is the Keats sonnet. Here the meter is not specified and different type of feet other than Iambic are permitted, ie: Trochee, Spondee and Pyrrhic.
The rhyme scheme is .a.b.c..a.b.d..c.a.b..c.d.e..d.e.
VooDoo
The Witch of black magic, they think she's a fool
Wearing her black beads, and magical chimes
While chanting in her robe, and practicing voodoo
Inside of a circle, are candles and toodstools
Chanting and chanting, voodoo rhymes
You will fall in love, because of puppet and pins
Mixing her potions, with a dash of bamboo
Mixing into your tea, as she stands there and drools
Turning you into a zombie, in a matter of time
Dancing and playing, the tomboula drum too
She will put you in a trance, and will have you spin
You will be stalking the cemetery, in the dark of the night
While under black magic, you will smile and grin
Because you know it is better, then a vampires bite
Pat Bibbs
**********************************
Let's look at our own poems now. These poems are from the first two weeks, rewritten without a lot of guidance but hopefully reflective of some of the sonic devices we've discussed thus far and hopefully with some movement toward a clearer exposition of the powerful impulse in which the poem was conceived. Now, we'll look at each other's poems and look for a couple of specific things:
First; where are the sonic strengths in the poems? What sounds do we like the best? Why?
Second; Are there any extra words in the poems? This comes from the handout from session one on how to revise:
Let's play a couple of what-if games: What if this is re-written so that each line had four stresses? What if this is re-written so that each line had eight syllables? Do it right here, right now. Then read the new version. What changed? How is the poem/stanza/line improved? How is it hurt?
When you compress, you demand more of the sonic elements because there are fewer. If the poem is enamored of its own sonic devices at the expense of compression it loses its impetus. The metrical elements will be more recognizable in the compressed poem. Their impact will be more readily understood.
*************************************
Last week we moved from the first week's look at how to start writing (writing more often, regularly, in many places, at many different times of day-- reading a lot of poetry too) into a look at some of the sonic elements of our poems with special emphasis on sounds that are similar and repeated with an ear to enhancing those repititions so that the language could become more imaginative and thus a better vehicle for the darkness and blood within us. Tonight we'll continue looking at sonics but with an ear to the more formal aspects of rhyme and meter with further comments about line length, which we alluded to briefly last week.
Why care about meter?
You may not write much metrical poetry but the knowledge of it, the ability to recognize what you see/hear when you see/hear it will not only enable heightened appreciation of it but will enable you to employ parts of it in your own poetry, thus improving your imaginative language and making that language a better vehicle for your passionate ideas. This will help you recognize the architecture of the vision that brought you to the page. Sometimes that architecture may include metrical, stanzaic verse, sometimes not. Broadening your range of understanding will also broaden the available range of experssion.
What a poem says or means is the result of how it is said, a fact that poets are often at pains to emphasise. James Knapp
"All my life," said W. H. Auden,"I have been more interested in technique than anything else".
T. S. Eliot claimed that "the conscious problems with one is concerned in the actual writing are more those of a quasi-musical nature, in the arrangement of metric and pattern, than of a conscious exposition of ideas."
As with events, so is it with thoughts. When I watch that flowing river, which, out of regions I see not, pours for a season its streams into me, I see that I am a pensioner; not a cause, but a surprised spectator of this ethereal water; that I desire and look up, and put myself in the attitude of reception, but from some alien energy the visions come.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Over-Soul"
“It is not meters, but a meter-making argument, that makes a poem-a thought so passionate and alive that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Poet”
This does not mean that you are a technician, but it does mean that if you get the craft right (the study of the architecture of your vision) then the ideas will find their exposition. No artist in any medium is able to create her art without learning the basics. Additionally, the occasional line of metered verse can be a wonderful asset to an otherwise apparently unmetered poem. Furthermore, to paraphrase Eliot: Attention to the technique, the arrangement, the tools (all the sonic elements), the craft will enable the unconscious exposition of ideas, or rather, the unconcious exposition of your compelling idea or vision. When you are aware of metrical feet you will know as you write whether to end the line on a stressed or unstressed syllable, when to change the sound patterns for better effect, for heightened language. Remember, it is the nature of poetic language that makes poetry what it is.
**********************************
Types of Meter
Iambic...........u / ......... the Foot
Trochee ....... / u ........ Foot ing
Anapest........ u u /........on the Foot
Dactyl........../ u u ........Foot fall ing
Spondee....... / / ........ In Sensed
Pyrric ..........u u........ be gin
Units of Rhythm
Monometer
Each line is only one foot
It is a wonderful way to convey strength and meaning with its brevity and sense of isolation.
Step back!
Step back!
Step back!
I say.
No pain!
No pain!
No pain!
I pray
"Loves retreat"
In these two stanzas I think you can feel her pushing away her lover, step BACK and his anguish, no PAIN.
Dimeter (Two Feet).
Step back, step back
step back you say.
No pain, no pain
no pain I pray
Using exactly the same words this way, almost makes it as though he is taking it too lightly. So we can see how important choosing the right meter can be.
Perhaps one of the finest examples of Trimeter (Three Feet), is by Sir Walter Raleigh's.
The Lie
Go, Soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.
Sir Walter also give a fine example of Tetrameter (Four Feet) as well with:
The Nymph's Reply
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.
The most popular poetic form of all has to be Pentameter (Five Feet) and the master of Iambic Pentameter in my opinion has to be Shakespeare and his Sonnet XVIII the most well known.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Hexameter (Six Feet).Also known as an Alexandrine.
A single Alexandrine is often used to present a resonant termination to a stanza as in Hardy's "The Convergence of the Twain". In which the shape of the stanza suggests the Iceberg that is the subject of the poet. "The last oracle" by Swinburne is an example of trochaic hexameter.
Blank Verse
Blank Verse is constructed with unrhymed (therefore blank) Iambic Pentameters. No other verse form is able to convey the natural rhythm of spoken English or able to used for the various levels of speech. It is often used in dramatic monologues:
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
from "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Blank Verse was first used in English in Surrey's translation of Virgil's Aeneid. The most famous uses of Blank Verse (aside from that used by Shakespeare in his plays) were in Milton's Paradise Lost and Wordsworth's The Prelude.
Blank Verse is usually divided into verse paragraphs of varying length, though it can be used in stanzas of equal length, as in the following example:
Tears, Idle Tears
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise up in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!
Regardless of how the Blank Verse is divided, the poems are of no set length. Any poet should read Paradise Lost. Also, to see an example of how perfectly Blank Verse can capture the rhythms of spoken English, read Shakespeare.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Heroic Couplet
Two successive lines of rhymed poetry in iambic pentameter, so called for its use in the composition of epic poetry in the 17th and 18th centuries. In neo-classical usage the two lines were required to express a complete thought, thus a closed couplet, with a subordinate pause at the end of the first line. Heroic couplets are also often used for epigrams, such as Pope's:
You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come.
Knock as you please--there's nobody at home.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ottava Rima
Originally Italian, a stanza of eight lines of heroic verse, rhyming abababcc. This verse form was used in Don Juan, by George Gordon, Lord Byron.
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan,
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the Devil somewhat ere his time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ode
An ode is a poem that is written for an occasion or on a particular subject. Originally they were a serious and dignified form but with modern societies irreverence, it has been the tool for comedians with a distinct low respect for propriety, morality, and dignity.
There are three distinct forms:
The first is the Pindaric Ode and is written in accentual-syllabic verse, the stanza length and rhyme scheme are determined by the poet. The poem is divided into three sections, first section the strophe, the second section the anti-strophe and the final section the stand or epode.
The second form of Ode is the English or Keatsian Ode and consists of three ten line Iambic Pentameter stanzas rhyming a. b. a. b. c. d. e. c. d. e..
Stanzas two and three have the same scheme but their own rhyme. Although Keats is credited for this form, he did not follow this form exactly and varied the rhyme forms.
The third form is the Horatian Odeand consists of number of nonce stanzas. An example of this form of Ode I found would be:
Ode to Myself
Just as Walt Whitman would say,
if he were with me today.....
For I have true love inside
Any egotisms have surely died.
The beautiful song that strives to be heard
this song is clearer than any songbird.
There is no reason to feel pity
for my God and his love is always with me.
And I will try to learn as much as I should,
knowing that there are no problems,
just oppurtunities to be good.
ITALIAN SONNET FORMS
Of the more precisely defined variations of the form that we have today, the oldest is the Italian Sonnet, also known as the Petrarchan Sonnet, after its creator, Francesco Petrarca. It had no set structure originally and it was only after it's adoption by the English that defined the Italian Sonnet to be of Iambic pentameter and consist of an octave, or 8-line stanza, followed by a sestet, or 6-line stanza.
The octave sets up a situation upon which the sestet comments. Alternatively, the octave makes a statement, the sestet a counter statement as in the following example by John Milton:
When I Consider How My Light Is Spent
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."
There are three basic Italian Sonnet Forms;
Italian.
Sicilian and
Sonetto Rispetto.
The difference is in the octave.The octave is constructed of two quatrains.
The Italian has a rhyming scheme of, a.b.b.a....a.b.b.a.
The Sicilian has a rhyming scheme of, a.b.b.a....c.d.d.c.
The Sonetto Rispetto (or Ottava Rima Octave) is very different and has a rhyming scheme of a.b.a.b.a.b.c.c.
Each of these forms can also have a choice of two sestets, Italian and Sicilian:
The Italian sestet consists of two tercets (of 3 lines) with the rhyme scheme.. .1.2.3....1.2.3.
The Sicilian Sestet, has a rhyme scheme of .1.2.1.2.1.2.
This gives a permutation of six poetry forms. "Reflections in an Attic Room" by Wesley Court, gives excellent examples of the variations of these forms.
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ENGLISH (SHAKESPEARIAN) SONNET
Gradually the Italian sonnet pattern was changed and since Shakespeare attained fame for the greatest poems of this modified type his name has often been given to the English form.
Instead of an octave and a sestet, a Shakespearian sonnet has three quatrains a.b.a.b....c.d.c.d....e.f.e.f. and a rhymed couplet. g.g.
Sonnet LXV
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! Where alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Times chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
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SPENSERIAN SONNET
As a variation to the Shakespearean Sonnet, the Spenserian Sonnet combines both the Italian and the English forms, using three quatrains and a couplet but employing linking rhymes between the quatrains, a.b.a.b....b.c.b.c....c.d.c.d....ee.
Twilight III
Twilight glimmers with unclaimed hopes and dreams
It is the dawn of night promising things to come
What love of day is not bettered by the moons beams
And reluctant newfound love easier to be won?
Often loves words are smothered by the light and sun
Yet freely given and warmly received at night.
Shyness is a curse, and words at night are easier won
So speak, your heart will guide your tongue what's right.
There you'll find your words will with love ignite
And come the dawn side by side you will lay
Your words of love no longer fearful of the light
And smile together still as united you greet the day.
Welcome the Sun, but be not afraid to watch it go
Be thankful knowing somewhere a love will grow.
Teagan De Danaan
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KEATS SONNET
Another interesting variation to the English Sonnet form is the Keats sonnet. Here the meter is not specified and different type of feet other than Iambic are permitted, ie: Trochee, Spondee and Pyrrhic.
The rhyme scheme is .a.b.c..a.b.d..c.a.b..c.d.e..d.e.
VooDoo
The Witch of black magic, they think she's a fool
Wearing her black beads, and magical chimes
While chanting in her robe, and practicing voodoo
Inside of a circle, are candles and toodstools
Chanting and chanting, voodoo rhymes
You will fall in love, because of puppet and pins
Mixing her potions, with a dash of bamboo
Mixing into your tea, as she stands there and drools
Turning you into a zombie, in a matter of time
Dancing and playing, the tomboula drum too
She will put you in a trance, and will have you spin
You will be stalking the cemetery, in the dark of the night
While under black magic, you will smile and grin
Because you know it is better, then a vampires bite
Pat Bibbs
**********************************
Let's look at our own poems now. These poems are from the first two weeks, rewritten without a lot of guidance but hopefully reflective of some of the sonic devices we've discussed thus far and hopefully with some movement toward a clearer exposition of the powerful impulse in which the poem was conceived. Now, we'll look at each other's poems and look for a couple of specific things:
First; where are the sonic strengths in the poems? What sounds do we like the best? Why?
Second; Are there any extra words in the poems? This comes from the handout from session one on how to revise:
Let's play a couple of what-if games: What if this is re-written so that each line had four stresses? What if this is re-written so that each line had eight syllables? Do it right here, right now. Then read the new version. What changed? How is the poem/stanza/line improved? How is it hurt?
When you compress, you demand more of the sonic elements because there are fewer. If the poem is enamored of its own sonic devices at the expense of compression it loses its impetus. The metrical elements will be more recognizable in the compressed poem. Their impact will be more readily understood.
*************************************
Week 2, Sonics
Sit in different seats
We didn't take a break last time. Would you like to break for 5 mins or is it okay to continue straight from beginning to end?
Have you been writing? Have you been reading?
Sound is what makes the poem physical. We here it, we speak it, we feel it as we speak it.
We speak now of the lyric textures of the poem as opposed to the narrative textures.
What are the tests we give our poems on order to discern where the lyric textures need strengthening, clarification?
Copies of Thomas, Lux, Hopkins, Dickinson (with and without hyphens), Frost,
What question is this the answer to?
Next time bring copies of your poem for everybody.
***********************************
Last meeting we looked at how to get started:
Write often and regularly
Learn to write in many circumstances-- Dr's office, at work, at home with others around
Steal language
Learn to accelerate the mental ramp-up into the creative zone
Read a lot of poetry
Find your way into the "darkness and blood"
This week we will examine sonics, the sounds of poetry and how to manipulate them and how they relate to our writing process as we began examining it last week
Writing often and regularly makes it easier to access the zone.
***************************************
Look at the poems just read for references during this lecture
Sonics. How do they advance the poem?
Language becomes physical when it is spoken. It is sensible when it is heard. Sound is characteristic of music which communicates without being encoded into words. Language has sound that communicates before and without being understood, that conveys a feeling without being understood.
"Oh as I was young and easy under the apple boughs/about the lilting house and happy as the grass was green/the night above the dingle starry"
Notice the repeated sounds: Oh, bough, house-- young, un(der),above--boughs, about, house--as, and, app(le),and, happy, as, grass-- (liltin)g, grass,green, (din)gle
Now look at the stresses:
Nearly iambic, definitely rhythmic.
Hopkins: "I saw this morning morning's minion/dapple-drawn fawn..."
28 words, almost as many connections
Now look at the meanings: young, easy, lilting, happy, green--
but: was, apple (Eden, both good and bad) and starry night (awe)
These connections were not accidental. Dylan Thomas labored for hours over a single semicolon, not simply because of the grammar but because of the length of pause it called for and whether it was right as opposed to a hyphen, a period, a colon or no punctuation whatever. Emily Dickenson placed her hyphens with such care that, short as her poems were, she labored decades over single poems. Her poems were first published without the hyphens, the editor e.iminating them. Oddly, if you remove the hyphens, many of the poems are perfectly iambic, something contemporary readers are unaware of. The hyphens change the sonic texture of the poems completely and the meaning and emphasis change just as much by way of this manipulation. So too with rhyme, slant rhyme, near rhyme, alliteration, consonnance, internal rhyme-- all the sounds in the poem.
There is a great deal of sound natural to the language. English is neatly and naturally basically iambic. Winston Churchill's speeches exemplify this-- "Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old." June 4, 1940, address to the House of Commons.
With only twenty-six letters to the alphabet and surprisingly few true rhyming sounds we naturally repeat sounds all the time. The poet, however, heightens language by manipulating sounds in support of imaginative expression.
{FROM HERE READ THE BEGINNING POEMS AND EXAMINE THEIR SONIC CONNECTIONS. BRING COPIES. HAVE EACH STUDENT READ THEIR OWN POEMS, THEN SWAP AND EACH LOOK FOR CONNECTIONS IN THE POEM SHE/HE HAS. NEXT TIME, BRING COPIES FOR ALL OF US. EACH CLASS, PLEASE BRING ALL THE STUDENTS' POEMS FROM THE PRIOR CLASSES.}
As you heighten your awareness of these aspects, and any others, of the craft you will naturally come to use them as you write your drafts and as you revise your poems. They will become part of the subconscious knowledge pool which informs your creativity. They will also become part of the conscious knowledge pool informing your creativity. You will find yourself making better word choices, extending your imaginative reach more quickly and getting the true poem onto the paper with less dross.
The other half of the sonic texturing of your poem comes from what happens when you enter your creative zone. Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay "The Poet" speaks of meter-making argument. “It is not meters, but a meter-making argument, that makes a poem-a thought so passionate and alive that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Poet”
This is why we write, as Sharon indicated last week. The poet is charged with revealing this architecture. Shirley's poem last week left its architecture in Shirley, as evidenced by her body language which was far more emphatic than the poem. Amy's poem asserted a sense of being lost but did not invite us to be lost with her. How to do this? Engage the architecture of your loss, the real stuff of it. In the particular is the universal. Give us the particulars of it as they are located in the architecture of your passion. This architecture is unique to you. What you gave us is the fact of loss without inviting us to discover our own sense of loss within your expression of it. A sense of loss relies upon a whole lot of information about what it is to be found. What will you gain by being found? How will it change the way you open the refrigerator door, what you will find there, how you will eat, the kind of dog you'll buy next, the life of the doll you cannot find? What have you lost by being lost? It's the same question for Sharon, Sam and Shirley. Detailed as Shirley's poem was, the specifics paled next to the anguish evident in her reading.
{It is not magical-- there is no magic bullet. It is readier access to one of the basic tools of the art.}
This architecture comes able to make use of all the writing tools we own, consciously or subconsciously, so that when we set about our poems we can write to the extent that we are ready to. Learning the sonics of the craft, being aware of them, will support us when we're in the zone, yielding better original drafts, getting us more quickly into the truth we know we felt in that impulse to write.
{THE REVISION IS PART OF DISCOVERING THAT WE ARE NOT THE SAME ANY MORE AND SO THE VISION OF THE POEM IS CHANGED AND DISCOVERING THAT THE VISION WE HAD OF THE POEM IS NOT THE POEM'S VISION OF ITSELF. THEREFORE, REVISION IS POSSIBLE SINCE, ALTHOUGH WE SEE IT ANEW, WE ARE IN SERVICE TO ITS VISION OF ITSELF.}
Another aspect of sonics is layout, not only in the grammatical specifics as referenced earlier in the poems of Emily Dickenson and Dylan Thomas, but as in whether the poem is left justified, centered, etc. Dot's poems are always centered. This is not an accident.
{Don't forget to look at rhyme and metrical schemes as sonic devices. Rhyme and meter traditionally used to make poetry memorable because their sonic impact is unforgettable.}
{Look too at enjambment as a sonic device, end stopped lines as a sonic device, all punctuation as a sonic device, line length, breath.)
************************************
As you become aware of and practice using the sonic intelligence available to you you will discover yourself choosing words not just for their denotations and connotations but also for their sonic meaning. This sonic intelligence adds to the native intelligence and helps bring into focus the architecture within the impetus that compels you to write the poem. Another way to put this is that using the tools you can write the poem that rocks within you. It takes practice. If you want to write you must write. If you want to write you must read.
Some software for writers:
Text-to-speech. It's good to hear your own words, even in electronic voice because the electronic voices are without bias. The glaring things will come out. Also have another person read your poem aloud so you know what it sounds like. The poem is not complete until it reaches its audience. If your reader trips, the poem probably trips.
Sit in different seats
We didn't take a break last time. Would you like to break for 5 mins or is it okay to continue straight from beginning to end?
Have you been writing? Have you been reading?
Sound is what makes the poem physical. We here it, we speak it, we feel it as we speak it.
We speak now of the lyric textures of the poem as opposed to the narrative textures.
What are the tests we give our poems on order to discern where the lyric textures need strengthening, clarification?
Copies of Thomas, Lux, Hopkins, Dickinson (with and without hyphens), Frost,
What question is this the answer to?
Next time bring copies of your poem for everybody.
***********************************
Last meeting we looked at how to get started:
Write often and regularly
Learn to write in many circumstances-- Dr's office, at work, at home with others around
Steal language
Learn to accelerate the mental ramp-up into the creative zone
Read a lot of poetry
Find your way into the "darkness and blood"
This week we will examine sonics, the sounds of poetry and how to manipulate them and how they relate to our writing process as we began examining it last week
Writing often and regularly makes it easier to access the zone.
***************************************
Look at the poems just read for references during this lecture
Sonics. How do they advance the poem?
Language becomes physical when it is spoken. It is sensible when it is heard. Sound is characteristic of music which communicates without being encoded into words. Language has sound that communicates before and without being understood, that conveys a feeling without being understood.
"Oh as I was young and easy under the apple boughs/about the lilting house and happy as the grass was green/the night above the dingle starry"
Notice the repeated sounds: Oh, bough, house-- young, un(der),above--boughs, about, house--as, and, app(le),and, happy, as, grass-- (liltin)g, grass,green, (din)gle
Now look at the stresses:
Nearly iambic, definitely rhythmic.
Hopkins: "I saw this morning morning's minion/dapple-drawn fawn..."
28 words, almost as many connections
Now look at the meanings: young, easy, lilting, happy, green--
but: was, apple (Eden, both good and bad) and starry night (awe)
These connections were not accidental. Dylan Thomas labored for hours over a single semicolon, not simply because of the grammar but because of the length of pause it called for and whether it was right as opposed to a hyphen, a period, a colon or no punctuation whatever. Emily Dickenson placed her hyphens with such care that, short as her poems were, she labored decades over single poems. Her poems were first published without the hyphens, the editor e.iminating them. Oddly, if you remove the hyphens, many of the poems are perfectly iambic, something contemporary readers are unaware of. The hyphens change the sonic texture of the poems completely and the meaning and emphasis change just as much by way of this manipulation. So too with rhyme, slant rhyme, near rhyme, alliteration, consonnance, internal rhyme-- all the sounds in the poem.
There is a great deal of sound natural to the language. English is neatly and naturally basically iambic. Winston Churchill's speeches exemplify this-- "Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old." June 4, 1940, address to the House of Commons.
With only twenty-six letters to the alphabet and surprisingly few true rhyming sounds we naturally repeat sounds all the time. The poet, however, heightens language by manipulating sounds in support of imaginative expression.
{FROM HERE READ THE BEGINNING POEMS AND EXAMINE THEIR SONIC CONNECTIONS. BRING COPIES. HAVE EACH STUDENT READ THEIR OWN POEMS, THEN SWAP AND EACH LOOK FOR CONNECTIONS IN THE POEM SHE/HE HAS. NEXT TIME, BRING COPIES FOR ALL OF US. EACH CLASS, PLEASE BRING ALL THE STUDENTS' POEMS FROM THE PRIOR CLASSES.}
As you heighten your awareness of these aspects, and any others, of the craft you will naturally come to use them as you write your drafts and as you revise your poems. They will become part of the subconscious knowledge pool which informs your creativity. They will also become part of the conscious knowledge pool informing your creativity. You will find yourself making better word choices, extending your imaginative reach more quickly and getting the true poem onto the paper with less dross.
The other half of the sonic texturing of your poem comes from what happens when you enter your creative zone. Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay "The Poet" speaks of meter-making argument. “It is not meters, but a meter-making argument, that makes a poem-a thought so passionate and alive that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Poet”
This is why we write, as Sharon indicated last week. The poet is charged with revealing this architecture. Shirley's poem last week left its architecture in Shirley, as evidenced by her body language which was far more emphatic than the poem. Amy's poem asserted a sense of being lost but did not invite us to be lost with her. How to do this? Engage the architecture of your loss, the real stuff of it. In the particular is the universal. Give us the particulars of it as they are located in the architecture of your passion. This architecture is unique to you. What you gave us is the fact of loss without inviting us to discover our own sense of loss within your expression of it. A sense of loss relies upon a whole lot of information about what it is to be found. What will you gain by being found? How will it change the way you open the refrigerator door, what you will find there, how you will eat, the kind of dog you'll buy next, the life of the doll you cannot find? What have you lost by being lost? It's the same question for Sharon, Sam and Shirley. Detailed as Shirley's poem was, the specifics paled next to the anguish evident in her reading.
{It is not magical-- there is no magic bullet. It is readier access to one of the basic tools of the art.}
This architecture comes able to make use of all the writing tools we own, consciously or subconsciously, so that when we set about our poems we can write to the extent that we are ready to. Learning the sonics of the craft, being aware of them, will support us when we're in the zone, yielding better original drafts, getting us more quickly into the truth we know we felt in that impulse to write.
{THE REVISION IS PART OF DISCOVERING THAT WE ARE NOT THE SAME ANY MORE AND SO THE VISION OF THE POEM IS CHANGED AND DISCOVERING THAT THE VISION WE HAD OF THE POEM IS NOT THE POEM'S VISION OF ITSELF. THEREFORE, REVISION IS POSSIBLE SINCE, ALTHOUGH WE SEE IT ANEW, WE ARE IN SERVICE TO ITS VISION OF ITSELF.}
Another aspect of sonics is layout, not only in the grammatical specifics as referenced earlier in the poems of Emily Dickenson and Dylan Thomas, but as in whether the poem is left justified, centered, etc. Dot's poems are always centered. This is not an accident.
{Don't forget to look at rhyme and metrical schemes as sonic devices. Rhyme and meter traditionally used to make poetry memorable because their sonic impact is unforgettable.}
{Look too at enjambment as a sonic device, end stopped lines as a sonic device, all punctuation as a sonic device, line length, breath.)
************************************
As you become aware of and practice using the sonic intelligence available to you you will discover yourself choosing words not just for their denotations and connotations but also for their sonic meaning. This sonic intelligence adds to the native intelligence and helps bring into focus the architecture within the impetus that compels you to write the poem. Another way to put this is that using the tools you can write the poem that rocks within you. It takes practice. If you want to write you must write. If you want to write you must read.
Some software for writers:
Text-to-speech. It's good to hear your own words, even in electronic voice because the electronic voices are without bias. The glaring things will come out. Also have another person read your poem aloud so you know what it sounds like. The poem is not complete until it reaches its audience. If your reader trips, the poem probably trips.
