Poetry: How to Spot Cool Stuff

[Celsus]

This post is dedicated to the reading group but really is for me, to try to remember the things I learnt in days gone by.

Poetry: How to Spot Cool Stuff

Everyone has probably read a poem at some time in their lives, and some of those poems have blown them away. Sometimes, it may be difficult to explain why a poem is so riveting or memorable, but learning how a poem is written is essential to understanding what can be done. Indeed, the art of reading poetry is called "practical criticism", and it involves taking a poem apart, in order to appreciate the beauty within. It goes hand in hand with writing poetry--if you want to write good poetry, you need to know the (many) forms and structures that work. For me, the fascination is no different from the enjoyment I get in taking apart a motor to see how it works, or learning the recipe of a particularly sumptious dish (to mix some gender stereotypes neatly). Poetry is after all a craft, and therefore can be learned, has its rules (though the good craftsman knows how to break them well), and like any art, learning its mechanisms can lead to a deeper appreciation for it. Thus it should be borne in mind that every rule or guideline described in here has been broken at some point by some poet, and successfully, at that. It also need not be said that interpretations will differ, and developing a way of reading poetry that best suits you and allows you to appreciate the craft is the end for which this is written.

What is poetry?

If we're going to look at poetry, it helps to be able to identify what it is. We can probably figure out that it has something to do with line length, since every poem we see cuts off somewhat before the space on the page does, and we probably notice that it can have a distinctive, lyrical tone. For the most part, and to keep it simple, poetry (or verse) is metrical writing. That is, unlike prose (of which this post is an example), the poet makes a conscious effort to guard the lines he is using, both in terms of the length and the rhythm. Thus song is a specific type of poetry, that is accompanied to music. What was that I said about breaking rules? Oh yes, some people have taken to writing prose poems which defy the line length but keep the lyrical feel. A favourite example of mine is here (http://www.infoshop.org/humor/kaos.html). The other extreme might be typified by Hayden Carruth's Lost, where it seems (at first glance) that he has slashed the lines wherever necessary to form the syllabic count.* Whether the metrical writing is good or bad will depend on the reader who makes a value judgment, but identifying the efforts of a poet within his attempts at (and beyond) metrical writing can help us to appreciate a poem, even when it doesn't particularly strike us.

Meter

Meter then plays an extremely important role in many poems. At the most basic is the syllabic meter, which is determined solely by the syllable count alone. An accentual meter occurs where line length is determined by the number of beats (that is strong stresses). The uneveness of this may sometimes lead to people mistaking a carefully structured poem as free verse. Finally, we have meters that are defined by the number of "feet", which follow a specific rhythm and is repeated throughout. These are, unsurprisingly, known as accentual syllabic meter. The most common form is the pentameter, but others include the monometer, dimeter, trimeter, etc. (one foot, two feet, three feet, etc.).

Feet

So what is a foot? Technically, they are defined according to the type of stress they take.
The most common is the iamb, which goes da DUM. It is used in all Shakespearan sonnets (which also have five feet and are thus classified as "iambic pentameter").
The reverse of this, DUM da is called the trochee. A nice example goes (heavy syllable stressed), "ONCE uPON a MIDnight DREAry, WHILE i PONdered WEAK and WEARy." (from Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven (http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.html))
A pyrrhic is a sort of break from the heavy stress, and so goes da da. Most times, a pyrrhic will take a like stress on one of the syllables and so appear as an iamb or trochee.
Spondees are the opposite and represent two heavy stresses, DUM DUM. A haiku I once read (written by an inner city kid), in Reader's Digest no less, opened with the stark lines, "COLD BLUE BLACK STEEL -- GUN / is MAN'S BEST FRIEND", and while I can't remember the rest of the lines, the accent on those words I've remembered to this day.
The amphibrach is quite rare these days, but is arguably found in some forms of limerick--it goes da DUM da, like so:

There ONCE was / a CRITic / named CELsus
who THOUGHT he / could TEACH peo / ple LESsons
when they FOUND / he could NOT
he was PUT / on the SPOT
and / was ROUNDly / chasTISED by / his CLASses
The third and fourth lines above are called anapests, and go da da DUM.
The last of the commonly used feet is the dactyl, which goes DUM da da.
Ok, so that's enough jargon. Knowing a poem's beat may seem a bit strained to modern ears, but the rise in popularity of rap music (in the West) seems to indicate that a good use and sense of beat is still very much appreciated. Modern poetry is less rigid on the use of syllabic feet, especially when trying to make the words flow more naturally when read. Incorporating polysyllabic words into verse also makes the rigidity difficult, but those who can do it effectively can show their worth this way.

Here's the first stanza from the once popular romantic poem, The Highwayman (http://www.potw.org/archive/potw85.html), by Alfred Noyes, and dates to the early 20th century, but has all the romantic feel of old within modern language:
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding--
* * * * * * * * * * * Riding-- riding--
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
We can see that the accents shift when we break down the lines into their syllables:
the WIND / was a TORR / ent of DARK / ness aMONG / the GUS / ty TREES,
the MOON / was a GHOST / ly GAL / leon TOSSED / upon CLOUD / y SEAS,
the ROAD / was a RIB / bon of MOON / light O / ver the PUR / ple MOOR
and the HIGH / wayman / came RID / ing--
RIDing-- / RIDing--
the HIGH / wayman / came RID / ing, UP / to the OLD / inn-DOOR.
We can see here that he is using a mixture of iambs, trochees, and anapests. The iambs give the lyrical feel, while the anapests build tension, to be released on the stressed syllable. Furthermore, the rhythm itself seems to mimic the highwayman's ride, with all the bumps along the way. It can be read with less emphasis on the stressed syllables, and then the language seems to highlight the darkness of the mood. The use of the anapests and the very sounds of words like "torrent" and "ghostly galleon" just cannot be read too quickly, so the words and syllables used force the reader to slow down. The poet has thus controlled every aspect of the pace very carefully to set a strong opening set of lines and create the mood for the rest of the poem (which isn't always as good, IMHO). The stresses are consciously used further, to highlight the rhyme--a stress and a punctuated pause at the final syllable of a line remains much more firmly in mind by the time you get to the next word. That small aspect makes this poem memorable for me, and the poem, soppy and all-too-cliched by now as it is, is outlived by the splendour of its form.

I'm not sure if I've explained why knowing this is helpful (unless you're an aspiring poet), but it certainly gives me fascination in and of itself (but then again, I really do like to take motors apart for the hell of it). However, criticism doesn't end there, and there are many more aspects to explore and though it's easy to get lost, as Carruth wrote, losing and finding are the same.

Next part will be on analysing words within a poem, I think.

Joel

*I couldn't find Carruth's Lost on the web, so here's the first sentence. *cough*:

Lost

Many paths in the woods have chos-
en me, many a time,
and I wonder often what this
choosing is: a sublime

intimation from far outside
my consciousness (or for
that matter from far inside) or
maybe some train of mor-

tality set in motion at
my birth (if our instru-
ments of observation were fine
and precise enough to

trace it) or maybe dis-
parate appeal, pure chance,
the distant drumming of a par-
tridge in spring, the advanc-

ing maple-color along a
lane in fall, or only
that the mud was less thick one way
than the other was.

(the sentence ends in the middle of the line as you might guess. How many syllables does the rest of the line have?)

[Celsus]

Ok, so like the first part cut off a touch abruptly, but I'll fix it one day like...

Words Words Words

A good poem has had its words very carefully selected. It may not seem like such, and in fact some poets have written poetry that intentionally appears haphazard, but actually has a subtlety that may escape detection. When we read a poem, we should be aware that words have multiple meanings, multiple uses, and multiple effects, and we can draw on them when we learn how to identify some of the common ones. When I was in high school, I often wondered whether a poet actually intended to use the words in ways we had discussed in class, but I think nowadays that this is irrelevant. Reading poetry is not about uncovering the hidden intentions of the poet, but about the reader's response to verse. Thus what the words mean to the reader is all that matters. The poet is dead.

If we accept that the words are chosen, rather than randomly picked out of a thesaurus, we then ask, why that particular word was chosen, or following our dead poet, how that word adds to the poem's value. A number of questions we may ask ourselves follows.

What meanings and associations are suggested by the word(s) used?

It is most clear when we see an unusual word used to describe something for which any number of day-to-day words might suffice. Richard Eberhart's poem, "If I could only live at the Pitch that is near Madness" ends with the stanza:
I gave the moral answer and I died
And into a realm of complexity came
Where nothing is possible but necessity
And the truth wailing there like a red babe.
Why was truth like "a red babe"? An initial reaction is simply that a baby suggests innocence and helplessness. But why red? Is it the blood of a newborn infant? Is it dressed in red? What connotations does red have, that work for this reading? Was the poet imagining a scene he'd actually experienced? Perhaps it was even a subconscious memory! (Note: I don't know what he meant for sure, but I'm suggesting it really doesn't matter)

However, even innocuous or fitting words can be questioned. Why do they seem innocuous placed as they are? Why do we consider those words a perfect fit for what the poet is describing?

Using the example of The Highwayman again, why did the poet choose "torrent" to describe the wind? A "torrent" is a rapidly-flowing stream, or else heavy rainfall, and is associated with water. With a single word, the poet suggests not just a windy night, but the expectation of a storm, without lapsing into cliches like Snoopy's ("It was a dark and stormy night"). Another suggestion from the word is that being caught in such a stream, one becomes helpless fighting against the current, and so it emphasises the strength of the wind.

Another consideration is simply the parts of speech that they are in. With multiple meanings, we can ask what the different meanings allude to, as in the case of "torrent" above, but with parts of speech, a word can take on new forms as it is repeated. A good example comes from Dylan Thomas' celebrated villanelle, Do not go gentle into that good night (http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art2387.asp). A villanelle uses lines that are repeated wholesale at specific points in the poem (see link), and a good villanelle relies on the multiple meanings and parts of speech that words can have, so that the meaning subtly changes even as the phrase is repeated. Here Thomas relies on the fact that his two phrases that are repeated, "Do not go gentle into that good night", and "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" can be both imperative phrases (i.e., commands), or normal sentences with the subject missing. Thus he begins by using them as imperatives, before joining them to parts of a larger sentence, and then returns to use the imperative again, completing his poem.

What are the effects on the words around them?

This is known as juxtaposition, when two words are placed together to add emphasis or provide contrast. Sometimes it may come as an internal rhyme (in which the rhyme occurs on the same line, like in "true blue"), or else may create alliteration when the beginning consonants are the same (as per any decent tongue-twister). These affect the sounds in the poem, and sounds can be used to illustrate a certain theme the poet wishes to highlight. Other times it may have the effect of oxymoron ("military intelligence" anyone?), or just coupling similar words to reinforce what the images or mood of the poem.

Beyond juxtaposition, but featuring in a similar way, is the use of rhyme. Technically, rhyme is simply the repetition of similar sounds, and so alliteration is actually a type of rhyme. True rhyme is actually technically defined as a rhyme in which the first sounds of the last stressed syllables of the rhyming words are different, and all subsequent sounds are the same. That's a little confusing perhaps, so an example is in order: "Bearable" and "terrible", for example, demonstrate true rhyme, because the stressed syllables (BEAR, TERR) are different, but everything after rhymes. Since there are three syllables involved in the rhyme, we say they have a trisyllabic rhyme. These are to be distinguished from identicals, in which the exact sound is to be repeated. For instance, "plastic" rhymes with "rustic" (a monosyllabic rhyme), but does not rhyme with "tick" (an identical). The effect of rhymes of an kind is to draw attention to the rhyming words, or the structure of the poem. The more syllables that rhyme, the more attention drawn (anything trisyllabic and greater is normally reserved for humourous poetry or Eminem).

Repetitions or similar words need not be immediately adjacent or just limited to two words. Alfred Lord Tennyson's famous poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade (http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/poetry/outloud/tennyson.shtml) is a good demonstration of this (The link here has an absolutely incredible recording by Thomas Edison where you can hear Tennyson's recital, but you need Real Player. The massacre of the Light Brigade is something of a myth (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3944699.stm), incidentally). Though most of the repetitions (with small changes) and their effects are quite obvious (building up the sense of foreboding), the small line stands out: "Theirs but to do and die", and juxtaposes action with death--there is no escape.

What effects do certain words have on the pace of the poem?

Obviously, punctuation plays a key part in the pace, but words themselves can too. Beyond this, the stressed and unstressed syllables can have effects as we've already seen. But it's more difficult to spot when words themselves affect the pace. Earlier I asserted that the words "ghostly galleon" from The Highwayman could not be read quickly. Why is this so? This is because the /g/ sound (technically known as a guttural) is pronounced from the back of the throat, whereas the /l/ (an alveolar) is pronounced with the touch of the lips with the top ridge of the gum and teeth. We see this repeated, and in fact it is quite a distance for the tongue to travel to achieve all this (including a sojourn to form the fricative /s/, while /t/ is another alveolar and so doesn't earn as many frequent flyer miles).

Now whether or not Noyes was conscious of this as he wrote doesn't really matter, since what we are interested in is the effects a reader might find from words in the poem. Looking out for these can help to explain why certain words and phrases are unwieldy or slow things down, while others speed up the pace.

What images are evoked, and what mood is created?

This may seem obvious and intuitively clear, but describing or discussing these help to draw more layers and textures out of the poem. Therefore, an important step is simply summarising the types of language used--metaphors, similes, hyperbole--and what the images evoke, or could evoke. What words create the dark turbulent mood of The Highwayman? Where does the sense of doom arise in The Charge of the Light Brigade? How does Hayden Carruth give you the sense of really being Lost?

We thus return full circle. We need a number of tools to read poetry, but when we have those tools, we are back to the start--just describing the poetry before us, but hopefully better equipped. We now have an idea of what a poet might try to do, but it is just as likely that we will be surprised by a good poem.

Joel

[viscousmemories]

This was a great read, Joel. I think it would make a good article. :1thumbup:

When I was in high school, I often wondered whether a poet actually intended to use the words in ways we had discussed in class, but I think nowadays that this is irrelevant. Reading poetry is not about uncovering the hidden intentions of the poet, but about the reader's response to verse. Thus what the words mean to the reader is all that matters. The poet is dead.
That's an interesting point. When I was younger I used to wonder the same thing about symbolism in prose. I couldn't fathom how anyone could possibly know what an author was thinking when he wrote a story, and absent that knowledge how they could conclude that while he said one thing he really meant something else.

On a somewhat related note, I used to enjoy reading and writing stories when I was a kid but I hated doing book reports. Writing was kind of sacred to me and I didn't think books should be summarized or analyzed. It struck me as disrespectful to try to represent a book using any words or format other than the words and format the author chose. I still suffer from that problem, really. When I recommend a book to someone and they ask what it's about, I usually say something like "I dunno. You'd have to read it to really understand."

[Celsus]

Sorry, I just saw this. By all means, convert it to an article if you like!
I couldn't fathom how anyone could possibly know what an author was thinking when he wrote a story, and absent that knowledge how they could conclude that while he said one thing he really meant something else.
Well there are sometimes clues from the authors themselves. If you ever read literary journals, you often have an author elaborate on things he wrote in his book, and what he was trying to illustrate. Otherwise, we can also garner clues based on what we know of practices in the day: For example, the Elizabethan sonnet's form is well attested, and we can simply surmise that (e.g.) Shakespeare wrote in that form for the poems he wrote (even those coming in the middle of his plays), though we don't actually have a letter from Shakespeare saying "I wrote this poem in sonnet form" to prove it. Questions like "Was Shakespeare a racist?" are somewhat less answerable than "Can The Merchant of Venice be read as a racist play?"

Joel