Structure in poetry

[Tzara]

OK, I'm going to bore you again.

This initial post is mostly just me talking to myself. Feel free to exit without comment or to put me on Ignore. And I mean IGNORE—that big ugly switch that says Godammit, I don't fucking what to see anything you say ever again.

Sorry. I have quieted down some now. And I do actually have a question for y'all, but you'll have to wade through these here Cliff's Notes of my wanking off about poetic infrastructure and all that I don't really unnerstand. Why I is writing all of this. It's like therapy, or study notes.

Ahem.

So anyway, I was noodling around the Internet, tracking down the etymology of a word (olisbos, if you care to know) and came across a discussion of the difficulties in translating Sappho's verse into English. Sapphic meter was apparently based on properties of ancient Greek, wherein syllabic size was different depending upon the length of voiced vowels and the syllable's ending sound. These lengthenitities were used to construct a particular pattern that can't really be duplicated in English. (Though there is an English "sapphic" verse based on combinations of trochees and dactyls, fer what that's worth.)

So, that got me thinking about structure in poems. Structure is obvious in English language form poetry. A Petrarchan sonnet, for example, has specific requirements for length, metrical structure, rhyme pattern, and expositional shift (the volta). A villanelle has fixed requirements for length and for metrical and rhyme patterns, as well as specific rules on reusing certain lines.

Other forms have fewer restrictions. The clerihew has three: the first line is the subject's name, there are only four lines, and all are composed in couplet rhyme. Metrical regularity is discouraged. Purely metrical verse has even fewer rules. The sapphic stanza requires a certain pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables over four lines. Blank verse simply requires a repeating pattern of iambic pentameter (dah DUH dah DUH dah DUH dah DUH dah DUH) or whatever for every line. Rhyme is irrelevant, and may even be discouraged.

Yet even less restrictive is syllabic verse. The structure is some syllable count per line, either uniform or line-by-line in stanzas. How stressed and unstressed syllables fall in line is not relevant. I personally find this structure kind of interesting and have played around with it. Marianne Moore, she of the Tricorn hat, is perhaps the master of this form. The result often looks somewhat like free verse, though it obviously isn't.

And then we get to free verse, vers libre, the preferred form of most of our poets here.

But just how free are ye all, actually, hey?

Let me take TRM as an example, as he is perhaps the most vociferous proponent of free verse resident here at Planet L. I've looked at several definitions of free verse and they all seem to come down to this at core: Free verse is just what it says it is—poetry that is written without proper rules about form, rhyme, rhythm, meter, etc.

So are our free versifiers really free?

I wonder.

Again, let's look at TRM. Golly! His lines seem to be composed in fairly equal length. What's the random likelihood of that?

Small, I think. You with me?

I think our dear P. is smucking things. "Smucking" is a technical term that means he ain't as free as he may think he is. I think he's counting, probably unconsciously, some range of syllables per line. Or letters. Or font representations of. Or sumthin'.

Whatever it is, it makes for mild structure, hardly something like "form," but leastways something formlike. Click, click, click his mental counters go and then say New Line. He fusses a bit about this for aesthetic reasons, but cuts and runs at some point. Is that free? Well, kinda.

I know when I write, even when I free write, I end up counting syllables. Not to make them uniform, but to insure that I haven't composed lines too way out of whack with the most o' them. I might count out a poem and find the syllables per line vary from seven to twelve. That's probably OK. What I don't want is 12, 12, 9, 13, 2, 11, 13.

That wouldn't work.

I can't tell you why it wouldn't, but I know it doesn’t. It don't effing sound right.

So. (Here we finally arrive at something like my previously advertised thread-questioning.) What structure, implicit or explicit, do you employ in yer poems? And, uh, yeah—the "I have no structure" defense is inadmissable. I think I said why already, but hey—challenge me on that. I love to argue things, even though I'm often (usually) wrong. We can fight in public! That's always fun!

Oh, well. This is a starty link and supposed to engender comment. So. When you write poems, what structural things is you thinking of? Even semi- or unconsciously. You gotta be thinking something, don't you? Don't you?

Speak to me

Over.

 

[Eluard]

Good questions — I've been wondering about this for some time, partly as a result of some provocations from around here. I, like TRM, do not much like the form poetry that I read, here or elsewhere. IMO Auden was the last poet who could do that well. But I agree that even though I do not write according to some classical metre that there are very definite structural/formal things going on at a semi-conscious level. But to find out what they are I suspect I'd need to run things through a computer program to find the statistical commonalities.

My view is that the classical principles really don't work for English as we now speak it, and that poetry has adapted and changed accordingly. But I think we completely lack a theory as to how it has adapted.

With my own poetry I have always thought that the structure is an interaction (of some kind) between semantic (i.e. imagistic/metaphoric) properties and phonetic. But if that is so then any purely metrical/phonetic analysis is bound to fail.

Will think more…

 

[unpredictablebijou]

This is not my only answer. But this is one of them. It is an unadulterated first draft.

Thank you for this thread. I'm sure to get into a shitload of trouble here, you monster.

bj




Sapphic for Rain

Late at night, the frogs and the owls are with me;
In the shadows, dogs and coyotes argue.
It's the solitude that defines my actions,
All unfettered in the cathedral midnight,
Restless contentment.

On the land, the living and dead spirits wander,
hardly different in their respective shadows.
Do the ghosts of dogs and raccoons keep faithful
company with curious child spirits
deep in the forest?

Thorns and flowers wind in the shifting crossroads
gathering the lights of the elementals.
Does she play with the sparrows in the branches,
hide and seek with the cats who lived and died here?
Deep Earth, her nursery.

I believe that the visible and the ghostly
each in turn attends to her entertainment.
Raised by mice and spirits among the grasses,
off she flies, unhampered by living danger,
child of the tallgrass.

Let me feel her sometimes among the branches,
catch a glimpse of limbs in the shifting moonlight,
see her grow and play as a mother wishes,
feel her vital heart in the wild roses,
ghost of a daughter.

 

[Eluard]

This is a very nice poem, bijou — first draft of not — but wtf does it have to do with the question?

(I will show you structure in a handfull of dust!)

 

[unpredictablebijou]

This is a very nice poem, bijou — first draft of not — but wtf does it have to do with the question?

(I will show you structure in a handfull of dust!)

Good point.

It's there because I'd like to think I got close on that one. One of the fierce and sometimes legitimate arguments against form is that it makes syntax and construction artificial, that writers then speak in ways they would not normally speak for the sake of obeying the form.

That piece has virtually no "artificial" syntax; it is exactly as I might speak it. If I were to divide the lines differently it would not be recognizable as being in a "form." It would be perfectly acceptable free verse. But the structure gives it a certain rhythm that is valuable, and the practice of writing in that form gave me the opportunity to discover the value of that particular rhythm.

In my terribly elementary understanding, so far, of the rhythm of a sapphic, it is a lullaby, a feminine beat, and learning to hear it and write in it gave me a new tool, a new understanding of the way language makes rhythm. There is something about that particular line structure that is reminiscent of the way women make love, or even the way women interact in general, when they are approaching one another - that initial hesitation in the line, a little bumpy, and then a rolling, the way one catches and matches the rhythm of a lover, suddenly, that moment when you have it...

...and then a hesitation again, a falling away, and almost a full stop. Women pause, with one another, draw conclusions, speak, connect. Then they start up the rhythm again.

I could spend months, years, just exploring the way the rhythm suggested by the sapphic form expresses relationships between women. Between sisters, between close friends, between mothers and daughters, and between women making love. It's a delicate thing, not about a drumbeat, like an anglo-saxon line, not about syllabic stress at all, really, but more about how the breath moves around the words.

So now, now that I've written within that rhythm, I can re-divide the lines if I wish, so that the anti-form crowd will not be distracted by the obvious structure there, but the rhythm will remain essential to the piece, because the rhythm is the bones. You don't see the skeleton, but it's there, and without it the piece is mushy. It doesn't move.

The other thing is this: It was pure dumb fucking luck that one of my finger exercises generated something that was this worthwhile. Most of it is crap. Scales. Arpeggios. Not fit to see the light of a bonfire. But without the pages and pages of crap, over the years, would I have generated this at all?

That probably doesn't answer your question at all. Sorry.

bijou

 

[Tathagata]

I can see that this question is going to be done to death.

The only form poetry I feel comfortable even attempting to write is haiku
I know that no matter what I write, it will not be TRUE haiku because it's in English.
Once you take the form out of it's native language, it can only be an approximation.


So if all these " forms" you are talking about were written in Olde English, or Latin, or Greek, or Gaelic for that matter, they will never be true.

You can approximate them, and argue both sides.
Who cares?
Write what you want,read what you want.
No one will re-write " The Bells" or " Annabel Lee"
because very few people write/ speak that way.
In my opinion a shame because it's nice to read something that shows up front a lot of thought and work, of having to work inside certain rule, with certain limitations.
To achieve perfection is almost impossible under these conditions, which is why, in some peoples eyes, they feel the form poems are not as good as free verse.
Well of course they aren't
You have rules.
It is a challenge.
You tell two men to build a boat , one can do it any way he wants, one can only use so many nails, so many planks, and he has to saw with his left hand only.

the beauty is in how close he comes to doing it.
To appreciate the form poem you have to automatically take into account the difficulty.

Rather than do that people want to say it's archaic, useless stilted, no one talks that way etc.

Fine
but to have this fucking argument on 3 or 4 threads at once is a waste of time

If you want start a thread titled " Lemme show you what I know about poetry"

and you can write down all your ideas and opinions and draw graphs and quote Greeks and Pirates, and a guy named Shecky who told you something you've never forgotten while standing in line to see the Human Block Head at the Side Show.

Poetry is very much like music
It changes with the times, with the language, each culture finds different things beautiful or ugly, what's worth singing or writing or dancing about.

and then there are the old conductors of classical, and the jazz guys, and the punks, who spend their days in pissing contests in the back room all basically saying " Yes well I understand but...you see I'm right"

please
start one frigging thread so those of us who don't give a rats ass aren't stepping in this stuff every where like poetic dog shit

I need my V8

 

[Eluard]

The long reply!

Having thought a bit more I realize that I have a lot more to say.

First point. Reflecting on my own work I can say that I am very careful about “stanza lengths” and line breaks within those stanza lengths. They reflect symmetry properties that are very important to me. In fact I can see on the page whether a poem has gone wrong, and where it has gone wrong, just by looking at its pattern on the page. This is all I need to tell me what has gone wrong in the “reading lengths” that the lines are divided in to. Rhythm within lines is not so important to me — but “resonances” (syntactic or semantic) between lines are very important. Thus line lengths can vary, even by a lot, but when they do it is because they are part of the broader rhythm of the stanza. To use a possibly misleading analogy — stanza rhythm is something like the musical rhythm in a movement of a chamber piece. It has to be right, or the rhythms within the whole are going to be wrong.

Second point. There are some great form poems, and some have been written in this century. Auden was great at this, as was John Berryman. But even in a great poet like Yeats you can see the enormous liberties that he takes with metre. There is nothing stiff in Yeats. So when this is made to work, it is usually by exploiting the flexibility within the structure — but this does not always pay off even in a clever poet like Auden (some of whose work borders on clever-clever emotionless exercises). This said, I like bijou’s poem and she is right: the structure is well nigh invisible beneath the effortless lines. But no one should try to do this all the time. (And she doesn’t — clever thing that she is!)

Third point. I don’t think structure and form are bad things, but I am reasonably certain that we don’t know what form really is. We are deluded into thinking that we do by trying to carry across forms that work in other languages like Latin and Italian and applying them to English verse. But there is no reason at all why they should carry across. Here is an analogy from my day job. I’m currently writing a book which argues that the logic of natural language is completely different to the logic we teach in University courses across the world. I argue that a fundamental mistake was made in the early part of the 20th Century and it has been hammered into orthodoxy ever since. Students spot the problem — without being able to properly articulate their worry — and we give fallacious arguments to try to talk them out of their worries. And we fail them if they persist. I argue that correcting this problem solves a slew of really serious philosophical problems at one stroke. And it will probably lead to a much more intelligent artificial intelligence implementation. (Today I hit page 202 of this tome — this is how my days are spent: I alternate between writing chapters and fencing with various people on Lit., just for a break you understand!) At any rate my view about form in poetry is the same: there are principles that structure a good poem, but they are not the principles that we teach students in poetry classes. And people who try to write by the theory we teach will produce terrible "nursery rhymes" — because only nursery rhymes adhere strictly to those principles.

But a skilled poet can do wonders with the intelligent application of the principles — just as a good logician can use the principles of a flawed logic to produce very useful theorems. But a few successful applications of the principles do not make the principles correct, any more than getting a true consequence from an argument makes the argument correct. In fact it is a significant point that a lot of people here are in denial about: if the principles of form poetry were correct then their deployment should result in good poetry, more often than not. But that is just not the case. Mostly — ninety nine percent of the time, at a conservative estimate — it produces terrible doggerel. But so deep is the self deception regarding poetic form that we have one thread after another in which people pretend that it is the non-formal poetry that is somehow undisciplined and in need of school masterly correction. I must say I think this shows a woeful ignorance of world poetry — not to mention that it is often done in that patronizing way that only the truly talentless can bring themselves to. But…I digress.

I think Tzara has asked the million dollar question: given that there is some structure that is structuring non-formal poetry, what is it? My rough answer is that it is analogous to musical structure, but there is more to it. What that more is I will save for when I have to write a longer reply to bijou’s longer reply to this.

best

El.

edit: this was all written before I'd seen Tath's reply, But I don't feel any need to change anything. And I don't agree that this is the same discussion that is being had elsewhere (though it obviously overlaps).

 

[Tathagata]

I’m currently writing a book which argues that the logic of natural language is completely different to the logic we teach in University courses across the world. I argue that a fundamental mistake was made in the early part of the 20th Century and it has been hammered into orthodoxy ever since. Students spot the problem — without being able to properly articulate their worry — and we give fallacious arguments to try to talk them out of their worries.
But a skilled poet can do wonders with the intelligent application of the principles — just as a good logician can use the principles of a flawed logic to produce very useful theorems. But a few successful applications of the principles do not make the principles correct, any more than getting a true consequence from an argument makes the argument correct. In fact it is a significant point that a lot of people here are in denial about: if the principles of form poetry were correct then their deployment should result in good poetry, more often than not. But that is just not the case. Mostly — ninety nine percent of the time, at a conservative estimate — it produces terrible doggerel. But so deep is the self deception regarding poetic form that we have one thread after another in which people pretend that it is the non-formal poetry that is somehow undisciplined and in need of school masterly correction. I must say I think this shows a woeful ignorance of world poetry — not to mention that it is often done in that patronizing way that only the truly talentless can bring themselves to. But…I digress.

Well this pretty much explains everything

edit: this was all written before I'd seen Tath's reply, But I don't feel any need to change anything. And I don't agree that this is the same discussion that is being had elsewhere (though it obviously overlaps).

why should you change anything?
You weren't addressing me directly were you?

alert me when we DO agree on something
That will be news

 

[Eluard]

Well this pretty much explains everything


why should you change anything?
You weren't addressing me directly were you?

alert me when we DO agree on something
That will be news

Actually I thought we agreed on a lot here — but I don't want to spoil your day.

(And, no, the above remark was not directed at you.)

 

[Angeline]

There is no such thing as free verse. There are poets who have internalized--either through formal education or by their own reading--enough of poetry (called free verse or not) that follows predictable rhythmic patterns. Whenever we choose an internal rhyme or alliteration or assonance--and we may have done it so often as to have it become a subconscious act--we follow patterns internalized from the poets we read and like. There are no new topics in poetry. There are no new poetic devices. And there is no true free verse. It amuses me to see some people dismiss form poetry with such passion, such condecension when we all are following patterns that have been around from antiquity.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

No, it's entirely my bad for diverting the thread, and Eluard shouldn't even answer me, except that Tath has now requested that we keep our apelike posturing in a single area, so now there's a dilemma.

I have jacked the thread in going back to talking about form. Tzara mentioned sapphics and I got all excited, cause no one ever talks about sapphics.

The original question is "what sort of structure and form exist within free verse? Why do you break lines where you do; what subtle rules govern those decisions?"

Tath, darling, you're right; much of this sort of dialogue is a pissing contest. I'm guilty myself. But part of it, at least for me and possibly others, is sheer exuberance. Do you know how hard it is to find someone in my "real" life with whom to have a good rousing debate about something like form and rhythm in poetry? of course you do. Because everyone knows it's a dead art, no one cares, and we're all bozos on this bus.

So there's a certain amount of overexcitement when I dive into something like this, even though I know exactly where this merry go round is headed -- and who's on it. And even though I know that poetry is quite undefinable anyway, and that no one is going to change a damn thing about anyone else's viewpoint or practices in here. It's not a dialogue in most cases; it's just dueling monologues.

Case in point. See above.

I believe we all fantasize that we are in some sort of celebrity poetry panel discussion: "Five or Six Poets discuss the various boring aspects of form poetry in long monotone speeches, for your listening pleasure." I like to fantasize that there is some fresh-faced soul out there hanging on my every word like I'm Sylvia Plath. Ach du.

That I say the same damn thing over and over in six ways is due to a hereditary disorder. My beloveds have named it "Bolero Syndrome." Bless them. Or maybe it's that it's really all I know, so I have to repeat it constantly.

get back to talking about free verse, kids. I'll go stand in the corner. And besides, it's Eluard's fault.

bijou

 

[Tathagata]

No, it's entirely my bad for diverting the thread, and Eluard shouldn't even answer me, except that Tath has now requested that we keep our apelike posturing in a single area, so now there's a dilemma.

I have jacked the thread in going back to talking about form. Tzara mentioned sapphics and I got all excited, cause no one ever talks about sapphics.

The original question is "what sort of structure and form exist within free verse? Why do you break lines where you do; what subtle rules govern those decisions?"

Tath, darling, you're right; much of this sort of dialogue is a pissing contest. I'm guilty myself. But part of it, at least for me and possibly others, is sheer exuberance. Do you know how hard it is to find someone in my "real" life with whom to have a good rousing debate about something like form and rhythm in poetry? of course you do. Because everyone knows it's a dead art, no one cares, and we're all bozos on this bus.

So there's a certain amount of overexcitement when I dive into something like this, even though I know exactly where this merry go round is headed -- and who's on it. And even though I know that poetry is quite undefinable anyway, and that no one is going to change a damn thing about anyone else's viewpoint or practices in here. It's not a dialogue in most cases; it's just dueling monologues.

Case in point. See above.

I believe we all fantasize that we are in some sort of celebrity poetry panel discussion: "Five or Six Poets discuss the various boring aspects of form poetry in long monotone speeches, for your listening pleasure." I like to fantasize that there is some fresh-faced soul out there hanging on my every word like I'm Sylvia Plath. Ach du.

That I say the same damn thing over and over in six ways is due to a hereditary disorder. My beloveds have named it "Bolero Syndrome." Bless them. Or maybe it's that it's really all I know, so I have to repeat it constantly.

get back to talking about free verse, kids. I'll go stand in the corner. And besides, it's Eluard's fault.

bijou

A while back I used to hijack threads too
people complained
Gestapo spank
and they found a nice little thread to put all the chit chat that ensued in
problem solved

I have no problem with discussion
I have no problem with merry go rounds
when a discussion turns into two camps and they start breaking out sliderules and pie charts and book sale figures to decide which is the better form of poetry it makes me want to open a vein

Tzara asked a great question...next thing I know we're back to archaic language and meter and the same shit that " over laps" in other threads and ultimately leads no where
No Where


writing about words
which words are right in what order and in what context and where to break them off and when do they become cliche'?

we know who is in what camp
we know how most people feel
how many times are you going to piss your name in the snow?

It's like the "E" question and the "VOTE" question and who decides what.



Just localize it so those of us who are here for cheap thrills, flirting and god forbid to write, dont have to get stuck in the middle of free verse vs rhyme every time we fuckin turn around.

that's all

and Bij it wasn't your fault
some of us just don't recognize that enthusiasm doesn't demand a counter point every time

 

[hmmnmm]

Well, I sho ain't no poet pro,
but in the aftermath of that ill-fated Novice/form thread a notably sizable portion of my conscious thoughts have occupied some of this subject, the range including form, freeform, prose, poetry, prose poetry, poetic prose, rules, convention, observing them, breaking them, back and forth, a moment of understanding, then back to a pleasant confusion.
And for what it is worth, here's where I am at this general moment:
I see two towns connected by a bridge, and down below the bridge runs a lazy green river.
Now, one of the towns is somewhat strict in their building codes, at least in structural design. They have a limited number of blueprints that must be observed if one wishes to build a home or a business or even a farm there. Now, as far as the paint on the outside, or the decorations on the inside, these are much more liberal. So when you go to that town, you see many buildings that look alike, but some have funky designs on them, while others are more stately subtle.
When you cross the bridge into the other town, you see that they have absolutely no written codes, people who wish to build may make whatever shape they wish and they can use whatever materials they wish. Some even live in circus tents. Some take ideas that appeal to them from the other town but contort or distort them or extend them to suit their comfort. But they are still designs.
Now, down along the river are structures of all kinds, some of them found a blueprint from the formal town that they liked, and others took ideas from the town without strictures.
The river brims with jumping happy healthy life forms of prose that sparkles under the sun and some who build their structures by the river also fish from it, and serve up their catches in their homes, the aromas spreading throughout the gulch and into the two towns.
Each one of these elements needs at least minimal structure (the river sometimes rises and spills over the banks, into the fields where the varied structures exist).
Myself, for now, I'm saving up for a houseboat that incorporates elements from both towns as well as a few of my own ideas, and I'd like to dock it so it floats out on the river, without getting washed away.
With this way, I can walk along the river. Or I can go visit the form town, where I have applied to be instructed by a very very strict instructress who wields her meter stick in such a way that... well, some mistakes are intentional... shhh.
Then I can saunter across the bridge, sit down and dangle my legs over the edge, and watch the river, listen to the tunes and tones from both towns. Then go over to the freeform town and have a few beers in a roofless tavern. Then go back down to the river, enter my house boat, grab a smoke, a fishing pole, and sit on the deck, float on the river of prose, and surrounded by all the beauties of endless varieties of poetry. I think someday soon I will afford at least the downpayment on the houseboat, but for now the bridge offers a really nice view.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Well, I sho ain't no poet pro,
but in the aftermath of that ill-fated Novice/form thread a notably sizable portion of my conscious thoughts have occupied some of this subject, the range including form, freeform, prose, poetry, prose poetry, poetic prose, rules, convention, observing them, breaking them, back and forth, a moment of understanding, then back to a pleasant confusion.
And for what it is worth, here's where I am at this general moment:
I see two towns connected by a bridge, and down below the bridge runs a lazy green river.
Now, one of the towns is somewhat strict in their building codes, at least in structural design. They have a limited number of blueprints that must be observed if one wishes to build a home or a business or even a farm there. Now, as far as the paint on the outside, or the decorations on the inside, these are much more liberal. So when you go to that town, you see many buildings that look alike, but some have funky designs on them, while others are more stately subtle.
When you cross the bridge into the other town, you see that they have absolutely no written codes, people who wish to build may make whatever shape they wish and they can use whatever materials they wish. Some even live in circus tents. Some take ideas that appeal to them from the other town but contort or distort them or extend them to suit their comfort. But they are still designs.
Now, down along the river are structures of all kinds, some of them found a blueprint from the formal town that they liked, and others took ideas from the town without strictures.
The river brims with jumping happy healthy life forms of prose that sparkles under the sun and some who build their structures by the river also fish from it, and serve up their catches in their homes, the aromas spreading throughout the gulch and into the two towns.
Each one of these elements needs at least minimal structure (the river sometimes rises and spills over the banks, into the fields where the varied structures exist).
Myself, for now, I'm saving up for a houseboat that incorporates elements from both towns as well as a few of my own ideas, and I'd like to dock it so it floats out on the river, without getting washed away.
With this way, I can walk along the river. Or I can go visit the form town, where I have applied to be instructed by a very very strict instructress who wields her meter stick in such a way that... well, some mistakes are intentional... shhh.
Then I can saunter across the bridge, sit down and dangle my legs over the edge, and watch the river, listen to the tunes and tones from both towns. Then go over to the freeform town and have a few beers in a roofless tavern. Then go back down to the river, enter my house boat, grab a smoke, a fishing pole, and sit on the deck, float on the river of prose, and surrounded by all the beauties of endless varieties of poetry. I think someday soon I will afford at least the downpayment on the houseboat, but for now the bridge offers a really nice view.

Nice.

I want to be the weird bag lady who lives under the bridge.

bijou

 

[Tzara]

No, it's entirely my bad for diverting the thread...

Just to make it explicit, people are always welcome to jack my thread whichever way they might want.

Especially Ms. Bijou.

 

[TheRainMan]

. . . So. (Here we finally arrive at something like my previously advertised thread-questioning.) What structure, implicit or explicit, do you employ in yer poems? . . . Speak to me

Tzara -- the question you are asking of each person seems to be only about free verse, and is this (correct me if i’m wrong) –


when you write vers libre, why do you break a line before the natural constriction of the right-hand margin? (and, by extension, why do you break stanzas, when you do?)


. . . thinking out loud -- off the top of my head, as many reasons as i can think of why i might break a line, in no particular order, especially not order of importance:

 to emphasize a word (by leaving it at the end of a line)
 to mark the end of a phrase
 to mark the end of a sentence (end-stopped line)
 to create or force a pause (caesura)
 to create ambiguity
 to create surprise
 to mask a rhyme
 to establish pace
 to satisfy intuition
 to create a cadence, a rhythm, a jazz
 to create whatever line-length requirement i sense is needed
 to solidify the structure of the poem as a whole
 to solidify the tone of the poem as a whole
 to make the poem “lighter” on the page
 to mark a unit of breath, an utterance (Black Mountain school)


that last one i have seen Tath refer to recently, i think, in similar terms, though i could be wrong. he would know . . . something like “to give each thought it’s own line”.


and 2 that i can think of that i do not do, but are valid reasons to (i suppose they can be considered some type of “form”):

 to reveal a poem’s anatomy (as in an acrostic)
 to start or end (or both) each line with the same word or grouping (anaphora / epistrophe / symploce)



i’m sure there are others that have come to mind as i wrote and edit. they’re just not showing their faces to me now.

and to answer another point, Mr. Threadstarter – do i count some range of syllables, or letters, or sumthin’? – no, never. not consciously. – subconsciously? – well, that kind of answers itself, don’t it?

 

[hmmnmm]

Nice.

I want to be the weird bag lady who lives under the bridge.

bijou

see, even that bag needs a bottom, so whatever you have in that bag doesn't fall out.
the bridge needs a bottom.
the boats need bottoms
even the river bottoms out at the bottom.
We all need bottoms.
After the bottom?
The sky

 

[Tzara]

Here's an interesting and apposite quote by T. S. Eliot: We may therefore formulate as follows: the ghost of some simple metre should lurk behind the arras in even the 'freest' verse; to advance menacingly as we doze, and withdraw as we rouse. Or, freedom is only truly freedom when it appears against the background of an artificial limitation. (from "Reflections on Vers Libre")

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Here's an interesting and apposite quote by T. S. Eliot: We may therefore formulate as follows: the ghost of some simple metre should lurk behind the arras in even the 'freest' verse; to advance menacingly as we doze, and withdraw as we rouse. Or, freedom is only truly freedom when it appears against the background of an artificial limitation. (from "Reflections on Vers Libre")

Fuck yeah.

Without the bones, it can't dance.

b

 

[Tzara]

Well, as usual, I can see I wasn't exactly clear with my original question. Kinda clear, but kinda fuzzy too. That's OK, though. I'm a fuzzy thinker.

The question wasn't intended to be specific to free verse, but if all you write are Shakespearean sonnets, then it's pretty obvious what you're thinking about structurally.

As I said originally, I was mainly noodling to myself, as I often do. I know I often check the syllables in a line to, as I indicated, "smooth out" any really uneven line lengths. I also sometimes look at the visual appearance of a poem for the same reason. Are these structural things? Kinda. Sorta. I don't treat them as restrictions on my writing (e.g., I don't say something like lines must have between 7 and 12 syllables) but they are tools or checks I use to identify things that don't feel right to me about the poem, the same way I might look through a poem to make sure I am not using the same word multiple times (unless, of course, I consciously mean to).

I was curious what others did, or didn't, do. I think Angie's comment that experienced poets internalize this process and don't consciously invoke a structure is probably correct. I'm trying to make myself more conscious of what I'm doing, thinking that if I understand more about why I'm doing something, I'll have better control over it and (I hope) do whatever it is more intelligently.

Tath has a good point about "just write." I doubt any of us would seriously contest the idea that you get better as a writer by writing. But I think understanding more about what you are doing and why you are doing it helps too. I was trained as a scientist. Trust your feelings, Luke is never an answer I'm happy with. I want to know.

Yeah. It's a problem.

 

[wildsweetone]

from your initial post, Tzara, i had a train of thought that has me looking at existing poems in other languages, and comparing their line lengths with the english versions. i wondered if free verse was more 'controlled' by our natural speech than we really think, whether it really is natural pauses and thoughts that lead the subconscious aspects of a what a poem eventually looks like when we're finished writing it.

so...

the first poem i came across on my little look was from a blog, so i don't believe it is anything famous as yet, by Sarah Bell.

Love Lost

I heard from someone that you are in love with me.
That is something that I would never have seen.

Your love I didn't notice as warm
I thought that you would only harm.

My heart was afraid to let you inside,
Maybe it is something I would only hide.

When you looked in my eyes and took my hand,
Walked beside me on the beach, in the cold wet sand.

I never saw it coming, your expression, your words.
A poem flowing from your soul, I have never heard.

I chased you and wanted you to hold me nights
But you pushed me away, as if in flight.

So I desided to keep my distance and stay a little cold
Now you are hitting full force, acting so bold.

Telling me you need me when the nights are long,
Telling me tears are flowing when you hear, "Our Song."

This is all news to me, this passion that you begun.......
Can't you see, it's much too late, and your not the one?

The rain will continue falling, the wind will be strong....
And I hope you can one day forget about "our song."​

now the Spanish version:

Tuve noticias de alguien que usted está enamorado de mí.
Es algo que yo nunca habría visto.

Su amor no pensé como caliente
Pensé que usted sólo haría el daño.

Mi corazón tuvo miedo de permitirle dentro,
Tal vez es algo que yo sólo me escondería.

Cuando usted miró en mis ojos y tomó mi mano,
Andado al lado de mí en la playa, en la arena mojada fría.

Nunca lo vi venir, su expresión, sus palabras.
Un poema que fluye de su alma, nunca he oído.

Le perseguí y quise que usted me sostuviera noches
Pero usted me apartó, como si en el vuelo.

Tan mí desided para guardar mi distancia y permanencia un poco de frío
Ahora usted golpea la fuerza llena, actuando tan valiente.

La narración de mí usted me necesita cuando las noches son largas,
La narración de mí los rasgones fluyen cuando usted oye, 'Nuestra Canción.'

Este es todas las noticias a mí, esta pasión que usted comenzado .......
¿Puede usted no ver, es demasiado tarde, y su no el que?

La lluvia seguirá cayendo, el viento será fuerte....
Y espero que usted pueda olvidar un día de 'nuestra canción.'​

obviously the first thing i noticed was the line lengths - the Spanish version has considerably longer line length in general and although my Spanish is equivalent to about one week's immersion on another planet, i think it seems clear from reading, that the syllable count is easily greater.

i might hunt around and see if i can find a poem originating in another language and then the translation and see how the line breaks/pauses etc show up that way around.



for my own poetry, when i write a poem, i write it so that it looks like a poem. i haven't begun with a prose original for quite some time. i seem to have natural breaks that are made almost sub-consciously - but when i am writing, it seems as if ALL the mechanics of writing poetry that i have learnt in the last couple of years come to the foreground as the words hit the page, and the thought process of the basic mechanics (technique) is so fast that i don't really notice it happening unless i do something that jars me into realising i've definitely done it wrong.

when i write it is pretty much an instinctive process. i mostly don't think things out first. i'll sit with a blank page (usually a computer screen) and just type. the phrases, punctuation, line breaks etc all happen faster than i can mentally, outwardly, recognise. i don't know if that's the fault of typing at 90+ words per minute or if it's something everyone does as a normal part of the writing process.

i don't know how much it helps you, it's not easy to write a 'how to' about something that seems to happen very naturally now. but it sure is fun thinking about it. thanks for the thread and for making me think.

 

[champagne1982]

I think in structuring my poems I try to capture an elegance that, sometimes, is betrayed in the language. Lacking that content, I may try to box up my strophes into 3 to 6 line packages. I think that's the form thing invading my thought process then. I mean villanelle, quatrain and sestina all have stanzas that settle into that size.

I figure it makes me comfortable to see my little rectangles on the page/screen. I tend to allow my line length to diminish or increase down the length of the poem sometimes, too, forming nifty little knives of thought sticking out of the butcher block of my paper.

And I have rhythm even when I'm not concious of it. No matter though, as long as the poem looks right.

I guess if we were to be strict in writing free verse, then we simply need only to write metaphorical prose. That would be in keeping with the anarchy of the "formula" anyway.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

This said, I like bijou’s poem and she is right: the structure is well nigh invisible beneath the effortless lines. But no one should try to do this all the time. (And she doesn’t — clever thing that she is!)

agreed with much of what you said up there but this bit, sweet as it is, I must respond to, and only because it's really my point.

I try to do that at least once a day. The bones are not the form; the bones are the exercises that allow us to stay flexible. I try to do that once a day. Of those, you, and other humans, will see about one in every 600 attempts. It is the trying, the education, for which I argue here, not writing in form as such. Learning form. Practicing form. And then breaking out of it with the skills that the practice has granted.

I'm serious about that living under the bridge stuff. But I get out at night and wander the streets of both towns, learning everything I can.

alert. metaphor has spiraled out of control. crazy bag lady over and out.

bijou

 

[Eluard]

There is no such thing as free verse. There are poets who have internalized--either through formal education or by their own reading--enough of poetry (called free verse or not) that follows predictable rhythmic patterns. Whenever we choose an internal rhyme or alliteration or assonance--and we may have done it so often as to have it become a subconscious act--we follow patterns internalized from the poets we read and like. There are no new topics in poetry. There are no new poetic devices. And there is no true free verse. It amuses me to see some people dismiss form poetry with such passion, such condecension when we all are following patterns that have been around from antiquity.

I agree with this, mostly. Certainly the point about the internalisation of some patterns which are then applied unconsciously. But the question of the thread is to try to articulate those unconscious processes.

But think that the condescension you mention tends to run in the other direction — there is still that view that real poetry has to rhyme and scan. I find it exhasperating.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

I agree with this, mostly. Certainly the point about the internalisation of some patterns which are then applied unconsciously. But the question of the thread is to try to articulate those unconscious processes.

But think that the condescension you mention tends to run in the other direction — there is still that view that real poetry has to rhyme and scan. I find it exhasperating.

Alright, I truly have to know. Raise your hand if you're in here and you believe that real poetry has to rhyme and scan. Honestly. Are there really that many people who think so? Perhaps I'd better take this discussion a bit more seriously.

in all genuine curiosity,
bijou