Yvor Winters 102

Thom Gunn on Yvor Winters: "He aimed, evidently, for a seriousness, a dignified tone, and the danger of that tone is that it may topple over into pomposity. It is remarkable that it does so very seldom."

And it did not do so here, a poem elevating a simple story of a lost dog to mythic proportions:

Elegy on a Young Airedale Bitch Lost
Some Years Since in the Salt-Marsh

Low to the water's edge
You plunged; the tangled herb
Locked feet and mouth, a curb
Tough with the salty sedge.

Half dog and half a child,
Sprung from that roaming bitch,
You flung through dike and ditch,
Betrayed by what is wild.

The old dogs now are dead,
Tired with the hunt and cold,
Sunk in the earth and old.
But your bewildered head,

Led by what heron cry,
Lies by what tidal stream?--
Drenched with ancestral dream,
And cast ashore to dry.

Yvor Winters 101

I recently purchased the American Poets Project issue of Yvor Winter's Selected Poems. The series, published by the Library of America, is nicely done; this one comes with an introduction by Thom Gunn. Winters is a fascinating study for any poet who has journeyed from free verse to form, for that's exactly what he did. He began writing free verse, in early instances one-line poems. Gunn says Winters came to believe that "accumulated and juxtaposed intensities of image to not amount to thought." Meter and rhyme would come to give him a means to make a more meaningful connection.

Here's a free verse poem:

Dark spring

My mother
Foresaw deaths
And walked among
Chrysanthemums,
Winecolored,
Withered rose,
The earthy blossoms.

My very breath
Disowned
In nights of study,
And page by page
I came on spring.

The rats run on the roof,
These words come hard---
Sadder than cockcrow
In a dreamless, earthen sleep.
The Christ, eternal
In the scented cold; my love,
Her hand on the sill
White, as if out of earth;
And spring, the sleep of the dead.



And then one in meter:

Sonnet to the Moon

Now every leaf, though colorless, burns bright
With disembodied and celestial light,
And drops without a movement or a sound
A pillar of darkness to the shifting ground.

The lucent, thin, and alcoholic flame
Runs in the stubble with a nervous aim,
But, when the eye pursues, will point with fire
Each single stubble-tip and strain no higher.

O triple goddess! Contemplate my plight!
Opacity, my fate! Change, my delight!
The yellow tom-cat, sunk in shifting fur,
Changes and dreams, a phosphorescent blur.

Sullen I wait, but still the vision shun.
Bodiless thoughts and thoughtless bodies run.
.
.
.
Enjoy your weekend reading. Yvor Winters 102 to come.

River Ice Update 5: Pleasant Valley Sun Days....

Ice is out along Pleasant Valley so this then will be the last river ice update. The river along the valley stretches for about one-half mile, this side of the Merrimack being mostly wetlands and the other side forested banks of Maudslay Park. It’s a beautiful stretch to begin my morning commute and this week watch the winter melt away.

The river opened in vectors day by day. Although the Merrimack is expansive here, the channel itself is narrow. Within that channel, the ice melted first in lengthy stretches of maybe 300 feet at a time. Like a black tongue of water it slowly licked the ice. Large chunks on either side fell away and floated down stream, like ice cream cascading from a cone on a hot summer day.

Therefore all week archipelagos of ice slowly drifted downstream towards the Atlantic. But it’s a tidal river here, so at times those islands would reverse direction and flow back upriver. Things are more advanced downstream; the river was shook like a cocktail at a Christmas party.

And overnight, blooms of thin ice will form and then melt during sunny mornings. It’s not spring yet, and I’m sure a belt of cold Arctic air could reverse the ice-out process temporarily and send the river reeling into solidity again. But the sun is climbing in the sky and soon the red-winged blackbirds will return to perch precariously upon the river grass and trill. It’s just a matter of time.

There's a Good News Search Engine in Town

Goodle!

Scientists pack up: "Everything explained"
BBC News - 0.3 femtoseconds ago
Scientists all round the world today went home for a nice cup of tea after a revolutionary breakthrough explained everything. The new unified theory (NUT) unites science and religion, explains genetics, the origin of the universe, quantum phenomena, and provides the first instant cure for a hangover in human history.
Scientists: "It's very simple actually, very embarrassing" New Scientist

A Google Page for the Ages. Truly an LOL. Can't wait to try that cure!

Mel Gibson's Sacrifice______________________

I'm sure Mel Gibson has his reasons for the spectacle of blood in his movie. I would wager it involves the great sacrifice that Jesus undertook in giving up his body to that violence. And the only way to understand that ultimate sacrifice is to understand his pain up close and personal.

Then does that make pornographic treatments of sex the ultimate understanding of love. Is all that in-and-out between giant sexual organs filling the camera lens a testament to that ultimate emotion?

I may have to try this in a poem....

Live Free or Die Enjambing

Jilly Dybka of Poetry Hut Blog performs her job with true diligence. Every day she has links to interesting news on poetry that you won't find on Poetry Daily. Her blog is a daily read for me. Today she has a link to an interview with Cynthia Huffington, the new poet laureate of New Hampshire.

I have lived in that state in the past. Its borders are within 3 miles of my home now. And I hike its shoreline and mountains on a regular basis. I guess I'm saying that I feel a close connection to the state, and therefore its laureate.

So I went to read the interview and saw that Donald Hall was her teacher. Being that Mr. Hall is one of my favorite contemporary poets, I went looking for some of her poems on-line. Here are some links:

The Strange Insect from POetry Daily
Untitled from Poetry Daily
Curse One: The Wraith from poets.org
The Rapture from Four Way Books
Accidental from Ploughshares
From Exile from Ploughshares
The Length of The Hour from Ploughshares
Calm from Ploughshares

Ok. That's a long list culled from a few minutes of Googling. I haven't read them all yet. But this first one, The Strange Insect, I have, and for the life of me can't get past the lines that end with "a":

It is black and long, like a widow, or a
sacred priest, has a yellow necklace and

and

thin like a straw, like a wasp, thin as a
quill, is hanging on a piece of what was

I just don't understand the reasoning behind it nor hear any rhythmic cause for it. Is it the strange insect of form itself? It's certainly strange. More free verse magic I guess.

Fun with Forms 3: Gregorian Sonnet

As I may have mentioned earlier: I came kicking and screaming to meter and form. And free verse still runs in my veins. Several years ago, I began playing with a sonnet form of my own device that ran up the flag of free verse for one moment in that country of meter.

First, the rhyme scheme hid the rhyme scheme. It was based on a repeating design of 5 lines in an A-B-C-B-A scheme. The second set of five began with that unrymed third line: C-D-E-D-C. Some of the rhymes were so far apart, one could lose fact of the rhyme. For example, the A rhyme is spaced by 3 lines. The C is spaced by 2 and 3 lines respectively. The pattern tends to the irregular. But isn’t.

Yet here’s where the freak flag flew freely. Because this was a poem of 14 lines, there would not be another set of 5. Instead the final set, a quatrain only, begins with the unrhymed line of the previous scheme and continues similarly as before: E-F-G-F but ends abruptly, leaving that poor 13th line ultimately unrhymed.

And because the unrhymed 13th line was the "G" line, snd since I was myself born on the 13th, I decided to dub this one in my own name: the Gregorian Sonnet.

In pentameter, by the way. And the turn should come at the quatrain.

I should note that the last time I wrote a poem in this form, I ended up rhyming the last three lines. The flag had finally and completely fallen. Like Kurt Vonnegut would say; "no damned G line, no damned Gregorian". Guess I'll call that one a Julian. Or maybe more appropriately, Fools.

Gallery Photo 1: Guardian of the Forest

I thought I'd post some of my favorite photographs in separate postings in the coming months. Give myself a gallery showing. I'm not sure at what frequency but probably not more than 2 per week, and very possibly only one.

These photos are ones that speak to me as a poem. I hope they may speak to others in that same way. Often I've taken a photo and wonder where exactly did that come from. I'm certainly no photographer, but sometimes the stars align while the planets form some meaningful design, and something comes before my camera as I press the button. Over time it becomes an entity of itself. But then again the same thing happens with some of my poems.

Anyways here's a photo of a tree in Maudslay Park in Newburyport. It may not capture that feeling of a forest, the dappled sunlight and the organic living shade. But damned if it isn't its keeper, an ent.


The Guardian of the Forest

Click on photo for somewhat larger image.

Pornographic Passion

Over dinner tonight with my friend Beverly, we were discussing Mel Gibson's film Passion of the Christ. She thinks she wants to see it. I don't. Everything that I've heard has indicated it is a very violent film. I like suspense in the genre of Hitchcock. Violence lacks all real tension. It's all there in red and red. Moreover, in this film, the actual meaning of Christ appears lost in the blood and gore. This post by Andrew Sullivan defines the violence in Gibson's film as pornography. It's difficult enough reading Mr. Sullivan's descriptions. I'll pass on the film.

Politics Can Be Personal Too

Again Mike Snider. I'm a big fan of his blog. I find his ability to speak of the personal in such a public forum not only admirable but sometimes breathtaking. I have a lot to learn from him, my genes obviously coming from that English side of my family that finds itself naturally reserved if not downright distant.

He writes an emotional piece on recovered memory and its resultant losses that is stark but fascinating. And the accompanying poem is pure heartbreak. Please read Old Songs in his So Much for Memory post.

Towards a Political Poetics

Mike Snider of Formal Blog and Sonnetarium fame, pointed us towards a political poem indeed on The Fool in the Forest. Not only is the poem an editorial in verse (concerning that obscene amendment endorsed by GWB) but it's written in a most difficult form : double dactyl. Nicely done in both form and content.

A Call for Political Poetry

Yesterday I waxed political for one posting, noting that such diatribes were necessary in order to keep the political from tainting my poetry. Today I read an interesting essay in intellectualconservative.com on the subject of political poetry. I’ll have to admit that this website is not one of my regular feeding troughs so I cannot vouch on how intellectual their conservatism is. And if I wanted to be a wise guy, I could say that such thing is an oxymoron. But this article is indeed fair and balanced. Not only should it be considered by editorial pages in this country but also poets themselves.

Political poetry is difficult when written in the lyric mode, the preferred manner of this age. But during the Viet Nam war though there was much written. War will encourage poetry. That war became so political that such poetry naturally became political. But I’m not sure how much of it was enduring. But I’m also not sure if it should be written to last.

Poetry can say things in a context that goes beyond the screed and into the realm of the soul. Maybe that would be a welcome infusion to the political bloodlife of this nation. Poetry about the deficit, for example, may be a dry topic to consider. But if Tip O’Neil was right when he said that all politics are local, then such a local look at the deficit and how it’s effect on the personal would be a worthy theme.

Some mq’s from A Call For More Political Poetry On America's Op Ed Pages by Michael Silverstein:

On the poets' side, we need a lot less of the post-modern, endlessly introspective, culture for the cognoscenti, self-consciously unstructured work that is geared to winning sinecures, juried prizes, and praise from a tight circle of learned professionals…. We need poetry that enriches national debate, changes points of views, and provides better ways of understanding and altering contemporary political, economic and social realities.

On the Op Ed side of things, we need editors who recognize poetry as a real world way to look at the issues covered in their pages. Not something that belongs in what used to be patronizing termed "the women's pages." Not something that gets slotted in a little "Poet's Corner" box that gives an occasional nod to the culturally elevated.

Fun with Forms 2: Name that Funky Sonnet

Sonnets very simply put consist of fourteen pentameter lines. For the mathematically-impaired (I’ll use a calculator thank you), that’s 70 iambic feet, with as many substitutions as aesthetically desired, none if so needed. Interestingly enough, a pair of Dylanesque Sestets arranged in an alternating 4-5-4-5-4-4 pattern with a 4-5-4-5 quatrain at the end will add up to the same amount of iambic feet as that sonnet. (You can do the math.)

This extended sonnet form has been unnamed until now. But I’m in a feisty mood tonight after having a peppery dinner of blackened chicken at the Border with my daughter. And a Double-tall Mocha at the nearby Starbucks still has me buzzing. That said, I’m ready to do some free association.

Beginning with the Dylanesque Sestet and the idea of an extended sonnet: I’m directly reminded of the song Desolation Row, one of Bob Dylan’s longer if not longest songs, an extended surrealistic dirge containing the following lyrics (please notice the rhyme scheme: ah synchronicity):

And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers

That association is further appropriate considering that the form in question is cut short with a final quatrain rather than closed with the expected sestet. Furthermore, the idea of an extended sonnet is rather desolate in its intellectual integrity as well. It seems altogether appropriate then that this form be known as a Desolation Sonnet.

Not only does this form allow one to hit lines in blank verse, ballad verse, and heroic couplets, as well as play in the field of free verse while wearing a regulation uniform, but it also allows one to throw around tetrameters and pentameters from the mound. In that way, it’s the proper form with which to open spring training.

If you are curious, I posted a poem written in this form on 23-Feb: Growing Daylight. I will keep it on this blog until 01-March. It will then self-destruct and no longer be available to any literary historians that may examine this sight in the future. For all intents and purposes, on this blog at least, it will end in quiet desolation.

Infallible Movie Reviews

Here's a real one as reported:
"It is as it was." — Pope John Paul III's review of Mel Gibson's upcoming film, The Passion, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, 12/17/2003.

Here's another courtesy of McSweeney's:

On Miracle
"The 'miracle on ice' story of the gold medal-winning 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. Not bad. Not a 'miracle'—trust me—but not bad."

Lord of the Rings Symphony Debut

Tolkien's work may have its musical eqivalent. Although transcendent in some places and workmanlike in others, the soundtrack for the film mirrored the design of the film. And although the film was as faithful to the book as a commercial film can be, the two, book and film, are in the end entirely separate creations. The book is masterful. The movie is wizard-like. The soundtrack is faithful. Elrond, Gandalf, Sam. Middle Earth awaits its symphony.

According to Shore, his challenge was to capture the spirit of the books.

"It was about creating a piece that was the musical equivalent of the books, and there's over 50 leitmotifs in the music. It uses Tolkien's languages—elvish and dwarvish—and I think by working with the choirs, it was a way of bringing back the poetry and the lyrics that were in the book."

Tolkien symphony debuts in Montreal on CBC Montreal

Fun with Forms 1: The Dylanesque Sestet

First, some definitions of the particular quatrains that I will be revisiting in this series (yes, series.) That quatrain in which the rhyme scheme is a-b-c-b is called "long measure" when written in tetrameter lines. When written in alternating tetrameter and trimeter lines (4-3-4-3), it's called "common measure".

Therefore, when using the scheme in pentameter, I like to call it "tall measure". I have been unable to find it’s formal name. (This one had its birth at Starbucks.) And when reversing the common measure to 3-4-3-4, it's called “uncommon measure” of course. Still, beyond the meter and all that measure for measure, the key to these quatrains is the rhyme scheme itself: a-b-c-b.

When the quatrain is combined with couplets, we have an interesting sestet that combines the schemes of alternating rhyme, alternating unrhymes (blank verse? free verse?), and rhyming couplets. I get pleasure from the variations available within that simple six-line form. There’s everything from free verse to blank verse to ballad rhyme to heroic couplets in one simple sestet.

I devised the sestet for my own use, although I am sure it’s a form that has been used by others in the past (I am not that much of a megalomaniac to believe that I was its inventor.) It’s a close relative to the Venus and Adonis stanza, but the unrhymed lines give it a myth of its own.

I dreamed it up while looking for a rhyme scheme that would do several things. First I wanted the freedom of alternating unrhymed lines that would hearken back to my free verse roots. I also wanted the catchy kind of refrain that I often hear in pop songs. Hence, the couplet at the end. And since I had been listening to “Blood on the Tracks” at the time, I called it the Dylanesque Sestet in Bob’s honor.

In forthcoming posts, I will lay out several forms utilizing this sestet in sundry ways for consideration. Please be aware that I like to have fun with the naming of these self-made nonce forms (no longer nonce to me.) Therefore, serious formalistas should be ready to groan in disapproval.

Times New Roman 14 Coup

I'm a little late on this but I find it interesting, and being that poetry is about words, and words are about letters, and letters are all about fonts in these days of Word and roses, this news is poetry-related too.

mq:
In late January, an announcement from the U.S. State Department generated certain chatter along the generally indiscernible diplomatic-typographic axis. This was the news that as of Feb 1, the department was ditching Courier New 12 as its official font-in-residence and taking up with Times New Roman 14. Courier 12 had been put to pasture after several decades of honorable service, like an aging, elegant diplomat whose crisp, cream-colored linen suit and genteel demeanor now seem winningly old-fashioned.

Courier, Dispatched How the U.S. State Department put the kibosh on the typewriter font. By Tom Vanderbilt in Slate

Allen Ginsberg's Party Poem

Some comments on Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" by Jascha Kessler Professor of English and Modern Literature, UCLA in the LA Times:

mq
When I prepared an anthology of American poets in 1959, I chose Ginsberg's "Kaddish," a long threnody for his mother, precisely because I thought of "Howl" as a poem that could be taken but once — and best recited at a coven of stoned adolescents (as the first recording reveals).

News (Setting the Record Straight)

Recently I was interviewed by telephone for an article concerning the poetry workshop that I’ve attended for many years. During the interview I remember discussing how I joined the workshop, what a great person and poet the head of the workshop is, what great help she has been to all of us struggling poets there, and how talented many of the other poets in the workshop are, and what great things they have accomplished. On a more personal and less-accomplished note, I mentioned some of the journals that have accepted my poems as of late, and the fact that this was a new experience for me. In the past, rejections were the only norm I knew.

Somehow, either through some misstatement of mine or some misunderstanding by the journalist, I was quoted that I was being accepted more than rejected these days. (And none of my praise for the others was included!) Imagine my horror. Not only would such a statement be full of hubris, but a challenge to the universe. I am not now nor have ever been accepted for publication more than rejected.

Now, that said, I received replies from two journals yesterday. But even those results exhibit an unusually good ratio. 32 Poems rejected my five submissions. But Blue Unicorn accepted one poem of the five that I had submitted to them. Here, in front of the world, or at least the several readers that stop by here daily, I want to say that the ratio is usually much worse than that, and that I appreciate the minor miracle that one poem of ten has been accepted for publication. Thank you universe.

Soul Train: Line Measure

Free verse line theory almost never discusses rhythm in some understandable way. It’s usually about breath or field or tension or context. If rhythm is discussed at all, it is something mentioned in passing, maybe as some force with which one must reckon. That’s why William Watkin’s comment on how rhythm works (“I don't know and nor does anyone else it would seem.”) is so revealing. His honesty is disarming, but the meaning is still loaded. Whereas rhythm in formal poetry is something orchestrated by meter, in free verse that orchestration is missing. Individual instruments of the free verse poet play in the pit with no instructions from some higher power but the poet. Each is a first instrument, whether it be metaphor, alliteration, or the sense of sound. Maybe that’s why the concept of the line in free verse is so poet-specific. Rhythm is a little like soul: you either got it or you don’t.

Free Verse and Line Measure Redux

Mike Snider has joined the attack on William Watkins theory of line measure. That theory, I playfully suggested, with apologies, centered on MAGIC. Mike Snider, without apology, thinks Watkins is just being incoherent. As they say read the whole thing at Mike Snider's Formal Blog and Sonnetarium.

I’ll be back to offer a few comments later.

My Latest Poem

.
Growing Daylight
Imbolc and the Goddess Brigid

The blush returns to northern skies
as sheep will winter-lamb when filled with milk.
Snakes pour out from bitter earth,
to watch for shadings interlaced in silk
spun-frost, on slopes that front the sun.
The bride of light will not be undone.
That maiden from the tender east
lays hands upon ten thousand lifeless lakes
and lifts fresh water out of ice.
She spreads her arms on snowy ground—it breaks
into a land of patchwork green.
Her knowing sisters then convene
preparing folk to make a living.
Springs of words begin to flow in time.
Fires braze an iron mind.
The fruitless branch still flowers in its prime.


For what it's worth, I will post my latest poem for 7 days on this blog. Then it will self-destruct. As always, any comments are appreciated. Very much so.

Merrimack Ice Report #4

Ice out! Almost.

But the river here at Pleasant Valley is still frozen. There’s no longer ice at Point Shores though. The mouth of the Powow River is even clear. The stretch of river to Hatter’s Point is open too. The current runs swift past Goodwin’s Creek and Maudslay Rocks. And although the run along the Valley is still iced over, the surface is slush and tentative. Any minute its world will let go. Winter will be in the sea and spring freshets will swirl. This is the way of the river, inevitable and brilliant. God, I love this time of season.

Scotland's New Laureate's First Poem

A week after being appointed as the "Makar poet" by First Minister Jack McConnell, the new Laureate has decided for his first work to write what critics describe as a clarion call for an independent Scottish republic.

The work, entitled ‘New Times’, makes little attempt to hide the poet’s long-held republican sympathies:

"So give us leave to build our highway

Which you may think is but a byway

But it is not... " he declares.

It goes on:

"… We’re raw, we’re green

But what’s to come, not what has been

Drives us charged and tingling-new


from First poem from Scotland's new Laureate is plea for a republic by EDDIE BARNES POLITICAL EDITOR scotsman.com

More on Free Verse Line Measure

I posted the link concerning william watkin's blog on Eratosphere. Fred Longworth made a studied reply that begins to address the issue. I'm quoting one highlight from that response:

Some poets set up their lineation so that the first word of every line is a strong word like a noun, verb or vivid adjective, as opposed to a weak word like a proposition or article. I pretty much go along with this.

If possible, the lineation should reinforce, or ironically counterpoint, the overall texture of meaning of the poem.

But you need to read his complete response here: Eratosphere.

A reader, Robt, had this response posted in comments here (see comments to this post):

while at the NY Studio School I painted a 15-ft long canvas composed of vertical stripes, masked off, varying from an eighth to three fourths of an inch in width. Superficially siumilar to one of the Davis works, but here my goal was to produce absolute lack of harmony or pattern: I wanted the viewer to be unable to subdivide this canvas in any rational or rhytmic way. That I succeeded was manifested by the fact that nearly everyone who looked at the painting said it bugged the hell out of them :-) Sounds like a similar principle here...

In othewr words, for this poem, he's doing "anti-lines", trying to give us lines we can't accept and insist on in some manner breaking down ourselves.

Why, I don't know...

I too don't know. And although Fred's response does away with magic, I'm not sure if it's more than a how-to for dividing prose into lines.

Readers Comments

Loren Webster said in comment to Van Morrison, Bad Free Verse, and Cinnamon Hair Coloring

Not sure about your poetry, but Van certainly isn't too shabby in recent songs like "Down the Road" and "Man Has to Struggle."

Throughout his career he's managed to include a gem or two in nearly every album, while filling most of them with derivative, if not merely whining songs.

Still, I've bought more albums by him than by any other singer

I'd have to agree completely. In the latest CD, there are indeed some gems, one being St James Infirmary. But there is so much whining. There are at least five songs that bemoan his fame. It's not confessional; it's simply crying. "Let the whining boy moan" he sings in one song, and he does.

But other than those of Bob Dylan, I too have bought more of his CDs than any other singer. When he gets it right, it is pure poetry.

Oh. But I'm not sure about my poetry either.

Postmodern Prosody and Line Measure, or Magic

Ten years ago I was searching for an explanation to this question: when do you end a line of poetry. I had been writing free verse for many years and had played with many ways of ending lines. None made sense. None worked. Then I was introduced to meter. It was not love at first sight. I came kicking and screaming. But that’s another story. (Although I will say that books by Derek Attridge and Timothy Steele finally won me over.) This one involves a posting at william watkins’ blog called Postmodern Prosody and Line Measure. I have never read a free verse explanation of the line that I have understood, and I’m afraid to say this one is no exception. I will condense and somewhat rearrange his theory for readability, but you should read the whole thing for yourself.

I have used the term line measure before to refer to the rhythmic nature of lineation. Within the avant-garde tradition that I work in … phrases, phonemes and gaps will form the basic unit of regard. I won't get into why such a basic deep structure of rhythm works, mainly because I don't know and nor does anyone else it would seem.

Four elements combine to produce a prosody of the line central to avant-garde, postmodern and all forms of traditional poetics.

1. There is the number of lines, probably restricted in some way.
2.. There is the length of the line, its reach/duration.
3. There is the distribution of the line across the pagespace or field of the poem.
4. And then lastly there is the beat of the lines, which may all share certain basic measures in common.

Now to theseecstasies. (his poem)

1. The number of lines was fixed at nine:
-Nine subdivides into three units of three so each instance is in excess of the couplet.
-Nine is also far enough away from fourteen, in the right direction, to avoid the usual references to the sonnet.
-Nine sounds great in poetic language.
-And three is the magic number
-Having said all this nine was also arrived at randomly so the above are merely reasons why I kept nine, not explanations for why I chose it.

2. The duration/reach of the line was developed over time to reach a point beyond which the line could easily be spoken out loud, easily kept in the mind as one single cognitive unit or phrase, and which could not be accommodated easily in material forms as a single line.

3. In terms of distribution, I was attracted to the stretching of the material and cognitive fields of the poem to accommodate the line, the idea being to undermine these naturalised processes and produce something other than that.

4. Finally the beat. There is an internal cohesion and tension in each line, which works, on the whole, as a single unit of significance. Association, word play and hypertaxis are the three main things to look out for here

One can see the line measure is a sophisticated and complex mode of prosodic organisation and disruption.

Now I know what the theory of the line is in free verse: MAGIC. That’s why no one knows how the basic deep structure works.

My apologies to William Watkins.

New Morse Code Signal .--.-.

Changes in the alphabet for morse code. Stay tuned for smoke signal update.

mq:
The 160-year-old communication system now has a new character to denote the "@" symbol used in e-mail addresses... "It's a pretty big deal," said Paul Rinaldo, chief technical officer for the American Radio Relay League, the national association for amateur radio operators. "There certainly hasn't been any change since before World War II."

SYMBOL ADDED TO MORSE CODE in Topekka Capital-Journal

Gletz Frets Gets Threats

Should gletz be used even once in the body of a poem, never mind four times? Isn't that a flaw? Or was that the whole point. Nevertheless, Thomas, don't ever do that again, or else.....

You decide:
The Diamond Cutter by Thomas Lux in Atlantic Online

Lower Merrimack River Ice Report #3

Ice out: this morning the ice had all but disappeared from Point Shores. All that remained was the rime of isles in denial, smallish and almost transparent plates of floating ice waiting for delivery to that infinite Atlantic. After today’s sunshine and temperatures in the forties, the Merrimack will be clear from the Powow River to Black Rocks.

But a stubborn ribbon of ice remains upriver past Pleasant Valley, but for that break near Maudslay Rocks. This January was cold. In the ten years I have lived by this river, I’ve never seen the ice so thick and flat. If I was a betting man, I would have walked across from Amesbury to Newburyport and enjoyed the arctic scenery. But I’m not, so I didn’t. And so I’m here to write this river ice update: look out down below, the ice flows cometh.

America: A Prophecy by William Blake

Here's a text of the Blake poem in the previous posting.

But here's links to the plates of the illuminated version, the way one should experience William Blake. His drawings were as much a part of his vision as the poems:
America a Prophecy, copy O (1821) The Fitzwilliam Museum

Aragorn Reads William Blake By the Golden Gate

Viggo Mortenson, the actor who played Aragorn in Return of the King at City Lights in San Francisco browsing with William Blake: what's the odds of turning to the page in Blake and reading the word "Orc"?

mq:
Since he starred in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Mortensen's readings have played to standing-room-only crowds. "I've been asked, 'Doesn't it bother you that most people come because of the movies,' not because of my poetry? But it doesn't matter to me, because once they're there, they listen to the poems. I bring other poets along, and they listen to them, too.'' I ask Mortensen to pick out his favorite poets. He hesitates. There are so many, he says, he wouldn't know where to begin. Just then an older woman who has an obvious familiarity with the poetry section selects a William Blake volume and settles into the room's only comfortable chair. Mortensen, who believes everything happens for a reason, is convinced she's showing him the way. He reaches for another Blake collection and turns to "America: A Prophecy," a poem that eerily seems to predict the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Fury! rage! madness! in a wind swept through America," Mortensen reads in almost a monotone, letting the words speak for themselves.

"And the red flames of Orc that folded roaring fierce around / The angry shoes, and the fierce rushing of th' inhabitants together: / The citizens of New-York close their books & lock their chests."


King of the big screen a champion of poetry Blake's poetry makes an impression on Mortensen by Ruthe Stein in SFGate

Van Morrison, Bad Free Verse, and Cinnamon Hair Coloring

I’ve been considering Van Morrison and finding one’s voice today. The Man will be playing at the Wang Center in April and I’ve been debating whether to pay the exorbitant ticket price for a performer on the decline. After all, his CDs as of late do not bear witness to that mystical troubador on Astral Weeks, Moondance, or even Into the Music. On reflection though, his music has matured in a different direction than those early works, closer to blues and jazz than rhythm and blues. His voice has also matured, from that of a man who could easily sing falsetto to one whose lower register has become the dominant note. He truly has become the lion in winter.

His music then has developed. His voice has deepened. But one could argue that the ground-breaking work of his early days has become the working place of today. He’s steady, shows up when he’s supposed to, and always performs yeoman work. And although that work is more complex and layered now than then, it just isn’t that exciting. Most of the time.

But you can’t go home again. Ten years ago I was writing poetry, that to my mind, was fresh and exciting. I had separated from my wife, moved to a place on the Merrimack River in a setting that was equal to Maine, strike that—Canada, and was relishing my newfound independence. I had also begun workshopping with the Powow Poets under the gentle guidance of the great Rhina Espaillat. Today I reread my poems from those days and cringe. They were written badly in very bad free verse. I wonder how Rhina could have found any worth in them at all. Ah! But they were fresh.

My poetry today has grown I hope. It has meter. And rhyme. But I hope it has more of those six principles to which Dr. Salemi spoke (see below). And the four I added. But I will never be able to capture that magic of ten years ago. My poems may be more complex and layered, but some of the mystic has gone.

But maybe there’s a benefit of not peaking too early, like Van the Man did. Maybe it’s a blessing I haven’t. There’s still something to look forward to. Like a Van Morrison concert.
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Postscript
I’ve decided to return to those old poems and try to resurrect the ones that call to me in the best fashion I can. The trick is not to make them poems of today though. I’m touching up the rhythm, making the meter a very loose blank verse, and attempting to improve the syntax, grammar, and contextual synchronicity!? But, at the same time, the poet of that time must remain. I’m more an editor than poet revising. Here’s one that I wrote about an adventure at CVS with my daughter, then 14 years old.

Going Outside the Lines

While browsing in the shampoo aisle
we pass hair colorings with names
of crayons, like cinnamon or copper.
The latter one—my daughter has
concurred, from twenty careful minutes
studying the labels,—will render
the cardinal highlights she prefers.
I question if it’s just too red.
But like any teen that’s laying claim
to individuality
she wants to shade the world her way:
temper the sky with lemon-lime!
turn the river burgundy!
emblazon earth canary!
But boundaries are difficult
for kingdoms to negotiate;
I’ll buy despite uncertainty
—hair is such fine compromise.

grammar and syntax; on the other hand

This essay is poorly organized, with only one paragraph (though, to Mr. Shakespeare's credit, the topic sentence does speak to what the rest of the sentences in his one paragraph are about). It is riddled with errors in syntax, incomplete sentences being the most noticeable problem. Although his supporting sentences are vivid in their description, they are vague and general, not true examples.

The Princeton Review applying the College Board's SAT essay grading criteria to Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage" speech from As You Like It

Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore? How several well-known writers (and the Unabomber) would fare on the new SAT by John Katzman, Andy Lutz and Erik Olson in the Atlantic Monthly

Shopping Yourself Around

First, get your barcode.

meter, grammar and syntax, vocabulary, fearlessness, wit, insouciance

These principles are what Dr. Joseph S. Salemi, Department of Classics, Hunter College (CCNY), believes constitute good poetry, or rather the principles that guide him in the writing of his own poetry. Of course that poetry is a certain formal kind. Which I believe leaves the first open to discussion.

I am not a member of the formalista party, although I do prefer to write mostly in form these days, so some free verse guideline would be an acceptable alternative to the first principle. But the key word is guideline. Otherwise, anything goes. And just anything is just not poetry.

But the second and third principles I believe are mandatory for communication. Otherwise, the poet is talking to himself. And I’d rather not participate in his or her onanistic revelry. Actually, I can’t. It’s an oxymoron. In more ways than one.

The last three principles are needed for life in general, and certainly for any poet. (Although I dislike that last word. Why not nonchalance?) But for any good American list, there should be 4 more principles to complete the recipe.

I’d add these: receptiveness, originality, rhythm, and simplicity. They may overlap with some of the good Doctor’s principles, but I believe them important enough to stand alone.

I think it’s imperative one be receptive to all winds of change, as well as the well-tested firmament of the past.

In the same light, it is tiring to read the same story twice. Be original; there are many gods out there to call upon.

A good sense of rhythm is necessary; poetry is song as well as meaning.

And lastly, to quote Thoreau: “simplify, simplify, simplify.”

mq:
If the current poetic scene could be metaphorically imagined as a body-building advertisement, most poets would be the "Before" photograph: the fat, wheezing, skin-sagging schmuck who looks like a ripe pear, and who can't touch his toes. The verse of such poets is out of shape. It lacks the hard edges that one sees in a well-toned physique.

Poems need hard edges. They ought to be as recognizably sleek and sharp as a bayonet. They can't be vague or gaseous or tentative. Poems—if they are worth doing at all—must be clear and unmistakable

The Hard Edges of a Poem by Dr. Joseph S. Salemi in EXPANSIVE POETRY & MUSIC ONLINE

The Next Testament

Maybe sacrilegious in its question, but still an intriguing proposition: given that the Bible is a collection of books, which ones would a secular Next Testament consist of if stitched together today for the coming ages. Cullen Murphy suggests works as groundbreaking as A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawkings and The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. As for poets:

A possible replacement candidate for the entire Book of Psalms would be the poems of Emily Dickinson. Dickinson is more taut and reserved than the psalmodist, to put it mildly, but many of the same themes (loss, solace, searching engagement with the divine) are there.

It's a worthy topic for contemplation and maybe one that should be reserved for a single bookshelf in every contemporary home.

The Next Testament by Cullen Murphy on Atlantic Online

Beetlemania

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At worse we’re birds that gather by
the bird-feeder consuming grain;
at best we search for worms and beetles.

The cardinal whistles something red
while pecking at some darker seed.
His trill, a "sweet-sweet-sweet", is plain
but popular—three simple chords—
with choruses of evergreens
and bright refrains of blue blue sky.

As seen from up above, the show
looks quite absurd: a gang of four,
three blue guitars, and dreamlike drums,
—with microphones to catch our pleas:
like Help!; I’m Down; and Tell Me Why.

~Gregory Perry


an old retired poem revised... it was forty years ago today (give or take ten days)

"Blogs without mailboxes aren’t blogs"

Being new to this business of blogging, I was intrigued by these Notes on Blogging from Terry Teachout's blog. And since I want desperately to make this blog a blog, I've added a mailbox for comments and a blogroll for, well, a rollcall of blogs. Slowly, but slowly.... Blog, blog, blog...

The Terrible, Awful, Horrible, Deplorable, Despicable, Vile Adjective

One of the many handicaps in my writing is adjective usage. I use too many, too often, with too little results. Arts & Letters Daily led me to this fine article on that problematic modifier. An mq:

As far as not getting respect goes, adjectives leave Rodney Dangerfield in the dust. They rank right up there with Osama bin Laden, Geraldo Rivera, and the customer-service policies of cable-TV companies. That it is good to avoid them is one of the few points on which the sages of writing agree. Thus Voltaire: "The adjective is the enemy of the noun, though it agrees with it in number and gender." Thus Twain: "When you catch an adjective, kill it." And thus William Zinsser: "Most adjectives are ... unnecessary. Like adverbs, they are sprinkled into sentences by writers who don't stop to think that the concept is already in the noun."

from The Adjective -- So Ludic, So Minatory, So Twee By BEN YAGODA in The Chronicle of Higher Education

Merrimack River Ice Status Update

Last evening I noticed the river had broke through the ice at the narrows by MacKenzies Marina and Maudslay Rocks. The current runs swift there. Upriver is an expansive stretch that curves and billows like a half moon. But at the narrowing, the river runs. The force must have broke through the ice creating an opening the size of two olympic swimming pools. Ducks were swimming there. Seagulls were flying in for try-outs. By Athens, this river will again lope through its marathon from the White Mountains to Atlantic Ocean. Much sooner: by Boston and Patriots Day. I can feel my spirit limbering-up.

Why is Twm Morys so Strict

Because:

A visitor might be forgiven for supposing that not much of the native character of Wales has survived intact until today, especially if he happens to be staying in a place where no Welsh is spoken. By the 1860s the omnipresent nonconformist chapel, though entirely, and proudly, Welsh in language, had put paid to the customs surrounding wakes and marriages and things of that sort, as well as folk-music and dance. The stories of the Bible had in large part taken the place of native mythology, even the fabulous lives of the Welsh saints, whose holy-wells were by now neglected or filled in, and whose Fairs (Breton pardon) had been abandoned or candiflossed over. But one indigenous craft or art that has continued down the centuries, in the wake, as it were, of the Welsh language itself, is Cerdd Dafod (“tongue-craft”), or strict-metre poetry.

from: A Poet Introduces a Welsh Metrical Tradition by Twm Morys

Welsh poets have a job already

From an article concerning the rush to laureates in the UK:

Calls for a Welsh poet laureate to match the newly-appointed "Scots Makar" have been dismissed as unnecessary by the Eisteddfod's Archdruid.

Link: Welsh poet laureate 'not needed' Feb 18 2004 by Gareth Morgan, The Western Mail


But what is the Eisteddfod?

Here's a bit more of the Bard Contest:
The high points of excitement come twice during the week-long festival - first with the Crowning of the Bard (the author of the best poem on a set theme in free metre) and then with the Chairing of the Bard (an honour conferred on the author of the best poem in strict metre). These take place in the Grand Pavilion, which is claimed to be the largest movable structure in the world.
from: whatsonwhen

And lastly, Poet and singer Twm Morys is the winner of the Eisteddfod chair for 2003

Belated Congratulations Twm!!!

Up on the Roof

From the eighth floor of the Colonnade Hotel, the South End of Boston lay beneath us like an urban southwest of brick and brownstone canyons, interrupted only by a few church spires. On these high plains, small patios had been laid out, defined by wrought iron or wooden fences. A table or a chair was here or there, yet no one braved the February cold to catch a ray or two. But there were 2 workmen on a nearby roof putting up a new fence. They worked methodically, studying the layout of chimney and skylight. Below them the city-noise of shoppers and taxis passed not quite unheard, but certainly unheeded. Definitely unseen. Theirs was not an urban outdoors susceptible to the occasional gridlock amongst constant movement. They were alone in the solitude of the city's last frontier beneath the big sky of Boston. Fencing in the slated prairie. Shane! Come back, Shane! We turned and took the elevator down to the bar, and downed several Grand Golds straight-up with 1800 and salt.

About a date with Emily Dickinson on Ebay

I've been ebaying as of late, a new preoccupation. One always hopes for a wicked good bargain. What first editions are out there that someone doesn't appreciate and no one has stumbled on? It's a perfect nexus of ignorance and non-cognizance. Here's a story I found through a link from Arts and Letters Daily on such a perfect find. It appears the author of the piece has purchased an hitherto unknown photograph of Emily. That would make it the second known photo of the Belle of Amherst. (And he sniped it.) MQ:

A second photograph of Dickinson has long been the Holy Grail of artifacts for scholars in my field, but it certainly was not on my mind the night that I first saw the image on eBay. I was browsing through the descriptions of albumen photographs, in search of images of stringed instrument players and of twins, two categories in which I collect. When I saw "Vintage Emily Dickinson Albumen Photo," I laughed: another unenlightened dealer who didn’t realize that there were no albumen photos of the poet.

Link: How I Met and Dated Miss Emily Dickinson: An Adventure on eBay by Philip F. Gura on Common-Place

"No one sang the blues like mad John Clare"

From a book review of a new John Clare bio and selected poems in the New York Times; an mq:

In the Romantic era, when nature was an object of reverence, a rustic bard like Clare was a highly marketable commodity. Whatever the 19th-century rural equivalent of street cred was, he had it. He was born in a small village called Helpston, raised by a farm-laborer father and an illiterate mother, and schooled sporadically; until the time of his unlikely success as a poet, he had earned his meager living by casual, seasonal agricultural work and such humble trades as lime burning and, briefly, soldiering. He liked to compose rhymes in his head when he was out in the fields, though, and would write them down later, if he could find any paper. If he couldn't, Bate tells us, he would sometimes peel bark off trees and write his verses on that. How authentic can you get?

Link: 'John Clare': Nature Boy By TERRENCE RAFFERTY

Additional Link: John Clare's Poetry On-line

Poem of the Week of 15-Feb-04: Bixby's Landing

Too many times Robinson Jeffers turns his poems into philosophical treatises on nature, his views of inhumanism and the stark permanence of nature beyond the interpretation of human consciousness. But when he doesn't his language is crystalline, his thought sublime. I think Bixby's Landing is one of these. There's a little telling, and the telling that there is is simple and beautiful. The showing, though, is a triumph of of a clear eye.

The Utopian Turtletop

When it comes to Marianne Moore, I have to admit, like most things, I know little. But here's an article which can stir one's interest. And here's a money quote that makes you long for the days when poetry and power could still play nice:

The Ford Motor Company asked her to help name a new car, then apologetically, and with great delicacy, rejected her bizarre suggestions: the Intelligent Whale, the Arcenciel, the Mongoose Civique, the Pastelogram, the Turcotingo, and, surely the weirdest and most delightful, the Utopian Turtletop. The company eventually decided to call this disaster of design the Edsel.

Link: The mystery of Marianne Moore by William Logan in the Feb-04 New Criterion

Winter Reflections #2

The river starts to open. Today the buoys before the run past Point Shores float in open waters. Last month the river was clear only at the Chain Bridge and the I-95 Overpass. Waterfowl and seagulls congregated there. An eagle called the waters home. Upriver those buoys before Point Shores were stuck in ice, tilting always in the same frozen direction despite the tide. But it's just a matter of time before we see ice-out and that stretch of river winding westwards suddenly opens. It will seem to happen overnight. One day the river will be white with ice from January's freeze. The next day March will flow towards the sea. That moment is why one stays in New England. There's nothing quite like it. The anticipation is maddening. The blood rises. Every day the sun sets a minute later and every morning one more bird is heard in the nearby woods. Then one day the river will flow blue like the wind. I'll feel it break through my slow and silent winter spirit like a ray of light. And that one shining moment will be worth more than any tropical getaway. I like to believe.

Casual Friday

I'm not sure what it's all about. But it's nice to take a break from counting out pentameters all week long.

Eyemaze

Maybe there's a poem there. Nah.

Tuckerman the Poet not the Ravine

Mt Washington, in New Hampshire, has a famous ravine called Tuckerman. It's the closest thing we have to a glacier in New England. Snow remains there until June. In spring people who have hiked in a mile with their equipment will then climb the precipice called the headwall and ski an almost vertical drop. Multitudes of people. It's named after Edward Tuckerman, a distinguished lichenologist and professor of botany at Amherst. His brother was a poet. He may qualify as the best unknown American poet of the 19th century. The Guardian Ltd has a nice article and a couple of poems currently online. Here's, as they say, the money quote:

Tuckerman's appeal to anyone who loved Wordsworth and Tennyson would naturally be strong; but his particular personal note, both confessional and oblique, has the fascination of something altogether more modern. For all his debts to other poets he is a singular voice, not only in American poetry but in 19th-century poetry more generally.

Link: Intimacy with a stranger

Thoughts Towards a Poem #1 (winter reflections)

Winter is almost two months old now in actual days, which is probably equal to 20 in dog years. It’s beginning to feel long in the tooth. Truth be told, I’ve handled this winter fairly well. Even January's brutal cold was weathered in fine New England fashion. Maybe it's the relative lack of snow and welcome presence of sunshine, no matter how short in length or low in the sky it may be. But winter has almost been a welcome season to this mind. I think it’s one of the few benefits of age. Time flies. So the winter does too.

There might be a poem there.

Poem of the Week

Every Sunday (but since this site is new, this week, Friday), I will link to a poem of the week. This week it's Names of Horses by Donald Hall. I remember first reading this almost twenty years ago. I knew nothing of Donald Hall. Browsing in a bookstore, I came upon a copy of his "Kicking the Leaves". Something about the cover intrigued me. Something timeless. Something natural. Something familial. For some reason I turned to the last poem in the book, this one, and read. And re-read. Purchased the book. And re-read at home. The muscular language and the natural setting mesmerized. And the ending, so Adamic in its naming, and so mystical in its ending...

OK. This is my first post. Just testing. 1.2.3