Meter is not an intellectual practice. Neither is it a philosophical or political one. It is a rhythmic one only. You cannot think it to death. Nor can you build a school or party around it. Although you can dance to it.
What has me thinking this way is a conversation I’ve been having with Mike Snider concerning a hexameter line he has written in an otherwise iambic pentameter poem. He’s defending it. I’m suggesting it needs to be fixed.
Which is an interesting turn of events. Mike is much more the formalista than myself. He’s much more intellectual about the genre than myself. And maybe that’s the heart of the conversation. He’s defending his meter on an intellectual basis. And I’m arguing from a more impressionistic one.
Meter has little to do with the meaning of poetry. Or a poem. Although it can subliminally reinforce or oppose that meaning. Mike wants to reinforce an idea in the poem. And usually I love such a twist, especially when it does so in such an outlaw fashion as adding a foot in a line. But in this case I think Mike is arguing for a hypermetric reading intellectually, when on a more physical level the line feels metrically sound.
When establishing a meter, you establish a rhythm, and in such a dance, the body takes command over the intellect. If there’s a way the body can find five beats in a line, it will. Which is why, I’m not against substitutions and their ilk. The feet will find the foot. But you cannot intellectually convince the body there’s an extra foot (or even less a foot) when it’s begun to dance in pentameter. If it expects five feet, it will find five feet if at all possible. It will always side with the rhythm. You will have to damn well add a stong unmistakable extra foot in order to trip the body up and say hey!
It is projective in that manner. And expectant. Yet mostly rhythmic. But it is not intellectual, philosophical, or political. Which is why any arguments concerning the preference of meter to anything else is in the end a dead end. You can’t argue with the body. Either it likes the dance or it doesn’t. Mike and I will have to agree to disagree on an intellectual level here. But on a more physical one, well let the dance continue.
COLD AND SOLITUDE
-
Freezing weather here after a snowfall. Here again is a winter hokku by
Hashin: No sky, no earth;Only snowCeaselessly falling. And here is Kimio
Eto playin...
3 months ago
7 comments:
I don't exactly follow your argument about body and feet. But I do agree that meter is apolitical. I can't believe I actually just wrote that line. It seems so incredibly obvious.
Also, I haven't seen the line in question but there are certainly any number of acceptable substitutions in an iambic line that will not disrupt the predominant pattern. If the metrical pattern is disrupted in a non-traditional or unmetrical way then the line is no longer Iambic but rather loosened iambic. Loosened iambic can accomodate many different variations.
The pentameter of a loosened iambic poem will many times resolve in a variety of ways. That is the expectation of a loosened iambic pentameter line.
Perhaps you are both correct?
What is the line?
Can you please develop a bit more the concept of a rhythmic process that is neither philosophical nor political?
I can agree with David that meter can be apolitical. But language is political and meter is with/in and through language.
So, I would want a poet to explain how his or her meter is apolitical.
Do you see the trouble in doing even that...how do you approach a discussion of meter that isn't political?
I mean, philosophy doesn't think things to death, as you imply. Philosophy thinks things into life--or into recognition, or even into rhythm.
I do like how you begin, a lot: Meter is not an intellectual process. I have argued before that Meter is Meter. We can map it without getting it.
But isn't meter phenomenological--isn't it that thing with which we recede from the poetic object in order to think about it.
Is meter a metaphysical component of verse--a sine qua non or at least a presence?
just askin
David, All I mean is that ultimately meter is about rhythm. And rhythm is something that is felt. Therefore it is of the body and not the mind. If we grant the western conceit that there is such a dichotomy. We can use mathematical concepts to tease it out, to mark it down, to even help us lay out the music. But ultimately, the body will tell you if it has it. Not the mind.
Well, there are acceptable substitutions to some. Trochaic subs and fem endings are acceptable to most. Anapestic subs usually indicate a little looseness. How many subs you use can also be a factor.
The post to which this poem is in is linked in the second para of my post. I think you should see the entire poem and not just the line.
As to both being correct, well I know we both think we are.
Gary, don't take this the wrong way, because I say it with all due respect, and I love discussing things with you, but everything is political with you. And in your own way, you're right. But my take on this is this: meter is a tool. Now I suppose you could say tools are political and you of course would be a right. Tools create technology. And technology creates a certain viewpoint. Nevertheless, there are degrees of politics. There's one degree in which everything can be seen as political. Where you take you daily sh*t is political after all. But there is also another degree, in which we have to accept a certain basis of our civilization, and sh*t and tools would be two of those. They are part and parcel of our lives and therefore free of politics of that second degree. Now that said, you can use these tools in a political way. But you are adding a human element to that other than the tool itself. A rake is a tool. But if I use that rake to hammer you over the head with our disagreements, then that rake become a part of a political statement. But it is only a component in the political prosess. A tool by itself is just a tool. And I see meter as such. I can see why meter can be viewed as something politcal in and of itself. A hammer is just a hammer. And a sickle is just a sickle. But a hammer with a sickle should just be that. But twenty years ago, a hammer and sickle took on a political aura. Nowadays, they are once again reverting to mere tools. Meter is only a tool. It's human bullsh*t that makes it anything other than that. I hope that explains things.
Greg, if there's a primary criticism I consistently had for the folks at Eratosphere, it would be this: oh so often the meter was intellectualized, as if counted out on a yard stick w/ subtitutions picked from a book of "allowable substitutions." The normal stress patterns and expectations of the language were often ignored; Well no, you see, that's a double iamb, silly! One could go through a poem and find the theoretical meter, but one would have to consciously force beats onto weak stresses or non-stress and assume a demotion here and there to "make it happen."
In my very first attempts at poetry, when I was a teen, I began with what I thought was metrical but in reality was only, uh, vaguely accentual. Later I wrote a lot of free verse and even spurned the formalista intellectualism or formalista dependence on monotonous "perfectly regular" meters. Nowadays, I write almost nothing but metrical poems and...guess what? I tend to believe that most meters ought to be "etched in stone." I.e., they must follow the normal speech rhythms quite closely, actually perfectly—but remember, normal speech adds stress for emphasis (rhetorical stresses) on words that are typically weakly stressed or not stressed at all. So the meter must follow the meaning, but for a very few special cases; and only when rhetorical stresses are present in the communication will beats fall on weaker or non-stresses. (Some formalists seem to rely far too much on the "no three consecutive non-beat" rule.)
It seems to me, and perhaps only me, that poetry is based less on strict "meaning" and more on evokation (if that's a word). While I can see an intellectual case for changing the meter, I think the human mind would react against it, as not "feeling right" much as a flat note by a musician distracts from the work. But that may be just the point, to show the structure of the work in an outside light.
Erm, I'm going to stop talking now....
Meter and rhythm are two different things.
Post a Comment