Poetics 101

[Persephone]

Brought to you absolutely free of charge and absolutely free of tests by Dr. Suth.

Lesson One:

On rhyme and the "secret" of poetic flow in the old masters: Enjambment.

When the units of sense in a passage of poetry don't coincide with the verses, and the sense runs on from one verse to another, the lines are said to be enjambed. When the verse length matches the length of the units of sense (clauses, sentences, whatever), the lines are said to be end-stopped. The term comes from the French for "straddling," since sentences "straddle" several lines.


Definition borrowed...

http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/enjambment.html

[jeny]

Could you provide examples for those of us that are really, really stupid. :D

[Persephone]

Could you provide examples for those of us that are really, really stupid. :D



I thought you'd never ask. ;)


Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?


Consider the first stanza of Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn." Lines 3 is enjambed into line 4. Then line 5 is enjambed into line 6. The other lines are end-stopped.

The enjambment provides variety in the poetic flow so that the end rhyme does not become monotonous.

[ilovelucy]

also the enjambing allows certain phrases to carry more than one "weight", stand by themselves often startling when the reader continues to the next line because of the surprise element of what is next....

I may be able to provide another example of this soon....I am under some time constraints....

Nice thread, Suth.

I am a willing student!!!!

:)

[ilovelucy]

I would like to add that there are no really set rules and regulations for poetry, per se.

Simply one writes from
The heart. Possibly with
An ear for music and
Words spoken with a twist,
Like they have never been
Spoken before............

[Persephone]

I would like to add that there are no really set rules and regulations for poetry, per se.

Simply one writes from
The heart. Possibly with
An ear for music and
Words spoken with a twist,
Like they have never been
Spoken before............



I'm not sure I agree with that. There are rules to everything, even free verse. If there were not, there would not be so many classes in it.

The difference, I think, is that some people can follow the rules by instinct or by ear, while others need to be shown what they are. The trick is in figuring out which rules you are trying to follow and in breaking them only with great grace and panache.

[Persephone]

Consider "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams.

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.



This is one of the main influences on free verse as it developed in this country, but...

Read it like this.

So much depends upon the red wheelbarrow,
glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.


Here you have two lines of iambic pentameter. It doesn't get more traditional or formal than that. :)

[ilovelucy]

That is amazing....

I never realized this, Suth.

He might have been starting a longer poem and decided just to break it up and keep it as is.......

love WCW....He was the godfather of a friend of mine who says he was hilarious...

[Persephone]

That is amazing....

I never realized this, Suth.

He might have been starting a longer poem and decided just to break it up and keep it as is.......

love WCW....He was the godfather of a friend of mine who says he was hilarious...



I'm sure he was. His poems certainly show it. Maybe we should start a thread about him. I have several favs.

[Persephone]

Here's another poem that I think is the epitome of accomplishment in using a traditional form. It is "Church Going," by Philip Larkin. The poem is written in iambic pentameter with an ABABCADCD rhyme scheme. Highly traditional. Yet it doesn't sound traditional at all. In fact, you could read it out loud and scarcely notice it is in a set rhyme scheme.

If I have time later, I will explain why I believe this is. In the meantime, muse amongst yourselves. And speak up, please. :)



Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new -
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches will fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognisable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognized, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

[ilovelucy]

Suth--

I love the Larkin poem and thanks for introducing me to his work.....wonderful!

I have to say that I may have spoken too "liberally" about the un-neccessity for a healthy regard for the "rules and regulations" of poetry--there is a depth found in traditional poetry which is so rich with rythmn and rhyme...without an appreciation or some understanding of these things, I would think one's poetry would suffer ultimately....I agree.

But, for the beginner who wants simply to wet one's feet and try poetry, then perhaps the rules might seem at first a bit daunting and intimidating....for you, I heartfully hope that you simply give it a whirl and have fun with the experiment of using language inventively......

watch the spelling, though! ;D

bravo, Suth....you are teaching me as well! :)

[Persephone]

Well, sure...but there are plenty of threads around here for people who want to write poetry. This one is for us to play around at pretending we are studying poetics. Kind of like the other one where we are pretending like we are studying Spanish... ;)

[ilovelucy]

;D