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 Poetry: December 14, 2010 Issue [#4109] |
  Poetry This week: A Word To Unlock the Structure Edited by: northernwritesMore Newsletters By This Editor   1. About this Newsletter 2. A Word from our Sponsor 3. Letter from the Editor 4. Editor's Picks 5. A Word from Writing.Com 6. Ask & Answer 7. Removal instructions  Greetings from northernwrites, your editor for today's Poetry newsletter. Meter, rhyme, and form are not the only tools available for creating structure in poetry. Everyday things that you have been learning since you were a toddler and ideas cross-pollinated among the arts and sciences can enrich the creative experience and expand the possibilities for discovery. The best thing about them is that it doesn't matter whether you're writing free verse or traditional poetry. Today's newsletter will discuss a cross-pollination between map keys and poetry.    A Word To Unlock the Structure When you read a map, the map key tells you which way to orient the map to align it with reality. It also tells you the meanings of any symbols and what the scale of the map is so you can calculate the distances between places. Without the key, the map could be a sheet of meaningless markings. If you were a pirate hiding treasure, you'd want a map without a map key so that no one else could find your loot. However, writers aren't trying to hide everything from their readers. They're trying to communicate something to them. For writers, having a map key to the map (the structure) becomes important. In my previous newsletters, we've discussed several ways of using structure to point at a particular part of the poem's wording. Today we're going to talk about one of the uses for the wording that gets pointed at. When a poem's structure points at wording that acts like a map key, the reader is given a clue that explains what kind of structures the writer intends to be meaningful and where the reader should look for those structures. It is particularly effective when this wording is closely related to the theme or message of the poem. In honor of the holiday season, I've chosen an example that is a published poem that features everyday angels. A link to an online source is included at the end of the editorial. Love Calls Us to the Things of This World (1956) by Richard Wilbur  The poem also uses the technique discussed in "Moiré Patterns: Between the Lines" . We'll take a few moments to discuss that first.The poem has six stanzas of five lines each. It also has six paragraphs, which are defined by where the topic changes. To mark the paragraph breaks in the middle of stanzas, the text drops down a line and keeps the same position from the left margin. In other words, some of the lines are divided and shown on two lines. Some of the paragraphs include more than one stanza. The paragraphs mostly follow the rules of grammar, but two of the paragraphs start after a comma in the middle of a sentence. At these places, the wording can be read two different ways -- one way as if the comma were a period, and the other way to go with the topic change that follows (cries as to weep and to speak, and habits as clothing and behavior). In addition, the last paragraph is a sentence fragment that could loop seamlessly back into the beginning of the poem, reflecting the daily cycle starting over after dark. The eyes are windows to the soul, and windows with pulleys have counterweights to balance them so they will open smoothly. The stanzas and paragraphs intersect at the beginning, at the end, and only one other time -- between the fourth and fifth stanzas. That intersection point is followed by the word "Yet", which is a word often used in sonnets to mark the volta. The intersection here also marks a turning in the poem. Next, pay attention to the words on either side of one pattern interrupting the other. Consider what significance these phrases that have been separated from their contexts could have to the meaning of the poem as a whole. When paragraphs and stanzas interrupt each other, they do the same thing (but with more emphasis) that enjambed sentences (or grammatical units) and lines do. The caesuras and the line breaks with enjambment separate wording from the rest of the line or sentence and call attention to it by itself. The poem also uses these interactions between the patterns of line and sentence. And now back to our discussion of map keys.The last word of the poem is balance, and it gets quite a bit of emphasis. It's the main word of the only sentence fragment in the poem. (The technique of using an only sentence fragment to point at important wording was mentioned last month in "Memoir Poetry: More Than Me, Myself, & I" .) The fragment creates a loop of the daily cycle, a cycle which keeps going. This is a characteristic of a balanced cycle. Unbalanced cycles quickly slow down and stop. It's no surprise when it turns out that the poem itself is balanced in other ways, too. Repeating the same kinds of structure is one way that the writer can let the readers know that he means for them to interpret his writing that way. Lewis Carroll stated this idea and featured it in the plot of "The Hunting of the Snark" -- "If I say it three times, it is true." Looking at the scansion, nearly all of the lines are in pentameter, and overall, the largest number of the feet are iambic. The isolated spondee soul shrinks at the end of the third stanza is the center foot of the poem, and each side starts with an iamb, ends with a trochee, and contains 24 feet. Scansion -- extra unstressed syllables at ends of lines marked as = -/ /- -- /- /- -/ -- -/ --/ -/ /- -/ -/ -- -/ = -/ / - /- /- /- -/ -/ -/ -/ -/ = /- -/ //-- /- /- -/ -/ -/ -/ /- -/ --/ --// -/ --/ -/ --/ --/ --// -- -/ --/ = /- -/ -- /- /- -/ --/ --/ -/ -/ = -/ --// --/ --/ = -/ /- /- /- /- -/ --/ -- / 4 feet without center spondee - // -/ -- --/ -- /- --/ --/ -/ -/ -/ -/ -/ --/ --/ -/ = /- -/ -/ --/ -/ -/ /- /- -/ -/ = /- -/ -/ -- 4 feet --// -/ /- /- -/ -/ -/ -/ -/ --/ -/ -/ -/ -/ --// --// -/ = /- /- -/ -/ = 4 feet /- -/ /- --/ -/ -/ --/ -/ -- -/ --/ --// --// = -/ /- /- -/ -/ /- 6 feet Looking at the other spondees, however, there are three double iambs and a double trochee in the first half versus five double iambs in the second half. That isn't balanced. This is a signal to keep looking. The unit that is next smaller than the line is the foot. One doesn't normally think of metrical feet being enjambed, but this poem does have some extra unstressed syllables at the ends of lines, and it's using enjambment between stanzas and paragraphs, as well as between lines and sentences. What would happen to the scansion if those syllables "belonged" at the front of the next line? With this style of scansion, each side has six double iambs and 25 total feet. The spondee is still the center foot. In the second half, the volta line, S5L1, has only four feet, but the last line, S6L5, which contains the word balance, has six feet. The emphasis of varying from the pentameter norm falls in places that are significant. The three stanzas in each half are connected into single units by enjambed feet, so the moiré pattern of the enjambed scansion versus the stanzas intersects only at the beginning, the end, and the stanza break at the center. Enjambed Scansion -- extra unaccented syllables at ends of lines (=) "moved" to next line -/ /- -- /- /- -/ -- -/ --/ -/ /- -/ -/ -- -/ (=) (=)-// -/ -/ -/ (=) (=)-/ -/ -/ -/ -/ (=) (=)/ --// /- -/ (=) (=)/ --/ -/ -/ -/ /- -/ --/ --// -/ --/ -/ --/ --/ --// -- -/ --/ (=) (=)/ -- /- -/ -/ (=) (=)-/ -- /- -/ -/ -/ (=) (=)-/ --// --/ --/ (=) (=)-// -/ -/ -/ (=) (=)- /- -/ -- / 5 feet without center spondee - // -/ -- --/ -- /- --/ --/ -/ -/ -/ -/ -/ --/ --/ -/ (=) (=)/ --/ -/ --/ -/ -/ /- /- -/ -/ (=) (=)/ --/ -/ -- 4 feet --// -/ /- /- -/ -/ -/ -/ -/ --/ -/ -/ -/ -/ --// --// -/ (=) (=)/ -/ -- /- /- /- -/ /- --/ -/ -/ --/ -/ -- -/ --/ --// --// (=) (=)-// - / --/ -/ /- 6 feet Syllables? Those balance, too. Each side of the center foot has the same number of syllables -- 163. Besides repeating types of structures in threes, the poem makes use of repetition of word structures in various kinds of "threes". As examples, a few of the many you can look for: In a pattern of three of one kind and one of another, the word soul is repeated three times paired with an action verb: soul hangs, soul shrinks, and soul descends , and contrasted with another noun with an action verb: eyes open. In a pattern of the Rule of Three, the words Now they are are repeated twice with the variant words now ... they swoon. In a combination of both of those patterns, the word let pairs with other words and grammatical structures to tie together four parts of the poem.Wilbur recently republished this poem in his Collected Poems, 1943-2004, although you can read it online here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171793 
Today's poems are about balance -- with a few angels thrown in for good measure:
Submit an item for consideration in this newsletter! http://www.Writing.Com/main/newsletters.php?action=nli_form  Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter! http://www.Writing.Com/main/newsletters.php?action=nli_form Don't forget to support our sponsor! InstantPublisher.Com: Self publishing made easy and affordable. All file types accepted with many options. Starting at $100 for 25 copies in 7-10 days! Visit us today!  These comments were submitted in response to my previous editorial in "Memoir Poetry: More Than Me, Myself, & I" , on the principle of the illusory nature of memoir poetry. I appreciate all those who took the time to write in:twon721 Comment: The 'feel' a poem sends it's reader is as important as the poems words. NW: Thanks for sharing your opinion. To some people, one is more important; to some, the other is more important. To each, his own opinion because each reader's experience is individual and unique to them. Nevertheless, words and feelings are not equal. The poem, which is composed of just words, has to stand on its own. The words cause the effect of the feeling. Controlling the words of the poem is the only method the poet has to influence the feeling the reader gets from reading it. tattsnteeth2 Submitted Item: "Invalid Item" Comment: Thank you so very much for highlighting 'Fireflies' in your memory/memoir newsletter. Very well written as always. Here is another based upon a memory you may like. -Lou NW: You're welcome, thank you, and thanks for sharing. lanekensington Submitted Item: "EQUALITY " [E] Comment: Sometimes a poem may be two or three different styles not just one, for example in my recent poem that has won awards outside writer.com the poem is called equality-freedom I use actual quotes from various people through out the history of our country and it works. I believe strongly that poems should show the reader a picture, and if you succeed, no matter the consequences you have written something that may change some ones view, or belief. Every poem I write that has won, has a message. You can say "I love" but how to make the reader understand and feel it is the mission of every poet. To get this message across takes talent and hard work. You must make the reader feel the emotion, feel the love you have and feel pain and anger as these are natural emotions. The reader of any poem, must be able to feel you, the writers, emotion when he/she was creating this. If you succeed you have achieved the goal. Lane Kensington Ps Art when done properly can also display emotions, it can bring people to tears, just as well as a poem, poetry and writing, in any form is art. NW: Thanks for sharing. A quote from the movie Finding Forrester seems appropriate to note here for clarification: "Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head." This is good advice because a writer who is feeling emotion doesn't think very clearly. Feeling emotional is fine for "creating" first drafts, but the "crafting" of re-writing works much better when the writer is calm. Until our paths cross again, keep writing! northernwrites  To stop receiving this newsletter, go into your account and remove the check from the box beside the specific topic. Be sure to click "Complete Edit" or it will not save your changes. |
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