How to Read a Poem Lesson 3A

We’ll begin Lesson 3A of How to Read a Poem with a short lesson on the English language, then we’ll delve into Free Verse and stanza patterns (3B). So, let’s start.

Sixth century English was a heavily inflected language -- that means it used endings on words to specify the grammatical function of each word in a sentence. But both the natural linguistic principle of simplification and the Norman Conquest of 1066, caused those pesky inflections to slowly drop out. We still have only a few of the hundreds we once had  (-s, -’s for nouns, -s, -ed1, -ed2, -ing for verbs,  and -er, -est for modifiers.)

So, that’s good news, right? Yes and no. Something had to take the place of all those grammatical clues that made communication possible. The answer? Word order! 

Let’s see how inflections worked. You remember that a sentence needs both subject and predicate and that nouns can be both the subject and the direct object of a verb. With inflections on nouns, we know which is subject and direct object, so word order makes no difference. Look at these 6 sentences. With Old English inflections, all mean the same thing.

1. James is king.   They all mean this, a declarative sentence.

2. King is James.   This one makes us wonder.

3. James king is.    The next three mean something else.

4. King James is.

5. Is king James.

6. Is James King.    This is interrogative, not declarative.

So you see how important word order is to Modern English. (See so is how important you Modern English to word order) Anything that violates order -- syntax -- is either confusing or meaningless.

So, with that tucked into our minds, let’s go to free verse. The term presupposes two things:  we’ve 1. defined verse or poetry and 2. stated what the verse is free of -- which means we know all that stuff in lessons 1, 2, and this lesson.

Before Shakespeare, the first element poets freed themselves of was rhyme. (Ironically, inflections make rhyming much easier.) Remember blank verse -- unrhymed iambic pentameter? So rhyme which goes back before Chaucer in the 14th century was the first to drop out. The second freedom was from the accentual/syllabic restrictions of Lesson 2. 

However, the 20th century saw two new restrictions -- parallelism and anaphora -- from which we later freed ourselves. 

Regardless of all we’ve freed poetry from, we can never free poems completely from English syntax without opening them either to ambiguity or incomprehensibility.

Before we end this lesson, let’s practice scanning a stanza of “Titanic Force.”

A jagged edge of anger ripped a hole

In me, its icy tip just barely seen

Floating in my Sea of Reality,

Its path obscured by freezing clouds of pain.

Read it out loud to see if it sounds like an English sentence. Remember, never read a poem so that each line sounds like a sentence. Now, you make your scan, then look at mine.

A / jag // ged / edge // of /ang // er / ripped // a / hole //  

                5 iambs/iambic pentameter

In / me, // its / icy / tip // just / bare // ly / seen //   

                iambic pentameter

Floa / ting / in // my / Sea // of / Re / al // i / ty, // 

                trochee, iamb, anapest, iamb only 4 feet

Its / path // ob / scured //by / free // zing / clouds // of / pain. //   

                iambic pentameter

See why we call this style accentual/syllabic!

After 75, What?

Here I sit on the last day of my 75th year talking to my blog about -- oh, hell! I’m supposed to have something to say before I start?!  

Well, I didn’t have anything to say that Sunday afternoon I was born (I was born at home to be with my Momma) and everyone there (had better) thought I was the cutest little fellow ever to make that trip!

As I was showering this morning, I thought of sharing some regrets from the past -- like I need to explain to you what I know about me that you don’t. I even gave a monologue as I rinsed my hair.

Then I thought I might share the lessons (both of them) I’ve learned -- but, most/both of them came directly from the regrets I don’t want to talk about. And, unless you’re a wee tad, a child-hacker-prodigy, you’ve also learned those same lessons. My brain got lost in a morass of maudlin emotions ☚ (that’s to impress you with my ___.  ☚ Your word here.) listing life’s lessons to the tune of hot water beating on my chest.

By that time, my fingertips had pruned up real nice, yet I still had no real words to use in an imaginary communication.

Awright, you can rise up with righteous indignation that I wasted your time, that I wrote all that to say I didn’t have anything to say to usher out #75. But this idea -- what if #76 starts with the same quandary? -- is moving me to tears.

For your reading pleasure, I have a conclusion -- life could be better or worse; happier or sadder; healthier or sicker; et al. But for now life is not over! That’s cool.

Here’s a birthday vignette that’s better’n ☝. 

WORTH THE EFFORT

Every year about this time, I start dropping hints to my family. “Make sure you kids have some money saved up,” I tell the girls. And to Mary Jo, “We don’t want to make plans for two weeks from tonight, you know. That’s my birthday.”

At first everyone ignores me, but after a week or so, they react.  “Don’t be so childish, Daddy! We’ve never forgotten your birthday.” And Mary Jo adds, “How could we forget with you around to remind us?”

But ten years ago, on a bright Thursday morning, I got up with a light and joyous heart.  I shaved, dressed, combed my hair and went out to breakfast expecting a hearty, “Happy Birthday.”

I sat down to a big plate of grits and eggs and listened to Patty chatter about going out with Ricky. Ingrid joined in with a few comments about how Patty acted on a date. Diane wanted to know if I’d let her play softball--she’d need a new glove, you know. And Mary Jo passed on a few tidbits she’d gotten from Clarice yesterday. But not a single word about my birthday.

I went into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, walked to the back door, gave Mary Jo a peck on the cheek and left for work. “I’ll bet they have something cooked up for tonight,” I said to myself as I pulled out on the highway.

“Hold it,” I replied to myself. “You teach a class tonight.  You won’t even get home until 10 o’clock.” The more I thought, the more convinced I was. “They all forgot my birthday!”

I stormed through the whole day. By 6:30 I was so clouded up that I couldn’t concentrate on teaching the Great Vowel Shift.  So at break time I let the class go, and I went home.

When the family heard me come into the house about 8:30, they acted like a twelve year old whose mother had almost caught her smoking.

“Doesn’t anyone around here know what today is?” I yelled as they scurried around.

Mary Jo, who was heading over to Clarice’s with a big piece of poster board, yelled back, “Of course. It’s Thursday. And what are you doing home so early?”

The rest of that night and all during the next day, I gave everyone my best pouty, silent treatment.  After supper Friday, with still no sign of a birthday greeting, Harold stopped by to ask me to ride out with him to check some of the bridges in the north part of the county. Harold was a county supervisor.

“I’d love to get out of here for a while,” I told him. So, off we went.

When we got back about 7:30, I walked into the kitchen and noticed that the dining room door was closed. So I walked over to open it the way it was supposed to be, and there in the dining room, to the sound of “Happy Birthday, Andrew,” were my family and friends. The table was covered with gifts and snacks, a huge cake with candles in the center. And Mary Jo stood facing me holding a big poster board card signed by everyone there.

Well, I quickly adjusted my attitude from pout to pleasure and joined right in with all the festivities. And later that evening, after the guests had gone, I realized what had happened.

I’d been expecting a spontaneous “Happy Birthday,” but instead I’d gotten a well-planned party that took hours to work out, not only by my family but by my friends as well. Those people thought I was worth the time and effort, the planning and preparation.

Occasionally as I sit in church on a Sunday morning, I wonder if God would feel more honored if I had spent some time Saturday planning out how I intended to worship Him. I wonder if the spontaneous honors Him more than the planned.

How to Read a Poem, Lesson 1 continued

Let’s jump right into using Lesson 1 of How to Read a Poem.

I wrote “The Fruit” a long time ago. The 2nd stanza I wrote 10 years after the 1st.

Q.  Can I see a pattern in the stanzas? Number of lines, number of syllables.

I taught myself to hate                      6 syl

And proved my hate was right.       6 syl

I listed all the items                           7 syl

Till my case was very tight.             7 syl

Was proud of all my logic                7 syl

So I told it to my friends.                  6 syl

But now I find hate’s gift                  6 syl

Will cause my love to end.              6 syl

I gave myself to Love                       6 syl

And yielded to its power.                 7 syl

It shed a mighty light                        6 syl

That made my hatred cower.          7 syl

As it focused its bright beam          7 syl

On my lists of others’ sins,              7 syl

I saw their records burn                  6 syl

As hope was born within.               6 syl

A. Two stanzas, each with 8 lines; 9 lines have 6 syllables, 7 have 7 syllables.

Q. Is there rhyme? If so, is the rhyme consistently in the same places in each stanza?

A.  End rhyme in lines 2 & 4, 6 & 8, 10 & 12, and 14 & 16. No odd numbered line rhymes. These two Q/A’s will be useful later when we talk about stanzas and scansion. 

Q.  Scan for words you don’t recognize and for “poetic words.

A.  No problems. You might wonder why love is capitalized.

Q.  Is the poem punctuated like a normal sentence/paragraph?

A.  Yes, every 2 lines is a sentence up to the final 4 lines, which are a sentence.

NOTE:  A poem is a song without music. Everything music has, a poem has except for the musical scale. And poetic music is frequently controlled by the number and stress of syllables in the lines. So, read the poem aloud just like you’d read a paragraph. Do not read a line like it is a sentence.  Then . . .

Q.  Describe the mood, the attitude, the situation that the cadence of the poem puts you in.

A.  It seems rather sing-songy. Sounds like a nursery rhyme. But the words have a serious meaning while the cadences and sounds suggest either a child-like or a childish aspect. 

NOTE:  A poem, like an automobile, is a vehicle that carries something. In “The Fruit,” the vehicle is like a little Strawberry Shortcake  battery-powered car, while the passenger is like a preacher.

Now you are ready to deal with THEME!!

I'd begin by collecting data -- words, phrases, ideas from each stanza that I need to consider in my theme statement, which will begin “The theme of “The Fruit” seems to be . . .”

Now, the words for stanza 1:  taught, proved, logic, gossip, love dies. For stanza 2:  Love, give/yield, power/light, my accusations burned, hope is born. Add to these words the attitude of either child-like or childish that we dealt with earlier.

But remember, the reader is responsible for stating a theme.  Since the poem gives you all you need for theme, I don’t need to tell you what I think it is. 

GOOD LUCK! YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN! Write your theme in a comment box, and I’ll tell you what I think.

You are now an average reader of poems.

But if you wish to be a student of poetry? That’s where we’ll go in Lesson 2.  Take a minute to enjoy one of my favorite poems. 

The Secret

Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

I who don't know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me

(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was
not even

what line it was. No doubt
by now, more than a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,

the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can't find,

and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all.

Denise Levertov

How to Read a Poem, Lesson 1

        This is the first of a series of essays I’ll write on How to Read a Poem. The audience is probably more high school up to college sophomore than a poetry-loving adult. I undertook the task for my tenth grade granddaughter, Kelsey.

I.  Questions to ask before reading a poem:

1. Can I see a pattern in the stanzas? Number of lines, number of syllables.
2. Is there rhyme? If so, is the rhyme consistently in the same places in each stanza?
3. Scan for words you don’t recognize and for “poetic words.”
4. Is the poem punctuated like a normal sentence/paragraph?

II.  Some questions that you should NOT ask.

1. What is the poet trying to tell me?
2. What am I supposed to get out of this dang thing?

III.  Ideas that may help you read any poem.

1. A poem is a song without music. Everything music has, a poem has except for the musical scale. And poetic music is frequently controlled by the number and stress of syllables in the lines.
2. A poem is not a one-way communication. It requires a reader willing to hear the cadences, willing to feel the emotions, willing to share herself with the poem.

IV.  What is that thing teachers always talk about -- THEME?

Perhaps this will help -- compare theme to thesis. In an essay, a THESIS is a sentence that states clearly exactly what you are going to talk about -- it controls what you will allow yourself to say in the entire essay. Thesis is explicit!

In a literary work, a piece of music, a painting, or sculpture, THEME functions the same way as a thesis does in an essay, EXCEPT -- the audience is directly involved in art. Poetry is not a statement,  not a telling -- it’s a sharing of how and what the artist sees in his universe. And the reader finds the theme! Theme is Implicit -- Implied!

Let’s compare a simple math question to finding theme.

The sentence is 2 + 2 = 4. On a math test the question would look like this: 2 + 2 = ____. As the taker of the test, you do the math and get 4, only one correct answer.

Now, go to English class -- the teacher assigns the reading of a poem -- you think that’s the 2 + 2. Now to provoke class discussion, the teacher asks what the theme of the poem is. Immediately you search for some 4 -- something that will give that one correct answer. Something that the teacher and the poet will approve. So, the 2+2 is the poem; the 4 is the theme. And there’s only one correct answer!

But for poetry, that's backwards. When the teacher asks for theme, the students (and teacher) should know that the poem is the 4, the whole,  and his question asks the students to give their answers to what equals 4. Is it 1+1+1+1? Or 2+2? Or 3+1? of 1+2+1? Or 1+3? Or . . .

I’m not saying that theme is anything you say it is -- 4 is not equal to 2+3 or 2+1. And the question, What is the theme? is not a question for the poet. It is a question for the reader when he thinks about the whole poem and relates it to his own life’s experiences -- his own universe.  

Think on these things for a while and then we’ll take a look at four of my poems, I’ll make comments in the right column, but I’ll leave room for you to make comments too.

            If you are able to do all that I’ve outlined, then it make sense to go into iambs, trochees, anapests, dactyls, spondees, etc. And then to meters and the stanzas like couplets, tercets, quatrains, or named stanza patterns like ballad stanza, sonnet, villanelle, terza rima, etc.

            In the next lesson, I’ll discuss a poem or two. Like "The Fruit."

The Fruit

I taught myself to hate

And proved my hate was right.

I listed all the items

Till my case was very tight.

Was proud of all my logic

So I told it to my friends.

But now I find hate’s gift

Will cause my love to end.

I gave myself to Love

And yielded to its power.

It shed a mighty light

That made my hatred cower.

As it focused its bright beam

On my lists of others’ sins,

I saw their records burn

As hope was born within.

A Poetry Reading!

Many  responses to Ava-doting yesterday! Pleased! Surprised! You betcha!

One person asked if I contemplated making Badgerdrift into a collection site for the anthology named Ava Belle Badger. 

SO  WE ARE TWO WEEKS PAST THOSE LINES!

To paraphrase an old adage, “Into every agenda a little life must fall!” Duty held all the trump cards for over a week.

I realize that if I desire faithful readers, I MUST be a faithful writer. So before I begin my posting for April 26, let my ask you to respond to this question -- do you wish to both read and write your own comments on Ava Belle Badger’s growth? I know I will.

Now, for today.

Yesterday, April 25th, I attended a poetry reading at our Douglasville Cultural Arts Council. The featured poet, Alice Shapiro, currently lives in the Douglasville area and has published one book of poetry, Cracked, with a second due out in June and a third next year.  The second, Alice Lovelace from Atlanta (co-editor of an anthology entitled Crux)-- a more mature poet and the better reader.

In glancing through the volumes each poet brought for sale, I was amazed at the number of poems they had produced. While I obviously did not give any work a careful reading, I did notice that Ms Shapiro’s was much more free verse while Ms Lovelace’s made more use of traditional poetics. Also, Ms Lovelace’s works had a power, a depth, a range of knowledge with which I identified -- I felt as though I were with a kindred spirit.

The attendance was small -- a total of 20 including the poets -- but quite enthusiastic. Again I saw that writers desire an audience, desire readers, crave response and reaction. And I also felt the vapidness of our traditional replies -- "That was a great poem, I loved it." Even my response, “Your poetry is very strong. Thank you for sharing.” seems empty. The poem said something specific; the reply said nothing specific.

While I felt more akin to Lovelace, I had more interaction with Shapiro. She wishes, I think, to be innovative and to involve her audience. But I can’t, no I shan’t criticize one who has accomplished what I aspire to accomplish -- to have readers hear and respond to what I write. So here is my Easter poem.

                 At the Tomb

Standing at the empty tomb looking

For the crucified, surprised the stone was

Rolled away, that angels sat atop and

To the side, the women, Peter, even

John Beloved could not believe their eyes.

Can I go to that empty tomb to see

The truth myself? To verify the tale?

Traverse the centuries, span the miles, to stand

Bereft of faith before a holy shrine

To see a truth more credulous today?

Mary, Mary Magdalene and other

Women wept with fear to hear the angels

Proclamations. “Seek you Jesus? He is

Risen! Gone to Galilee. He’ll meet you 

There!” Incredulous disciples can’t believe.

Should I in new Jerusalem before

The tomb behold again an empty crypt

With mobs of tourists pressing close, with stone
Removed, with shriveled guides in monologue

Instead of angels, earthquake, napkins folded --

Angels speak again to Peter: “He’s not here!”

Mary meets the risen Jesus, knows his voice 

Not his visage. Peter, Andrew fished and 

Ate before they knew, while others walked the

Road Emmaus listening to the resurrected.

-- I leave that conjured tomb whose emptiness 

Cannot confirm a risen Christ. If not 

The tomb, then where’s that self-revealing Lord?

I hear His voice most clear on dirty streets
When passing beggars, widows, sick and maimed.