Odd and Invented Forms

Form of the Week 21: The Octo

 

Jack Foley

Recently Jack Foley wrote to tell me about a verse form called the “octo” which he thought might have been invented by Nina Serrano. He included a poem by Ms. Serrano:

 

MOON

 

The moon the smallest silver slice

the last sliver on the night’s plate

laid on a star studded table-cloth [syllable count: 9]

a late night snack set for dreaming

The day’s reordered scheming [syllable count: 7]

laid on a star studded table cloth [syllable count 9]

The last sliver on the night’s plate

The moon the smallest silver slice.

 

© Nina Serrano, 2010

 

This normative syllabic verse form consists of eight lines (an octave), each line being octosyllabic (eight syllables in length). Lines 4 and 5 rhyme, lines 1, 2, and 3 are repeated in reverse order as lines six, seven and eight.

The Serrano poem was a bit inconsistent with the description in that lines three and six (which is line three repeated) were one syllable too long, and line five was one syllable short. Here is a diagram of the scheme as it is described:

Lines     Syllables    Rhymes and repeated lines (caps):

1. x x x x x x x A
2. x x x x x x x B
3. x x x x x x x C
4. x x x x x x x d
5. x x x x x x x d
6. x x x x x x x C
7. x x x x x x x B
8. x x x x x x x A 

When I contacted Nina Serrano she replied to my query, “I don't think i invented the form, though I might have been using a variant unwittingly and been spreading it around to friends and poetry reading participants. Before I dare take any credit for this [form] I am going to check my possible source. I remember going to Dena Taylor's retirement party where she and friends read poems and I may have asked them about the form and this is where it may have entered my life. I will call Dena today and check this out as it is a hazy memory.”

Nina has not yet gotten back to me, but Jack sent some octos of his own:

 

NINA SERRANO

God bless her, Nina Serrano,

She writes octos lickety split!

I wrote to Nina Serrano

Asking her what octos might be

She explained the form patiently

I wrote to Nina Serrano,

I wrote octos lickety split.

God bless her, Nina Serrano!

 

Jack Foley

 

 

POEM

 

In the gray sky some little light               

Strikes my heart as I sit moping.

Is it the thought of poetry?

A deep heaviness descended

Then the feeling sweetly ended.

Is it the thought of poetry

Strikes my heart as I sit moping?

In the gray sky some little light.

 

Jack Foley

 

This one uses incremental repetition:

 

OCTO FOR AN OCTOGENARIAN

For Michael McClure 

 

How does one celebrate genius?

Turn round: go West or else go East

Dōgen and Meister Eckhart meet

Don’t strive: what is there to attain?

This universe is right as rain

Dōgen and Meister Eckhart meet

Poetry goes both West and East

Celebrate deep mammal genius.

 

Jack Foley

 

And here is an octo that has more rhymes than are called for:

 

GOING SOUTH

 

There’s nothing to hold onto yet.

The quiet sounds louder at night.

A bouquet of expectations

Weeps for a bird’s recitation

This season speaks of migrations.

A bouquet of expectations.

The quiet sounds louder at night.

There’s nothing to hold onto yet.

 

Mary-Marcia Casoly

 

AN OCTO FOR THE TURK     Lewis Turco writes formal poems He writes with great wit and brio And Lewis has a pseudonym: If at times you wonder who is Wesli Court, you’ll find it’s Lewis: This anagram, this pseudonym, Court, writes with great wit and brio. Wesli Court, too, writes formal poems. Jack Foley SANDY: An Octo October 29, 2012   The storm is rolling up the coast Pushing the sea ahead of it, Lifting the ocean into clouds, Dropping lakes on field and dwelling Alike and immensely swelling, Lifting the ocean into clouds, Pushing the sea ahead of it -- The storm is rolling up the coast.   Wesli Court   Lew, two more--stop me before I write another!    ALL SAINTS DAY   She walks to the cemetery To see what "action" may be there What kind of "action" does she wish? They "rise," the dead do, sometimes there And shamble to the city square What kind of "action" would she wish To see--what "action" may be there?  Dead walk in the cemetery.   -- Jack Foley     BREAST MAN   I am thinking of your breasts, dear (Both the right one and the left one), Oh, how beautiful your breasts are! How thrilling they are to the touch! Ah, do I think of them too much? No: how beautiful your breasts are (Both the right one and the left one) I am thinking of your breasts, dear.   -- Jack Foley   Wow, Jack! Now I’m receiving them two abreast!   Lew   OCTO FOR THE OLD DAME Catrina, lady of the skull lady of uneasy laughter how your teeth gleam in the sunlight Posada knew you, drew you well knew you could not be held by Hell see, your teeth gleam in the sunlight lady of uneasy laughter Catrina, darling, heh heh, skull.

Suggested Writing Exercise:

Write an octo or two [everybody except Jack Foley].

 

All poems are coyright © 2012 by their authors; all rights reserved.

 

The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms, Revised and Expanded Edition by Lewis Putnam Turco, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England (www.UPNE.com) , 2012 • 384 pp. 3 illus. 5 x 7 1/2" Reference & Bibliography / Poetry 978-1-61168-035-5, paperback.

 

Form of the Week 20 — The Recipe Poem

 

On October 11^th Clarinda Harriss wrote:

"Dear Hotties:

"Sorry if I'm taking liberties with that salutation, but it's a habit Moira Egan and I got into among ourselves when working with our Hot Sonnets anthology. I hope you're taking note of the rave reviews it continues to get and are aware that the book is being used in numerous college classrooms—doubtless improving the class atmosphere and temperature.

"Here's my idea: I'd like to look at another "something hot" from you — specifically, a recipe or description of a dish — for possible use in a piece of fiction I'm working on. It stars Simone Stiles, a Johns Hopkins PhD drop-out who is becoming famous for her erotic cookbooks, including Orgasmic Organics, Smokin’ Loins and Buggery (this last about making yummy and/or aphrodisiac edibles out of stuff — not excluding bugs — which people find yucky. (Of course that makes way for all sorts of oysters, ocean- and mountain.)

"The epigraph for Simone's abandoned PhD dissertation, by the way, is Mark Strand's "Eating Poetry." Thanks to Moira, Strand has already given me permission to quote it in the story. Since I'm rather fond of fiction which contains some non-fictitious people (Thomas Pynchon liked it too), I'm hoping to include Moira, Hot Sonnets (surely it was a source of inspiration to Simone), and some food fun from real-life contributors to the anthology.

"So: how about sending me a recipe or just a description of a dish which is somehow "hot"— in the sexy sense or the double entendre sense? Or something for Buggery which uses ingredients that many find repellent but produce something delicious?

"If you do send, please include a few of your own words characterizing the dish and also let me know whether you'd be OK with my using your actual name in the story or would prefer me to characterize you simply as "one of the famous poets from the anthology."

"Here's an example of what I had in mind: Ilse Munro, wonderful writer and online editor of Little Patuxent Review, sent me a recipe for a Latvian aspic from pig-parts-broth, pointing out that its gelatinous quivering upon the platter "can be quite suggestive." I have a few recipes of my own which involve possibilities during the cooking process, and Simone particularly likes this kind of recipe for her barbecue book (Smokin’ Loins). In fact, there are a number of poems about sexy cooking in Hot Sonnets. You might be willing to let me quote some tidbits even if you don't have an actual recipe to send.

"Don't think about this too hard. Just let your mind riffle freely and a bit raunchily through your cookery file and your poem file and hit “Reply.” I would like to have your contribution by Thanksgiving, which is just around the corner. (I guess turkey giblets qualifies — do you do anything interesting with giblets? Ever nibbled leftover candied yams in bed w/a friend?) Also, please understand that the story, even if it develops into a novella, may not provide room for all recipes received.

"Off to tend the tongue simmering on my stove as I write —

 "Clarinda."

  "Three Recipes" first appeared in The Critic, xxvii:1, Aug.-Sep., 1968; "Sherried Artichoke Chicken" was anthologized in John Keats's Porridge, edited by Victoria McCabe, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1975. 

"Lew,

"These are a marvel!  Thank you, thank you!   I imagine Simone will be quoting from all three, though I personally think #1 is the sexiest (despite the painful idea of hatching an artichoke).   Since her public name, Simone Stiles, is one she made up in homage to another exhibitionist, Simon Stylites, she will probably want to use both your names.  

"Hmmm.   Perhaps she'll start on another book, Carousing (only recipes using booze), Savagery (wild game cooking, which really, there is, in real life, a need for), or maybe Drinking with Savages (booze and wild game)  or (but no, I can hardly bring myself to type it) Soread-Eagled (devoted to stuffings).

"I am so grateful!  And btw, these are three of my favorite Turco/Court poems.

"Clarinda."

 

Suggested Writing Assignment:

Write a recipe poem.

 

Form of the Week 19 – The Elegy

         On Thursday, October 11^th, 2012, I got back into the classroom for the first time in a long while. The week before I had dropped in on Dr. Bennet Schaber, Chair of the SUNY College at Oswego Department of English and Creative Writing, to drop off a couple of books for the Department’s display of faculty publications: Wesli Court’s Elegies for the Poets and my Dialects of the Tribe: Postmodern American Poets and Poetry, both published this year. I was mildly surprised to see that Bennet seemed to be more interested in the former volume than in the book of literary criticism.

        “I’m teaching the elegy this semester,” he told me. “It’s a seminar. How about coming to class next week and talking to my students?” he asked. “They’re smart and interested. These aren’t exactly ‘elegies,’ he observed, ‘but close.’”

        I happily agreed, so I went home and prepared some materials. I asked Bennet to send me a list of the major elegies he had covered so far this year, and he sent me this list by email:

        “Spencer's Astrophel, Nashe's A Litany in Time of Plague, Milton's Lycidas, Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Shelley's Adonais are the major poems so far.  We've also read some more modern/contemporary poems by Dennis O'Driscoll, Richard Garcia, Tess Gallagher, and Sharon Olds.  Next Tuesday they have a paper due, so I'll spend the class showing them some paintings that touch on pastoral elegy (Poussin's two Arcadian Shepherd paintings principally).  Then Thursday is YOU!  I've been using Sandra Gilbert's Inventions of Farewell to supply most of the modern poetry.  I can have them bring it to class if you know the volume and want to read some of those as well as your own poetry.”

        I wrote back, “Attached you will find the titles and pages that I will read your class.” This is the attachment:

 

ELEGIES

From The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms, Revised and Expanded Edition by Lewis Putnam Turco, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England (www.UPNE.com) , 2012 • 384 pp. 3 illus. 5 x 7 1/2" Reference & Bibliography / Poetry 978-1-61168-035-5, paperback:

Occasional Poetry, pp. 266-269;

Elegiac Distich, Elegy, and “Elegy for John," pp. 201-203

 

From Fearful Pleasures, The Collected Poems of Lewis Turco:

“In a White Direction,” p. 41

 “Lines for Mr. Stevenson,” p. 48

 “Trilogy for J. F. K.,” pp. 51-54

 “The Pilot,” pp. 179-180

 “Cancer,” pp. 401-402

 “The Recurring Dream,” pp. 403-404

 

From The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court:

“Elegy Composed in a Watermelon Patch,” pp. 181-183

 

 

From The Book of Forms, Fourth Edition:

Sestina, pp. 334-344

 “The Obsession,” pp. 341-342

        Interestingly, at least to me, is the coincidence that another book just out, Garnet Poems: An Anthology of Connecticut Poetry Since 1776 (The Driftless Connecticut Series & Garnet Books) edited by Dennis Barone, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2012, contains, among an unusual but thoughtful selection of four of my poems, two elegies, “The Recurring Dream,” and the third part of “Trilogy for J. F. K.,” listed above, a Pindaric ode on the first anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, titled, “Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day 1964”:

ODE ON ST. CECILIA’S DAY 1964

 

1.  Of the Past

 

Some music, then, for this day.  Let it be

Suitable to the mood of fallen snow,

The veil of a virgin saint.  Quietly

Let it come now, out of the silence; now

While the birds inexplicably forsake

The elm, the oak, the seed in the lilac....

Instead, drumrolls muffled in an old year,

An echo of trumpets in the streets.  Clear

But muted, there is a ragged tattoo

Of hooves, image of a sable horse, wild-

Eyed, resisting the rein, skittish among

The twin rows of witness citizens who,

Their voices frozen, give up to the cold

Air of the marble city an old song.

 

2.  Of the Present

 

But it’s another year, Cecilia’s day

Again, another part of the land.  So,

Let the phantoms of those dead days lie

Under these new burdens of snow.  Allow

That chorus of stricken men to dim like

Shadows into blackening film, the dark

Merging with the riderless horse.  Feature

By feature, let the scene fade into near

Distance, into perspective, then shadow.

This is music for St. Cecilia.  Yield

To her the lyric due her.  Let us sing

For her patronage — her martyrdom grew

Out of a summer heart: she is our shield

Against the winter.  She is always young.

 

 

3.  Of the Moment

 

Here beyond the window the campus lies.

The students pass in mufflers and coats, eyes

Almost hidden against the wind.  The sound

Of radio music settles around

The furniture, into the carpeting.

Choral voices: a requiem.  Distant

And urgent, the November church bells ring.

Outdoors a dog rags something.  An instant

Pause in his play — he has caught a squirrel

Which tosses and tosses in the gray air.

The mongrel, in the midst of his quarrel

With life, is assaulted by three girls.  There,

At the base of a tree, the limp ruff falls

From insensate jaws, starts to inch up walls

Of oak bark toward some invisible

Sanctuary.  The dog begins to howl.

The girls watch the squirrel into the limbs.

Cecilia’s radio is done with hymns.

 

 

From Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932842-19-7, cloth; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3; paper, ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3.

 

Here is an elegy written in the form of a ballade; (Listen to the author read "Late Elegy for an Old Suicide"): 

 

LATE ELEGY FOR AN OLD SUICIDE

In memory of Thomas Chatterton 1752-1770

"There's nothing that agrees worse

Than a proud mind and a beggar's purse."

 

Descendant of Redcliffe's deacons, a Bristol boy,

                St. Mary's ghosts were native to his blood.

He haunted Canyng's tomb.  His only joy

                Was in his own invention: "Rowley" stood

                More clearly in his sight than real life could,

                       Of greater substance than apprentice wages.

                He made the priest his mask, put on his hood....

                       Tom's suicide aches still across the ages.

 

He built a myth, turned Bristol into Troy

                And Camelot combined.  The Sacred Wood

Grew at the gate, and time became his toy.

                He brought the rill of local lore to flood

                And made St. Mary's cross the Holy Rood —

                       All for Rowley's sake.  Upon those pages

                He worked till Rowley's lyrics stood enthewed.

                       Tom's suicide aches still across the ages.

 

At last he went to London to employ

                Himself and Rowley in the common good;

He managed but to starve himself, annoy

                Great Walpole, tender Johnson.  When his food

                And pence ran out at seventeen, he rued

                       The day that he'd been born.  London's sages

                Looked the other way, cried "Hoax!" and "Fraud!"

                       Tom's suicide aches still across the ages.

 

Envoy:

                Yet what he wrote was true, the lines imbued

                       With haunting skill.  Death was his early wages.

                God rest his bones, however misconstrued.

                       Tom's suicide aches still across the ages.

 

 

From The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court 1953-2004, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2004, 460 pp., ISBN 1-932842-00-4, jacketed cloth; ISBN 1-932842-01-2, trade paperback.

 

Suggested Writing Assignment:

 

Write an elegy in a form or meter of your choosing.

 

 

Form of the Week 18 – The Folding Mirror

Dr. Marc Lynton Latham sent me this email message yesterday, Saturday, October 6, 2012:

“Hi Lewis, I just published my second poetry collection, which is completely made up of (folding) mirror poems (as featured in your new book of forms) and reflections, with a foreword by Caroline Gill. I've made it available to US universities and libraries via Amazon....” Marc Lynton Latham, U. K.

The entry on the “folding mirror” form from The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms, Revised and Expanded Edition by Lewis Putnam Turco, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England (www.UPNE.com) , 2012 • 384 pp. 3 illus. 5 x 7 1/2" Reference & Bibliography / Poetry 978-1-61168-035-5, paperback, reads,

Marc Latham, inventor of the form, says that the FOLDING MIRROR verse form calls for two halves of a poem to mirror each other in structure and subject either side of a folding middle line.  The number of words in each corresponding line (outer and outer etc) should be the same if possible.  The folding middle line can be used to divide or connect the two halves.” 

HOURGLASS OF TIME

is birth a blank page? or a weighty tome
crammed full of ingrained wisdom
and lesson plans to draw on
as we climb the hill
of learning and
striving until
on the peak
we turn:
a change of
view sliding
down with ease
the relentless decline
grains of truth spill between
our hands until the sands run out
and the tome of life swells with more pages

Claire Knight

 

 ‘THALATTA, THALATTA’

(THE SEA! THE SEA!)

Waves roll in at my window.
The sun sets:
Silence.
The sea is my mirror:
My face is the ocean.
Twilight descends:
Great gulls are swooping.
The storm is brewing:

Turn, Tide, Turn

The storm is abating:
Small terns are soaring.
Daylight approaches:
The ocean is my face.
My mirror is the sea:
Silence.
The dawn breaks:
Waves roll out from my window.

Caroline Gill

 

242 Mirror Poems and Reflections [Kindle Edition]

http://www.amazon.com/242-Mirror-Poems-Reflections-ebook/dp/B0094QWNOW

is Dr. Marc Latham's second poetry collection, after the first one was published by Chipmunka in 2009. The first collection contained poems written by Marc from his youth to the cre-ation of the Folding Mirror form, while this book focuses on the FM form recognised by Lewis Turco in his definitive The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms. 

Caroline Gill, an award-winning poet whose 'Thalatta, Thalatta' Folding Mirror poem was used as an example in 'The Book of Forms' provides an introductory explanation of the Folding Mirror form at the start of this book.

This book contains 121 Folding Mirror poems created in three years by Marc Latham as he tried to make sense of the universe and life's place in it. They are supported by 121 reflections relevant to the poems’ themes.

Marc Latham was born in St. Helier, Jersey during 1965. He grew up in Wales, and became a big heavy rock and metal fan in his youth. Along with Kerouac's 'On The Road' and other counter-culture books, rock music lyrics were a big influence on Marc's desire to write. He hitched from home aged 21, and travelled on a shoestring to all the populated continents between 1987-94. Marc kept a diary along the way, and it was on-the-road thoughts fuelled by rock lyrics that developed into his first poems. After completing his big journeys, a desire for new challenges led Marc to the University of Leeds, starting in 1995. He graduated with a PhD in 2005. The stimulus and stresses of university life and the rave-dance culture of that time provided further inspiration for Marc's poetry. Marc opted to become a freelance writer after graduating from university, and he is still working out of Leeds and the greenygrey.co.uk website.

Marc had his first collection of poetry published by Chipmunka in 2009. It contained over ninety poems from his youth through to his first Folding Mirror (FM) poems. There are now over 200 FM poems on the fmpoetry.wordpress.com website that Marc administrates. This '242' book contains the FM poems created since Marc's first collection was published, together with old and new thoughts and poems. Marc has also had several poems published by independent poetry publications, a Saturn FM poem featured in a musical composition, and the Folding Mirror form was included in Lewis Turco’s definitive 'The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms'.

Errata Sheet for Turco's DIALECTS OF THE TRIBE, First Printing

 

ERRATA SHEET

 

Dialects of the Tribe: Postmodern American Poets and

Poetry

By Lewis Putnam Turco

 

Dialects of the Tribe: Postmodern American Poets and Poetry, by Lewis Putnam Turco, Nacogdoches, TX: Stephen F. Austin State University Press, www.SFASU.edu/sfapress/, 2012, 336 pp., paperback, $29.95.

This material is missing from the bottom of page 18 of the first printing:

…Berryman (1914-1972), Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966), Richard Eberhart (1904-2005), Richard Wilbur (1921—), Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), Howard Nemerov (1920-1991), Randall Jarrell (1914-1965), and Karl Shapiro (1913-2000). A subdivision of these poets whose vanguard consisted of W. D. Snodgrass (1926-2009), Robert Lowell (1917-1977), and John Berryman, became known, beginning in 1959, as "The Confessional School." Women were prominent among these writers, particularly Anne Sexton (1928-1974), Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), and Maxine Kumin (1925—). Their hallmark was the extremely personal poem. Snodgrass' lyrics regarding marital breakup and divorce, Heart's Needle, led the way back up the aisle.

 

Form of the Week 17 – The Descort

THE DESCORT

 By Tad Richards

At the encouragement of Lewis Turco, for the fourth edition of his Book of Forms, I tried my hand at writing a descort — a form characterized by its infidelity to any one form. Each stanza is written in a recognizable form, but a different one. Lew said that he had never actually seen one, so my entry didn't have much competition.

A little research into the form: there is actually a Wikipedia entry on it, in which the invention of the descort is credited to Garin d'Apchier, whose exact dates are lost to history, but he did write the first descort, and I would share it with you, but it, too, is lost.

Gautier de Dargies, for whom we do have approximate dates, ca. 1170 — ca. 1240 (he lived to be approximately 70, a ripe old age in those days), is said to have written three descorts.

Dargies has his own Facebook page, which I am the only person, as of this writing, to like.

Here's one by Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (1180-1207). It's written in a variant of the form — each stanza is in the same verse form, but in a different language. And it's quite beautiful. English translations are interspersed between the verses.

 

Eras quan vey verdeyar

Pratz e vergiers e boscatges,

Vuelh un descort comensar

D'amor, per qu'ieu vauc aratges;

Q'una dona.m sol amar,

Mas camjatz l'es sos coratges,

Per qu'ieu fauc dezacordar

Los motz e.ls sos e.ls lenguatges.

 

[Now that I see becoming verdant

lawns and bowers and woods,

I want to begin a contrast

about love, on whose account I am distraught;

for a lady used to love me,

but her mind has changed

and therefore I sow enmity

among the words, the sounds and the languages.]

 

Io son quel que ben non aio

Ni jamai non l'averò,

Ni per april ni per maio,

Si per ma donna non l'o;

Certo que en so lengaio

Sa gran beutà dir non sò,

çhu fresca qe flor de glaio,

Per qe no m'en partirò.

 

[I am the one who have no good

nor ever shall I have it,

either in April or in May,

unless I have it through my lady.

True, in her own language

I cannot describe her great beauty,

fresher than gladiolus' flower,

the reason of my persistence.]

 

Belle douce dame chiere,

A vos mi doin e m'otroi;

Je n'avrai mes joi' entiere

Si je n'ai vos e vos moi.

Mot estes male guerriere

Si je muer per bone foi;

Mes ja per nulle maniere

No.m partrai de vostre loi.

 

[Fair, sweet dear lady,

to you I give and give up myself;

I shan't have my whole joy

unless I have you and you me.

You are a most treacherous enemy,

if I die through my good faith;

but still, there is no way

I shall part from your dominion.]

 

Dauna, io mi rent a bos,

Coar sotz la mes bon' e bera

Q'anc fos, e gaillard' e pros,

Ab que no.m hossetz tan hera.

Mout abetz beras haisos

E color hresc' e noera.

Boste son, e si.bs agos

No.m destrengora hiera.

 

[Lady, I surrender to you

as you're the best and truest

that ever was, and sprightly and valiant,

if only you weren't so cruel to me.

Most fair are your features

and fresh and lively your hue.

I am yours, and if I had you,

nothing would be lacking to me.]

 

Mas tan temo vostro preito,

Todo.n son escarmentado.

Por vos ei pen' e maltreito

E meo corpo lazerado:

La noit, can jatz en meu leito,

So mochas vetz resperado;

E car nonca m'aprofeito

Falid' ei en mon cuidado.

 

[But so much I fear your anger

that I am in complete despair;

for you I have toil and torture

and my body is racked:

at night, when I lay in bed,

I am awoken many a time;

and since I gain no good for myself,

I have failed in my intent.]

 

Belhs Cavaliers, tant es car

Lo vostr' onratz senhoratges

Que cada jorno m'esglaio.

Oi me lasso que farò

Si sele que j'ai plus chiere

Me tue, ne sai por quoi?

Ma dauna, he que dey bos

Ni peu cap santa Quitera,

Mon corasso m'avetz treito

E mot gen favlan furtado.

 

[Fair Knight, so precious is

your honoured thrall

that every day I despair.

Alas, what shall I do

if she whom I call my dearest

kills me, I know not why?

My lady, by my faith in you

and by the head of Saint Quiteria,

you have taken away my heart,

and stolen it by most sweet talk.]

English translation follows each stanza.  The original is in Provençal, Italian, French, Gascon and Galician respectively. In the envoi, the five languages are mixed together.

I did find one contemporary descort, in Drunken Boat. it's pretty good, and for some reason is unsigned.

—     Tad Richards

 

NOTE: I tried to access Drunken Boat but was unable to do so. Therefore, Tad Richards’ poem, “Descort: Dupree Variations,” is the only published English language example of the form, to the best of my knowledge. It may be found on pp. 185-187 of my The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms, Revised and Expanded Edition, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England (www.UPNE.com), 2012 • 384 pp. 3 illus. 5 x 7 1/2" Reference & Bibliography / Poetry 978-1-61168-035-5, paperback.

Form of the Week 16: The Recombinant Poem

Over the weekend of September 22-23 2012 Robert Mezey wrote me as follows:

"Dear Lew,           "Here’s an invented form, and certainly odd, that I’ve never seen or heard of before. An old student of mine has taken my sonnet "Hardy" and written another poem using exactly the same words. I don’t know whether she has given it a name—I seem to recall her saying something about “recombinant” (as in DNA?) Anyway, her poem surprised me; it seemed much better than I thought it would be. You might be interested in it for your collection."           Mezey's original poem is as follows: Hardy

Thrown away at birth, he was recovered,

Plucked from the swaddling-shroud, and chafed and slapped,

The crone implacable.  At last he shivered,

Drew the first breath, and howled, and lay there, trapped

In a world from which there is but one escape

And that forestalled now almost ninety years.

In such a scene as he himself might shape,

The maker of a thousand songs appears.

 

From this it follows, all the ironies

Life plays on one whose fate it is to follow

The way of things, the suffering one sees,

The many cups of bitterness he must swallow

Before he is permitted to be gone

Where he was headed in that early dawn.

 

Robert Mezey, From Collected Poems: 1952-1999, University of Arkansas

Press, © 2000.  Reprinted by permission of the author.

And here is the second poem:

ANOTHER HARDY

 
 
Slapped from the dawn,

chafed and trapped in it,

he howled

at a thousand things

in that implacable world,

and lay there on the swaddling,

recovered from birth.

This one was permitted to be!

He, the one whose maker

plucked and drew away the early shroud.

The first breath was shivered

to where all life is headed,

but before that escape,

he must shape songs

of the ironies of fate,

swallow the bitterness,

such as it is, thrown

in many cups.

 
And at last he is gone.

The crone forestalled

almost ninety years

appears and plays a scene

of suffering from which

he sees a way one might follow.

Now he follows himself there.

by Callie Cardamon, © 2012, all rights reserved by the author.

Form of the Week 15: The Riddle

RIDDLE ME THIS 

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines the noun “riddle” as “a question or statement phrased so as to require ingenuity in ascertaining its answer or meaning.” Winston Churchill during the Second World War used the word and two of its synonyms when he said, “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” which perhaps might itself define the Zen “unanswerable question,” or koan, the most famous of which is, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

As Yoel Hoffman noted in Japanese Death Poems (Rutland and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1986), "Zen literature eventually came to serve as a means to enlightenment in Zen monasteries.  Several times a week, every monk would meet alone with the master.  The latter would tell an anecdote or present a koan, a sort of problem or riddle from Zen literature.  The monk's response would not necessarily be verbal, and it is often difficult to see the connection between the answer and the anecdote."  

 

       PENTACLES

 

       The heart is a coin

of fire.  How shall we spend it?

       How is the sun spent?

 

— Lewis Turco (from Seasons of the Blood)

 

A famous ancient riddle is one that Oedipus is said to have solved:

 

RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX

 

(Listen to Lewis Turco read his "Riddle of the Sphinx.")

 

What moves upon four legs at dawn,

Walks upon two later on;

Then, as the sun dips to the sea, 

Hobbles along on only three?

 

— Anonymous (v. Wesli Court)

 

The answer is “Mankind” which crawls on all fours in the {metaphorical) morning, walks on two legs at noon, and on three legs (two legs and a walking stick) in the evening. Some accounts have a second riddle as well:

 

THE TWO SISTERS

 

There is a sister of this earth

Who gives her twin the gift of birth;

The second sister, when she is born,

Bears her twin the following morn.

 

— Anonymous (v. Wesli Court)

 

The “sisters” are “Night and Day.”

"The Mystery" is attributed to Amergin (ca. 6th century), reputedly the eldest Irish bard, if one excludes St. Patrick, who has been credited with poems as well as other sorts of writing. "The Mystery" exhibits parallel construction, for each line is an independent clause beginning with either "I am the" or "Who." Grammatic parallelism, whether used in verse or in prose composition, is the oldest prosody in the world, antedating accentual verse by many centuries, but used as often today (erroneously called “free verse” by many) as in ancient Chaldea. The problem with this riddle is that no one knows its answer:

 

THE MYSTERY

  

I am the breeze breathed at sea,

I am the wave woven of ocean,

I am the soft sound of spume,

I am the bull of the seven battles,

I am the cormorant upon the cliff,

I am the spear of the sun striking,

I am the rose of the fairest rose.

I am the wild bull of war,

I am the salmon stroking the flood,

I am the mere upon the moor,

I am the rune of rare lore,

I am the tooth of the long lance,

I am He who fired the head.

 

Who emblazons the mountain-meeting?

Who heralds the moon's marches?

Who leads the sun to its lair?

I am the Word, I am the Eye.

 

— Amergin (v. Wesli Court)

 

"A Riddle" is an ancient Welsh bardic poem, in this case totally anonymous:

 

A RIDDLE

 

Riddle me this —

Knew the Flood's kiss,

Has a snake's hiss,

This great creature,

 

Fleshless, boneless,

Senseless, bloodless,

Headless, footless,

Older nor younger

 

Than he started,

Never daunted,

Not live nor dead,

Ever useful —

 

God in Heaven,

What origin?

Great wonders Thine

Who made this bull.

 

In woods, in leas,

Ageless, griefless,

Ever hurtless,

Of equal age

 

With the Eras,

Older than hours

From Time's ewers;

Broad as the gauge

 

Of all the Earth.

He had no birth,

Nor has he girth

On land or sea.

 

Trust him to hum —

He will lie dumb

And will not come

If it need be.

 

Bull of the air

Beyond compare,

None may ensnare

Him in his den

 

On the sea-cliff.

He'll roar, he'll cough,

Mannerless oaf —

Savage again

 

Crossing the land

Roaring and grand,

Then hushed and bland,

Fey as a boy,

 

then with a shout

Lashing about

Earth in a rout.

Wickedness, joy,

 

Hidden, yet seen

In his careen,

Heard in his whine

First here, then there,

 

Hurling, twirling,

Ever breaking,

Never paying

Bull of the air.

 

Blameless as sky,

He is wet, dry,

Often comes by.

Old Man-fashioned,

 

Like everything

From beginning

Unto ending —

He is the wind.

 

— Anonymous Welsh author (v. Wesli Court from The Airs of Wales)

 

These literary jokes are from the anonymous Old English, and they appear here in Anglo-Saxon prosody, as in the original versions:

 

THREE RIDDLES

 

I.

The world's wonder, I liven wenches,

A boon to townsfolk, a bane to none,

Though haply I prick her who picks me.

Well-planted, I stand in a bed

With my rogue root.  Rarely, mayhap,

Some carline, careless and daring,

Rasps my red tip, wrenches my head,

Lays me to larder.  I teach her lore,

This curly-hair who clasps me thus,

And after our meeting moisten her eye.

 

II.

Fire-fretted, I flirt with wind;

Limbs light-fraught, I'm lapped in flame;

Storm-crambled, I strive to fly:

A grove of leaves, a glowing flinder.

Hand to hand, I ring the hall —

Lords and ladies love to toast me.

When I heighten and all the folk

Bow before me, then their blessings

Shall soar beneath my befriending gleaming.

 

III.

Swung at thigh, a wizard thing!

Below his belt, beneath the folds

Of robes I dangle with my single eye.

Stiff and stout, I swivel about.

Aiming the head of his well-hung tool,

My holder hoists his hem knee-high:

He wants to fill a famous hole

That I fit well at length and more —

What will be filled has been filled before

 

— Anonymous Anglo-Saxon authors (v. Wesli Court)

 

The answers are, in order, I) an onion; II) a wooden torch; III) a key.]

This is an anonymous Old English dirge in Anglo-Saxon prosody, as in the original.  The stichs (lines) are split at the caesurae (pauses) into hemistichs (half-lines) and stepped.

 

THE CURSE OF DEATH

 

An abode was built ye

                                    Ere you were born;

For ye a mold minted

                                    Ere your mother made ye.

Its height is not scaled

                                    Nor depth delved,

It is never locked,

                                    Be it ever so long,

Until I fetch ye

                                    Where you be fettered —

Fettered and measured

                                    For sod and mould.

Nor be your house

                                    High-timbered, nay —

It be unhigh and low;

                                    When you be therein

Heel-ways are low,

                                    Side-ways unhigh.

The roof is raised

                                    Full nigh your breast:

Thus you in fell mould

                                    Shall dwell full cold,

In dim and dark,

                                    Your weal turned doleful.

That door is doorless

                                    And dark it is within —

There you be fastled,

                                    And Death keeps the keys;

Loathly is that earth-house,

                                    Grim to dwell in,

Yet there shall you dwell

                                    And worms deal with ye,

Thus you be laid

                                    And lorn of your friends,

For you have no friend

                                    Who will fare with ye,

None who will look to

                                    Your house-liking

Nor ever undo

                                    The latch of that door

And ask after ye,                                                

                                    For soon you be loathly

And ugsome to see.

 

— Anonymous Anglo-Saxon author (v. Wesli Court)

 

The “abode,” needless to say, is the coffin.

In the English language tradition many riddles are the basis for nursery rhymes, and nursery rhymes, usually written anonymously and therefore examples of folklore, date from the early Renaissance in the British Isles and are usually written in podic prosody. The answers to the following riddles will be found at the end of the series:

 

HUMPTY DUMPTY

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, 

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;

All the king's horses and all the king's men 

Cannot put Humpty Dumpty together again.

 

—     Anonymous

 

THE VAULT

 

In marble walls as white as milk

Lined with a skin as soft as silk

Within a fountain crystal clear

A golden apple doth appear.

No doors there are to this stronghold,

Yet Thieves break in to steal the gold.

 

—     Anonymous

 

 A TRIP TO ST. IVES

 

As I was going to St. Ives, 
I met a man with seven wives, 
Every wife had seven sacks, 
Every sack had seven cats, 
Every cat had seven kits - 
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, 
How many were going to St. Ives?

 

— Anonymous

 

OLD MOTHER TWITCHETT

 

Old Mother Twitchett had one eye

And a tail that she let fly;

Every time she jumped a gap

A bit of her tail was caught in a trap.

 

— Anonymous

 

DADDY LONGLEGS

 

Long legs, crooked thighs,

Little head and no eyes –

What am I?

 

— Anonymous

 

A GIRL

 

There was a girl in our town,

Silk an’ satin was her gown,

Silk an’ satin, gold an’ velvet,

Guess her name, for thrice I’ve telled it.

 

— Anonymous

 

OLD SMOKY

 

Make three fourths of a cross

And a circle complete,

And let two semicircles

On a perpendicular meet;

Next add a triangle

That stands on two feet;

Next, two semicircles

And a circle complete.

 

— Anonymous

 

BUCKY

 

As soft as silk,

As white as milk,

As bitter as gall,

A thick brown wall,

And a green coat covers all.

 

— Anonymous

 

 

LITTLE NANCY

 

Little Nancy Endicott

In a while petticoat

And a red nose –

The longer she stands,

The shorter she grows.

 

— Anonymous

 

UPROOTED

 

Dies in heat,

Lives in chill,

Grows with its root

Running uphill.

 

— Anonymous

 

 

ARRESTED

 

Formed long ago, yet made today,

Employed while others sleep;

What few would like to give away

Nor any wish to keep.

 

— Anonymous

 

 

TEASE

 

Thomas O’Tattamus took two T’s

To tie two tups to two tall trees.

To frighten the terrible Thomas  O’Tattamus,

Tell me how many T’s are in these!

 

— Anonymous

 

 

A RING

 

Flour of England, fruit of Spain

Met together in a shower of rain;

Put in a bag tied round with a string –

If you’ll tell me this riddle I’ll give you a ring.

 

— Anonymous

 

 

MY LITTLE NUT TREE

 

I had a little nut tree,

Nothing would it bear

But a silver nutmeg

And a golden pear.

The King of Spain’s daughter

Came to marry me,

All for the sake of

My little nut tree.

 

Her dress was made of crimson,

Jet black was her hair,

She asked me for my nut tree

And my golden pear.

I said, “So fair a princess

Never did I see;

I’ll give you all the fruit

From my little nut tree.

 

— Anonymous

 

ANSWERS:

The first riddle is not overtly a question, but “Humpty Dumpty,” as we all know, or ought to know, is an egg, as is “The Vault.”

The answer to “A Trip to St. Ives” is “one,” because everyone else was coming from St. Ives.

“Old Mother Twitchett” is a needle and thread.

“Daddy Longlegs” Is a pair of tongs.

The lass in “A Girl” is Ann.

The answer to “Old Smoky” is purportedly tobacco, although I personally have a hard time visualizing it.

“Bucky” is a horse chestnut.

“Little Nancy” is a candle.

“Uprooted” is an icicle.

“Arrested” is a bed.

The answer to “Tease” is the numeral 2.

“A Ring”: is a plum pudding.

 

Finally, the princess in “My Little Nut Tree” is Catharine of Aragon who became the first wife of Henry VIII of England. Knowing that, it takes little imagination to understand what the nut tree is.

In the Spanish pregunta one poet grills another poet with a requesta (question), the second replies with a respuesta (response). An evasive trick beloved especially of politicians is to answer a question with a question, as in these

 

TWO PREGUNTAS

 

I. PUNTA PREGUNTA

 

What is it a woman lacks?

What is it that she attacks?

 

What is it a woman loves?

When is it she wears no gloves?

 

What is it for which she begs?

What is it that has no legs?

 

Why does she so love to dance?

What is it for which she pants?

 

Would a woman sell her soul?

Are there markets pole to pole?

 

Does a woman have a choice?

None at all that she can voice.

 

Why does she not have her say?

She must heed her DNA.

 

— Wiles Mantup 

 

II. RESPUESTA APUESTA

 

What is each man's most ancient need?

What does the helpless captive feed?

 

What grows when hungry, shrinks when sated?

What loves the task for which it's fated?

 

What is it men can never do?

What process knits a third from two?

 

Where does a man most long to be?

Where was he first, and not yet free?

 

What keeps a man, at last, alone?

What does he buy that he can't own?

 

Do men profess what they believe?

Not since Adam turned on Eve.

 

When do men hunch over their beer?

When there's no more they want to hear.

— Hanir Pilastra

Finally, here is a riddle that contains multiple puns:

 

QUADRUPUNDLE

 

A feline, legs shorter on a side;

A rancher whose hands all like to ride;

A roll of his herd out on the range;

A chemical not subject to change

Through a reaction -- these are the gist

Of the ONE word I want: c------t.

 

— Lewis Turco

 

Suggested writing assignment:

         Write an original riddle poem.

   

NOTE: All those poems contained in this essay that are designated as versions written by Wesli Court, and the essay itself, are copyrighted © 2012 by Lewis Turco, all rights reserved, and may not be reproduced by any means anywhere without written permission of the author. Except for “The Riddle of the Sphinx” and “The Two Sisters,” all poems and versions by Wesli Court are available in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court 1953-2004, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2004, 460 pp., ISBN 1-932842-00-4, jacketed cloth; ISBN 1-932842-01-2, trade paperback. All other poems are copyrighted by their authors and all rights are reserved by them. 

 

 

 

 

Form of the Week 14: Bad Poems

          On November 16, 1972, while I was still teaching at the S.U.N.Y. College at Oswego, an interview I did for the student newspaper The Oswegonian was published. The interviewer was Peter Bernhardt, and at one point he asked me, “Last year you and one of your students, P. J. O'Brien, gave a reading of nothing but bad poems, mostly by nineteenth century authors. What brought that on?”

          I replied, “I don't know what brought it on. I've very often read bad poetry to my classes. It's a good thing to read, for instance, to an introduction to poetry class because many students feel they don't know what a bad poem is. Or a good poem, for that matter. How do you tell? Well, if you read a really bad poem, an obviously bad poem, that gives the students a water mark or, I should say, a low water mark, They can then judge other poems according to how much higher they rise above the low water mark.

         “With regard to creative writing classes, I find that young people despair that they're ever going to turn into competent writers. If I read them a bad poem I can say, ‘Look, you're already better than this.’"

          Without a doubt one of the bad poems I read to my classes in those days was by Walt Whitman. Before he discovered that prose could be a vehicle for poetry, as in the Bible, Walt Whitman wrote very bad metrical verse and published it in the pages of the Brooklyn Eagle; here is The Good Gray Poet’s very worst rhymed and metered poem (his best is “O Captain! My Captain!):

 

OLD GRIMES

 

He lived at peace with all mankind,

         In friendship he was true;

His coat had pocket-holes behind,

         His pantaloons were blue.

 

Unharmed, the sin which earth pollutes

         He passed securely o’er, —

And never wore a pair of boots

         For thirty years or more.

 

Walt Whitman

 

          Of course, any poet may write a bad poem, or at least a bad line now and again, and many do:

 

R.I.P. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

August 4, 1792-July 8, 1822

 

He said to the skylark, “bird thou never wert,”

A line for which no poet would give his shirt,

Nor even a pair of socks that were worn and smelly.

Nevertheless, we honor Percy Shelley.

 

Wesli Court

 

          My return to the topic of bad poetry today was occasioned by a review of The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms, Revised and Expanded Edition that has just appeared in the library journal Choice:

 

          The reviewer, C. E. O’Neill, has written a review that winds up being favorable in its last sentence, but I wonder why because most observations appear to be critical, as for instance that “…the book is easy to use and exhaustive almost to a fault when it comes to verse forms used by poets writing in English.” How is it possible for a reference book to be “exhaustive almost to a fault”? Isn’t its mission to be exhaustive?

          Here is another of the reviewer’s “favorable” observations: “Although James Dickey’s oft-cited endorsement of Turco’s handbook as ‘the poet’s bible’ no longer strictly applies –,” but what Dickey actually said appears on the rear cover; I don’t understand how the reviewer can have missed it. Many people have called it “the poet’s bible” over more than four decades, but I don’t know that Dickey was one of them.

          The review continues to explain why the term “no longer applies,” because “– several high-quality competitors are available…,” but two of the books cited, the first edition of Preminger’s Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, and the first edition of Paul Fussell’s Poetic Meter and Poetic Form were published in 1965, thus preceding my book by three years, as the appendix, “A Chronology of Postmodern Books Concerning Verse Forms” on pages 397-398 clearly shows. The Book of Forms earned its reputation despite these earlier publications.

          The reviewer also says, “Beginners may be confused by Turco’s obvious bias against free verse (he asserts it cannot exist, and even presumes to edit Walt Whitman)….” I was myself confused by the latter statement because I did not recall editing anything written by Whitman. When I thought about it I decided that O’Neill must mean I had criticized Whitman, which I am allowed to do despite the Whitmaniacs’ opinion that The Good Gray Poet is sacrosanct, an object of veneration, not to be commented upon by mere mortal man. Here is what I wrote on pp. 15-16:

          Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" is a prose poem that is one sentence long, comprised entirely of grammatically parallel lists. In it there are several lists or catalogs: of types of people — laborers of one kind or another, of jobs, of prepositional phrases and other modifiers.  One can see the parallel structures by running one's eye down the left-hand margin of the poem, where the article "the" appears in a column.  Besides these constructional schemes, one finds a repetitional scheme also: the repetition of the verb "singing" throughout the poem:

 

I HEAR AMERICA SINGING

 

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter's song, the plowboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day — at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

 

Walt Whitman

 

          One of the problems with writing prose poems has to do with editing. Would it be possible for these young men to sing with closed mouths? Is the word “open” at all necessary in the important climactic line? In fact, is the phrase “with open mouths” needed?”

          I said that Whitman had been guilty of a “pleonasm,” a definition of which, I pointed out, was on page 85:

“Pleonasm is the use of excessive words, as in the ending of Walt Whitman's ‘I Hear America Singing’ q.v., which ends, ‘Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.’  It would be difficult for anyone to sing with closed mouths; therefore, 'with open mouths' is a pleonasm." 

           I would think that a teacher of English composition would recognize the use of excessive words in a poem as well as in a student essay and would feel free to comment on it wherever it was found, no matter who committed the error, whether demigod or man.

           To the reviewer’s assertion that I have a bias “against free verse” – and my insistence that such a thing cannot exist: I am biased against the term, not against poems written in prose, which is what “free verse” must be inasmuch as the definition of “verse” is “metered language,” wherein the writer counts syllables in a line, and the definition of “prose” is “unmetered language,” wherein the writer’s “prosody” or system of composition is by syntax, phrases and clauses, as I pointed out in my discussion of Whitman’s prose poem above. Prose and verse are “modes” of writing; there is no third mode in any language in the world; therefore, "free verse" does not exist. It matters not who insists that it does.

          People have been calling prose poems “free verse” only since the early twentieth century despite the fact that they have been written since the beginning of human history. Prose poems are older than verse poems. The term “free verse” is a “contradiction in terms” (NOT an "oxymoron") because if the poet is counting syllables in each line he or she is writing metered language, which Whitman was not doing except in poems such as “Old Grimes,” above. Whitman was an execrable versifier who wrote only one truly uncriticizable prose poem in my opinion, “A Noiseless, Patient Spider.”

          Although when he was writing Whitman desperately needed a good editor, I was not alive at the time and was thus unable to give him aid before the worshippers of bad poetry raised him to the status of Deity. Whitman himself never heard the term “free verse,” which was a coinage of the Modernist poets after 1912, nor had his British prose poem predecessors of the 18th century Christopher Smart and William Blake, both of whom, like Whitman, wrote in verse as well. Whitman did not invent the prose poem. He wasn't even the first American poet to write one, Edgar Allan Poe was.

          One last thing having to do with definitions – here is what I wrote in another of my “exhaustive almost to a fault” books, The Book of Literary Terms: The Genres of Fiction, Drama, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, and Scholarship:

"Each word is an aural — heard, or indited — written sign that stands for something else.  An agreement on the meaning of a word or other language unit is a definition."

          If “free verse” exists, it must have a “definition.” What is it? I have never heard one that everyone agrees with, though books have been written on the topic. Perhaps O’Neill can give me an acceptable definition and can show me a poem that is written in “free” (unrestricted) “verse” (metered language), or, to put it in terms I’m sure everyone will be able to understand, including confused beginners, “unrestricted metered language.” (Please note that this is a sarcastic remark, not a description per se.)

          I won’t reply to the reviewer’s remark regarding “the heavy use of his own poems and those of Wesli Court, actually a pseudonym for Turco himself” except to quote from an on-line source, http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/those-who-cant-do-teach/ “…people are quite familiar with the saying, ‘Those who can’t do, teach.’ This statement suggests that people who have failed or would be failures in the world outside of academia end up as teachers.” I retired from teaching in 1996; since then I have written and published scores of poems, essays, memoirs, short stories, and nineteen books, three this year including Wesli Court’s Epitaphs for the Poets, The Dialects of the Tribe: Post Modern American Poets and Poetry, and the book reviewed by C. E. O’Neill,

          But back at last (I apologize for the digression) to bad poems. Sometimes a bad poem is famous, as for instance “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer (who, by the way, was a male); Kilmer’s poem is here illustrated by the late Socrates Samson:

 

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

 A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

 

Joyce Kilmer

          Is that a poem? Perhaps most people would say yes, but most poets would say no, it is not — it’s a series of versified aphorisms, clichés dressed up in rhymes and meters, and the imagery is ridiculous, if one thinks about it, for Kilmer says a tree is simultaneously an infant and an adult whose coiffeur is messed up by a bird's nest while she is making love to the weather; it is a huge head with a mouth at the bottom but with arms growing out of its scalp and hair for leaves...talk about mixed metaphors!

          Then what is poetry? A short answer is, poetry is the art of language, as distinguished from fiction, the art of written narrative; or drama, the art of theatrical narrative; or nonfiction, the art of written or rhetorical exposition. ANY OF THESE GENRES MAY BE WRITTEN EITHER IN PROSE OR IN VERSE. A simpler answer might be, “Something said well is something well-said, but something said superbly is a poem.”

Suggested writing assignment: 

Write a bad poem.

Form of the Week Thirteen: Spatial Poetry

     The four levels of poetry are the typographical, having to do with the appearance of the poem on the page; the sonic – having to do with the various elements of sound; the sensory – imagery, and the ideational – theme and meaning. A prosody or “system of composition of poetry” based on the typographical level is called “spatial prosody”; synonyms would be Carmen figuratum, typewriter poem, hieroglyphic verse, concrete poetry, calligramme, and shaped stanza.

     Spatial poems are relatively popular in our own age. An extreme form of spatials is the sub-genre called “concrete poetry” which takes the poem further toward graphic art than does shaped stanza. Concrete verse is ideographic spatials. For instance, in Japanese the character for “rain” (an ideograph looks like the thing it is meant to represent; the Japanese have characters rather than the letters of an alphabet, and the characters are ideographic) might be arranged on the page so that it will look like rain falling. At the bottom of the page there might be the character for “house”; thus, the characters for rain are falling pictorially on the character for house. Concrete poetry is really more picture than poem, as in “Leo’s Casino,” a print by D. A. Levy that uses the letters of the alphabet simply as elements in a picture:

 

      A “typewriter poem” can be a picture of something made with the letters of the alphabet or words, as in “Town Square “ below:

 

     Spatials can be quite elaborate. A “sampler” was originally an exercise primarily for schoolgirls who would design a piece of embroidery that illustrated their ability to sew various stitches. It would be comprised of the alphabet, mottoes and, often, illustrations of various kinds, but the colonial American poet Edward Taylor wrote a poem that was a sampler:

 

      The opening motto of this poem is,

 

This Dove and Olive Branch to you

is both a Post and Emblem too.

     These words appear written within a crude drawing of a dove holding an olive branch with which Taylor decorated or “illuminated” this page of his manuscript. Besides being a sampler and an acrostic (the alphabet is spelled out down the left-hand margin), this extremely complicated poem is also a concrete poem, and an epistle (a “post”) addressed to Taylor’s first wife, Elizabeth Fitch, whom he married on November 5, 1674:

 

These for my Dove

Tender and only Love

Mrs. Elizabeth Fitch

At her father’s house in Norwich.

 

The design of this sampler is of a circle within a triangle that reads,

 

The ring of love my pleasant heart must be

Truly confined within the Trinity.

 

The second line doubles as the base of the triangle and as the line illustrating the letter “T”; it is therefore a refrain.

 

The circle reads,

 

Love’s ring I send

That hath no end.

 

At the center of the circle is a drawn heart.

 

Here is a modern rendering of the acrostic portion of

 

ACROSTIC LOVE POEM TO ELIZABETH FITCH

 

Aspiring Love, that scorns to hatch a wish

Beneath itself, the fullest, chiefest Bliss

Contained within Heaven’s crystal pale and shine,

Doth wish its object always; so doth mine.

Elect no more presented in desire:

For Heaven’s roof, aye, lets not a wish soar higher.

Got though too dim, none can get to sign

Hear you, (my friend), is strengthened wish of mine.

In drossy silver should, I should by this,

[J is included in the representation of I, above]

Keep dull my post, and stain my serious wish,

Lest which polluted be, or the fearful Dove

My post-out foiled, I run a ring of Love

New polished, where my centered heart doth reek

Out highest streams of Love, which here do meet.

Presented thus your heart, Love’s Ring you’ll find

Quest I unless, always best befits the mind.

Reserve mine that. Yet let our secret breast

Set Love the tune which tunes this Ring the best.

The Ring of Love my pleasant heart must be

[Truly confined within the Trinity. — refrain]

Upon your heart (I pray you) put Love’s Ring

V[=U]nerringly; Love’s Swelt(ering) heart herein

Wearing a True-love’s-knot at center’s set.

Wherewith I send to you an alphabet

Xenodict¹ whence all syllables complete

[e]Xtracted are to spell what love can speak.

Yea, see, then, what I send. Yet I design

Zion my Ring shall license with her Trine.²

 

Edward Taylor

 

¹Xeno” means strange or foreign, and “dict” (spelled “dick” in the original) means spoken; perhaps what this neologism means is “strangely spoken,” which would be an accurate description of this poem.

²The last line of this metaphysical (extended metaphor) poem may mean something like, the license of marriage, or even of poetic license, is allowed within the strictures laid down by the Trinity.

     However, spatial poems need not be so elaborate. This one, “Nymphomania” by Richard Kostelanetz, is quite straightforward:

 

     Sometimes spatial verse requires just a bit of art besides the shape of the poem, as in this poem I wrote in college after a game. It has baskets at each end of the basketball court:

 

     According to the author of “The View from Khufu’s Tongue,” there are two kinds of spatial poem, “positive” and “negative.” “Positive shaping utilizes the words and negative shaping, the spaces.” His poem is an example of negative shaping.”

 

     These next two poems are products of the 1960s; the first was written for President John F. Kennedy, and the second emerged from the “ban the bomb” movement; both are examples of positive shaping:

 

All poems are copyrighted and rights are reserved. 

 Suggested writing assignment: 

Write a spatial poem of some type on an original theme.

 

 The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms, Revised and Expanded Edition by Lewis Putnam Turco, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England (www.UPNE.com) , 2012 • 384 pp. 3 illus. 5 x 7 1/2" Reference & Bibliography / Poetry 978-1-61168-035-5.