“Passion” for Poetry in New York

New Yorkers love the arts. Don’t they?

And this latest effort at promotion proves it. At various city venues the Poetry Brothel convenes for readings of high quality, literary works, poetry,  by names and no-names alike.  People like you and me.

Apparently the accoutrements feature heavy velvets, feathers, gambling tables, a bar, along with The Madame and her male partner, Tennessee Pink. 

But the REAL reason patrons are there is the poetry.

The website posts the offer, “Want to be a poetry whore?” If you do, you’ll get to read your own original work to the sincerely interested literary set.  For a price. (We’re not a non-profit, Pal.) For a higher fee, visitors can get a private reading.

Poets have to make a living, too, Maybe they became addicted to poetry early on. Maybe they have no training for other lines of work, so writing and reading “high quality” poetry is all they can do. Society has forced them to choose this dubious occupation.  At least some New Yorkers care enough to give them a chance.

I wonder how many Robert Frosts and Walt Whitmans out there will have their talents recognized and thus be discovered through this new kind of outlet? What a service is being provided! What irony! Capitalism applied to poetry. Principles of marketing 101. Advertisers have always known this: Poetry sells!

American ingenuity is what it is. We know that given the right environment almost every normal person will appreciate poetry. We’ve been using faulty, inferior means — a classroom and a textbook — not to mention those sadsack English teachers.  Now wonder they hate it.

On the other hand, I fear that if the concept proliferates, other industries will follow suit. Next thing we know there’ll be “performances” of various types at baseball games, recreational parks, and concerts. 

But then again, maybe people who love  a good concert, don’t need extras to get them to go.

Seems logical to me

The caption epigraph beside my site photo is from Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” an often cited, frequently anthologized 17th century poem. In the style of the day, the verse features rhymed couplets and a logical argument.

Marvell was a Cambridge-educated, Puritan supporter (recall the English Civil War – (Cromwell, Charles I) who assisted John Milton and later served as an M.P. until his death. His fairly large inheritance allowed him the leisure to travel the continent and to write. During his lifetime he was more acclaimed for political satire than his love poetry.

The poem’s structure sets up the logical argument that the speaker attempts:

• stanza #1 begins with a desired state “Had we . . .”
• stanza #2 negates stanza 1 “But . . .” (we don’t)
• stanza #3 is the speaker’s logical conclusion “Now therefore . . .”

The subject? The seduction of the “coy” mistress or girlfriend.  First, using shameless exaggerration, he insists that if only they had time, he would spend centuries admiring her many lovely features. And smart man that he is he adds that the most important of these is, OF COURSE, her heart. Sweet. Good Job.

“But” he begins as the tone shifts to a more somber one. Sparing nothing he helps the lady to see that while she wastes time refusing his advances, she’s not getting any younger or any more beautiful. That if not he, the “worms” will violate her sooner or later. And then if she can deal with that, he declares the grave a “fine and private place” but not a fun one if you’re interested in romance. Eternity is a “desert” vast and lonely.

“Now therefore” they must, he pleads closing in, enjoy each other while they can. He paints a fairly graphic  picture (for 17th century Puritan England) of their potential lovemaking — wild (like “birds of prey) and rough. The tone is urgent. 

The final couplet is my epigraph:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

So even though we can’t stop the progress or ravages of time, we can ironically speed it up. Time flies when you’re having fun.

Finally, on the surface the subject may be seduction, but that, I believe, is just a vehicle for his real theme, one typical for the period: carpe diem,  in love and beyond.

Perfectly sensible.

For a feminist reading (how would a feminist read this?) check out this essay.

Identify yesterday’s quotation

It was my title for the little homage to men yesterday:”the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” is part of William Wordsworth’s definition of poetry from the Lyrical Ballads, the Preface, wherein the poet writes what became the Romantic manifesto for poetry.

Recall that Romantics glorified feelings and objected to unemotional, dry, intellectual writing. Spirit trumphed mind and skill. Of course, other characteristics applied, but most can be contrasted with the features of Neoclassical poetry of the preceding 18th century.

Here are a few examples:

]Neoclassical            Romantic
urbanity                      rural life, nature
intellect                      feelings
logic                           mysticism
adult                           child
control                       spontaneity
now                            past
familiarity                  foreign, exotic

The Preface is must reading for lovers of literature and should be interesting for just about anyone.  This link is from Bartleby’s ed. of the Harvard Classics.

Deconstruction fun with “There was once”

Margaret Atwood’s poetry and fiction are among the best.  My first encounter was The Robber Bride,  followed by The Handmaid’ Tale, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and Oryx and Crake in that order, I think. Most of these were published in the ‘9o’s. They are not “light” reads. Atwood’s worldview sometimes conflicts with mine, but she is insightful and tells her captivating stories with masterful style. 

She’s often satirical as in the terse “You fit into me:”

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye
A fish hook
An open eye

I like her penchant for the unexpected, the unconventional, the twist. Her ear for speech is superb. And in this dialogue poem — “There was once” —  she’s at her best. She employs the humble fairy tale to satirize political correctness and more. It’s not public domain, but I’ve linked to the Mississippi Review’s online copy, right after the “Bad News” short. Read it in the characters’ voice, and I promise it will be worth the extra click.

(I’ve posted on her “Siren Song.”)

 

 

We’ll miss you . . .

. . . when you’re dead. Of course we will. Rest assured.

A. E. Housman’s poem “Is my team ploughing?” presents a dialogue between two friends, young males, one living, one dead. The recently deceased has questions about how it’s going now that he’s gone. His friend answers every question but one. Stanzas are structured as Q & A. The poem reprinted from the Project Gutenberg edition of the collection, A Shropshire Lad, which has never been out of print, is included below.

A. E. Housman is one of our most loved English poets probably because of his accessibility (he isn’t obscure,) his conventionality (his verse is traditional.) and his subject treatment (life.) These characteristics distinguish him from other soon-to-come modernist poets like Pound and Eliot. Something by Housman always makes the anthologies. 

His best qualities are his tone, which is often wry, and his sophisticated insight masked in a common-man humility.  At times he is melancholy, but it doesn’t turn to despair. Most often he’ll sigh. Charming.

From A Shropshire Lad, 1896

XXVII
“Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?”

Ay, the horses trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
The land you used to plough.

“Is football playing
Along the river shore,
With lads to chase the leather,
Now I stand up no more?”

Ay, the ball is flying,
The lads play heart and soul;
The goal stands up, the keeper
Stands up to keep the goal.

“Is my girl happy,
That I thought hard to leave,
And has she tired of weeping
As she lies down at eve?”

Ay, she lies down lightly,
She lies not down to weep:
Your girl is well contented.
Be still, my lad, and sleep.

“Is my friend hearty,
Now I am thin and pine,
And has he found to sleep in
A better bed than mine?”

Yes, lad, I lie easy,
I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead man’s sweetheart,
Never ask me whose.

Why Prufrock?

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” Sad, isn’t it? T.S. Eliot has J. Alfred Prufrock say this as he contemplates his ineffectual attempts at living. Prufrock symbolizes modern man. From the first image of the poem man is anesthetized, spread on a table ready for life to be done to him, around him. He can’t connect with others including women though he admires them and woud approach them if he dared.

He is a city man: no rural farm boy or man of the soil here. The unfeeling concrete and murkiness of the foggy air, the dim lights through haze, city living rooms are his territory. People he sees at parties are as vain as he, “talking of Michelangelo.” He isn’t effeminate, but he lacks qualities that we admire in a man: courage, forthrightness, resolve. He is timid and lacks the nerve to break out of himself, his comfort zine, and relate to those around him. His world is sterile and superficial — a world of “coffee spoons.” Starbuck’s fans might recognize (and maybe take offense) at the image of one’s life being hanging out in coffee shops with strangers or “friends” coming in through wifi.

So Eliot gives us this picture of modern man  - monied, sophisticated, working, urban, informed — but feckless, paralyzed, and intimidated by real relationships. He has all the accoutrements of humanity needed for life, but lacking any spiritual force, the potential for real significance lies dormant. 

 ”The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” isn’t a love song at all. There’s nothing about love in the poem. Eliot summarizes modern man here:

No! I am not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous–
Almost, at times, the Fool.

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/eliot.html  

 

How to read a poem

Here’s a method for reading a poem that I use. It works pretty well though poetry is “slippery” sometimes by nature. My LINKS page has helpful sites for terms and examples. Here’s  a terms site. Check out the NYT RSS in the sidebar for more about a current poet and poetry in general.

1. Read the title then read the poem. Silently is good but aloud is better. Follow punctuation rather than line ends. Read sentences, thoughts.

2. Determine the speaker and his situation: Paraphrase.  ”The speaker is a man who . . .” This is akin to plot.

3. Examine the poet’s figures of speech (metaphor, apostrophe, allusion, etc.) Look for connotative language. — “fair” may be complimentary while “pale” usually isn’t. Also look at sound features such as alleration and assonance. Are they functional? Decorative?

4. What is the attitude or tone? Use an adjective or two. Here’s a list of “tone” words. Be exact. Is the poet being ambiguous? They like that.

5. Consider the structure and rhetorical mode: is it dialogue, argument, a lyric, a narrative, descriptive? How are the parts arranged? How does the form fit the message?

6. What is the theme? or “What’s your point? “we ask. Is it traditional, original?

7. What is the poet’s revealed bias or worldview? His theme should let us know. This is where many explications fall short.

8. Return to the title. It should now be significant and enlightening.

Remember that poetry isn’t a hobby for little old ladies’ sewing circles. Nor is it the domain for literary snobs. It is a time-honored means of self expression — art — and an important part of culture. Both men and women appreciate it. A Renaissance man would beat somebody in a sword fight, sail the Atlantic, and then write a poem.  Poetry is accessible for most people (nursery rhymes) if they use a good method and practice. 

Why the sonnet?

What do Keats, Shakespeare, Frost, Millay, Plath, Browning, Shelley, Wordsworth, Whitman, Poe, Emerson, and Milton (I could go on) have in common?

They wrote sonnets.

Why the sonnet?

Originating in Italy in the 13th century, the subject of the fourteen-line poem was idealized love expressed in iambic pentameter. The Italian version rhymed in an abbaabba — cdcdcd scheme with an 8 - 6 division into problem - solution or situation  - comment structure.  Sir Thomas Wyatt having encountered the sonnet on his travels, transported the form to England and into an English version, and, of course, that was developed further by Shakespeare — 154 oif them. The English or Elizabethan sonnet developed into 3 quatrains and a couplet rather than the octave  — sestet Italian version.

So, for 700 years the form has thrived in periods Romantic, Victorian, modern, and postmodern. Why? Because the tradition is so rich with so many poetry canon contributors, most poets want to give it a go, add their stamp. Shakespeare added the friendship love theme. Romantics added politics. Modern poets alter the form and use most any subject. Some are just barely recognizable as sonnets. Then there’s the prescribed limits to work within. Or not. There’s even an anti-sonnet. Guess when that happened?

Ever tried to write a traditional sonnet? It’s a great exercise for appreciating what the masters did. Kind of like looking at The Night Watch and then trying your hand at oil painting.

A good, friendly site? http://www.sonnets.org/  sonnets grouped by chronology and by country, a reading room, submissions, and more

Sonnet 130 and Shakespeare’s Wit

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

If Shakespeare had followed sonnet tradition, he would have cataloged the sundry and timeless aspects of his beloved’s beauty. He would have been admiring her from afar without her knowledge. (No, it doesn’t sound like Renaissance stalking.) He would have been faint and overcome, mastered by her untutored charm.

In sonnet 130, he delights with self-parody — humorously imitating the sonnet and the sonneteer. First-time readers often comment on his lack of sensitivity and insulting observations. Sonnets, after all, are supposed to be about love. Forsaking the stock flatteries, he describes his lady’s wiry hair, her paleness, her discolored breasts, her heavy step, and her bad breath.

But Shakespeare knew his audience. The men and women that he wrote for were sophisticated enough to appreciate both irony and parody. And this audience would imagine, as I do, that the particular woman, his “Mistress,” would be a woman bright and clever enough for a man with the intellect of William Shakespeare. She would read his poem and be insulted? No. She’d smile and throw back her head. Then she’d make plans to get even.

How do I love thee? — not like that!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a talented poet (Sonnets from the Portuguese), but her best known poem, the sonnet “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” is not her best. I suspect it’s her most popular because of — let me count the ways 1. familiarity and 2. conventionality.  Here it is. It also appears in cross-stitching kits and greeting cards. It may be why, early on, some students learn to dislike poetry.

Most poets try their hand at writing a love poem.  Some describe love in the traditional vein employing flowery sentimentality. Nothing wrong with that. But some offer an unexpected, more realistic view of love, as in, for example, Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, “My Mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun.” It gets its own post. 

John Frederick Nims’s modern poem “Love Poem” is about love, but it’s not the conventional Disney “it could happen to you,” hearts-and-flowers take that has, let’s face it, led to disillusionment for more than a few.

From the beginning Nims applies deprecating terms to his beloved calling her his “clumsiest dear,” who basically wrecks whatever fine things  (glass, linen,) she touches. Then he compliments her with, not a declaration of her beauty, but with her humanity, her care for less-fortunate people, drunks and refugees.

Cataloging her faults, the speaker says that his beloved is careless, unpredictable, and a nuisance to “taxi drivers,” those just going about their business, and then confesses that her real expertise lies in words, people, love, and wit — these he knows are superior traits which keep him and those who know her devotedly at her knees.

Despite the coffee stain on his “flannel,” the lipstick on his coat, and the “spilt bourbon” that symbolizes her tendency toward mishap, he characterizes their relationship as glorious in their “unbreakable heaven,” a place safe even from her.

In the last stanza in an image of delf-denial, he volunteers to study “wry music” to please her. And then in what I think is one of the most memorable images in all poetry, he says that should her “hands drop white and empty/ All the toys of the world break.” Toys symbolize the fun, joie de vivre — the loss that her death and her absence from his life would mean.

Nims’s lover has a realistic view, but it is arguably just as passionate as the conventional, “romantic” view — indeed, more so because it allows for faults and doesn’t expect conformity to a manufactured image.

The last stanza

Be with me, darling, early and late. Smash glasses—
I will study wry music for your sake.
For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.