Some thoughts on poetry

Some thoughts on reading poetry THE ‘SYNTAX’ OF POETRY is seldom as easy to read as that of prose. It requires a different mode of reading, and the temptation is, never ‘to read line 3 until we are sure of the meaning of line 2.’ But this is an obstruction, a clog to the mind—one which impedes the flow, and misses ‘the music’ of the poem. We kill its spirit if we try to comprehend its meaning by means of ‘a set of propositions that can be laid end to end.’ Rather, we should let the music take us before we (attempt to) secure the sense. And if we remain bewildered at any point, this too can be fruitful. There are many passages in the poetry of T S Eliot which give us a meaning we do not understand—at first, or ever. 1 These passages should be savoured—which means learning to savour them. Further, to take an example from fiction, Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is so cleverly written that we never can know exactly what went on at Bly Hall—so that we have to remain in mystery: and a mystery solved robs us of a certain delight which we ought rather to cultivate. I confess that I cannot read poetry without, simultaneously, studying it (on a course). But when I do study poetry under these conditions, I find it so enriching that I wish I could – or did – read poetry always (and perhaps ought to seek out courses, so that I can combine study with essay writing. Which latter is remarkably effective in getting a poet’s meaning and style into your mind—style being a carrier of meaning). Another problem I find, is deciding which of the poets on my bookshelves I should read—their qualities being, as I guess, equal as exemplars of different types of visualisation. I don’t have this problem of choice nearly so much with novels. But then novels deal (generally) with some central theme which you can immerse yourself in and take pleasure from its gradual unfolding. Whereas poems tend to jolt your consciousness with their quick and short measure expressions of emotions and states of being. And I doubt that we are so constituted as to easily dart from one state of mind to another. I’ve read several books about poetry, and although little of what I read seems to stay in my mind, a fair amount does ‘stick’ whenever I put my mind to it (as I am here). I never forget the importance of rhythm and stress—English being a stress–based language. Stress is very important in terms of meaning, as can be demonstrated by an example of prose: You sat with him. (Sotto voce: You’re mad!’) You sat with him. (Sotto voce: ‘Voluntarily?’) You sat with him. (Sotto voce: ‘Your taste is in question.’) You sat with him. (Sotto voce: ‘You, of all people …’) This perhaps goes some way towards an understanding of why it is that, if we give stress to some words in poetry (as if we were reading prose), then we may easily misunderstand what we are reading—because the shaping of a poem requires more subtlety – a greater compression of meaning – than is customarily required in prose (which is at least to say that there may be six ways of writing a sentence in prose, and perhaps only one in a line of poetry). However, this does not mean that there is only one way of reading a poem (and some writers, looking back at their earlier writing, have found passages unintelligible even to themselves). I have not mentioned Rhyme as an essential quality of poetry. This because so much Modernist and Post–Modernist poets – wearying at the endless rhymed couplets of so much pre–twentieth century poetry – have turned to internal rhyme, free verse, or verse which is prose put into verse format, and therefore not poetry at all. Internal rhyme often pleases me. It’s as if rhythm is given greater freedom to move through a poem, trace across its surface, and catch itself unawares in unexpected places. Line length too, becomes a matter for the ear to decide. In the example poem below, I’ve put some words and lines into italics, as those that possibly have stress and movement, but I imagine there could be many variations: Mind tide Press the spiral seashell to your ear: hear the ocean pound, a all around. a Feel the salt sand shift, as you press your feet onto the shore. b Watch the seabirds soar b into the air, without a sound. Hear the wave–dragged shingle roll and roar b beneath the swell. See the pallid ‘day moon’ ride the sky. Feel the deep connecting mystery of your soul. And think: No moon, no earth in stable orbit, no good, no evil, no judged: no human sign or impress upon the sluggish, tideless shore. 2 b There are two line–ending rhymes, and internally, several echoes, as ell, es, eel, and or. The last line reads, I think, with slow but heavy stresses: upon the sluggish, tideless shore. At a slug’s pace, as may be said. Poetry that is in fact (bad) prose I HAVE SOMETIMES TURNED on the radio and thought that I was listening to prose; whereas it was – apparently – poetry (and I should have been alerted to this by the tone of high seriousness with which it was being read …). THE NEW YORKER – a magazine whose articles are of world class standard – consistently publishes what can only be described as truly awful poems. And I can only assume that their editorial board is poetry–illiterate. Here as an example, from March 2021, is part of a poem titled ALLEGORY, by Gregory Pardlo: Professional wrestler Owen Hart embodied his own omen when he battled gravity from rafters to canvas in a Kansas City stadium. Like a great tent collapsing, he fell without warning, no hoverboard, no humming– bird’s finesse for the illusion of flight, no suspension of disbelief to hammock his burden—the birth of virtue— in its virtual reality. His angelic entrance eclipsed when his safety harness failed. He fell out of the ersatz like a waxwing duped by infinities conjured in a squeegee’s mirage. Spectators wilted as the creature of grief emerged to graze on their sapling gasps and shrieks … Hammocking his burden? Falling out of the ersatz? Conjured in a squeegee’s mirage? All this is risible, and if the NEW YORKER’S standard of journalism was on par with such pretentious drivel, it would cease publication overnight. Peter Hart, 26 July 2022 _______________ Notes 1 This paragraph is partly a paraphrase from a Book on Ezra Pound by the fine critic Donald Davies. And the part lines in quotes are verbatim from the same source. 2 The earth, spinning on its axis, has the same potential to wobble as does a child’s humming top. That is does not destabilise in this way is due to the gravity of the moon, which checks this potentially disastrous situation. Without the moon we would indeed be ‘all at sea.’ Charlotte Mew’s ‘Arracombe Wood’: using tradition to make something new I have loved this poem ever since I first read it. Technically it has a highly complex and inventive rhyme scheme: a b a b b a b b b b b b c c b c c c b The line, [There] ’Will be violets in the Spring; in Summer time the spider’s lace, is an alexandrine, consisting here of thirteen words. It may seem strange – as a long line – in this poem. But imagine: xxxArracombe Wood do think more of a crow – ’Will be violets in the Spring; xxxxIn Summer time the spider’s lace; And come the Fall, the whizzle and race ‘Spring’ here is an interloper, an isolated ‘ing’, rhyming with no other line–ending word. Perhaps Mew could have written different lines, but I think it far more likely that her poetic sense and knowledge of poesy suggested just this solution. I probably would never have discovered Mew, (1869–1928), had it not been for a series of booklets on ‘The Great Poets’, written by Michael Schmidt, and ‘folded up’ in The Independent newspaper. The poets in the last of the series were: Hardy, Housman, Mew. I looked at ‘Mew’ dumbfounded, but discovered that she was highly praised by Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, Siegfried Sassoon, John Masefield, and Walter de la Mare; and that a civil list pension was obtained for her. Hardy regarded her as ‘the greatest woman poet of the age’ (yet she has the distinction of being excluded from the ‘Norton Anthology of Poetry’ …).