Before the stone comes the clay. Before the clay comes the drawing. Before the drawing comes the in-drawn breath.
And that breath exhales utterance required from the drama of human experience. In that utterance lies pressure, in that pressure lies nascent form. To renew that nascence the form, the pressure, the experience, and the utterance must all be reviewed, like a tracker on the trail of a vapor that could mean survival.
Impact is the question we must answer with our responses, be they physical, mental or spiritual. For as matter is to mind, mind is to soul. And within the soul repose those responses the poet seeks.
This is my blog on the technique of poetry written in traditional verse. However, it does not require adherence to any formal philosophy of literature or art, just a desire to teach yourself more. It presumes that traditional rhyme and meter remain worthwhile, though other types of verse are the present norm. This does not mean so-called 'free' verse is in any way undesirable, only that traditional verse may be the better option for a writer -- depending on the time, place and circumstances that individual writer may face.
You can approach this blog in several ways. For instance, you can simply click Older Posts below and read the blog 'backwards', or you can go to the Chronological Archive I've created (just to the right) and start at the beginning, unwinding the blog like a scroll.
Also, I've reworked the posts into a regular continuity under Pages at the top right. You can read this blog like a book that way.
I hope you enjoy your voyage herein. May you also benefit from the experience.
(rewritten 4/24/14)
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Note
I've added a Content Notice to this Blogger account's main page, just below the profile. It places a copyright on everything I've written here, 'except where noted'. The exceptions are those versions of the poem called "My Mandolin Sings", all of which are covered by a Creative Commons license, along with all posts those versions appeared in or directed the reader to see. Other than those, everything in this blog is copyrighted by me.
The individual copyright notices on other separate poems I wrote, posted and commented on here remain, just to make sure the distinction between them and "My Mandolin Sings" is crystal clear.
When I started this blog almost five years ago, I decided against including a specific copyright notice, because I wanted this material to be freely adaptable by anyone interested in doing so. I wanted to avoid inhibiting any reuse in any way.
But things have changed since then. This blog became longer and more involved, and the ideas and techniques within it became several entities that others could spin into a book or two, and -- for all I know -- earn themselves a considerable reputation and maybe even some money. This is a sensitive topic with me, so I have decided to copyright everything that rests herein, except "My Mandolin Sings" and its various versions and comments.
That this weblog could be adapted into a book of my own has obviously also occurred to me. That's why I created the Chronological Archive sidebar and the book-like organization under Pages, so clearly I have no problem with either approach, as long as I'm the one providing them.
I also have no problem with anyone using materials herein to stimulate their own original creative thinking and writing. That is, in fact, this blog's purpose.
One of my heroes is John Milton, who wrote many things with no expectation of any financial return whatsoever. We'd probably nowadays call that his pro bono work, borrowing a term from lawyers who take clients unable to pay them 'for the public good'. I doubt whether you can separate Milton's work like that -- he wrote everything he did largely for others' benefit -- but I think you get my drift. This blog is here for you to use as you see fit, but it's not here to steal.
___
I want to acknowledge those who transmitted, informed and otherwise contributed to the contents of this blogbook. It was my great good fortune to have some of the best professors I could have had during my college years, and parts of their lectures remain with me like gems in a vault.
For various reasons, I don't want to mention the most influential by name at this time. However, I will say my courses in literature, language, philosophy and science at Pfeiffer College in Misenheimer, NC, during the early 1970s, and English literature (especially for Chaucer, Shakespeare and the British novel) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the mid-1970s fill that storehouse I've found so valuable.
This is also true largely of the brother blog to this one
notinourstarsbutinourselves.blogspot.com
though the acknowledgements there would cull from a much larger list of courses and professors. As to my true teaching master the whole time, I think the titles to both blogs say it all.
The individual copyright notices on other separate poems I wrote, posted and commented on here remain, just to make sure the distinction between them and "My Mandolin Sings" is crystal clear.
When I started this blog almost five years ago, I decided against including a specific copyright notice, because I wanted this material to be freely adaptable by anyone interested in doing so. I wanted to avoid inhibiting any reuse in any way.
But things have changed since then. This blog became longer and more involved, and the ideas and techniques within it became several entities that others could spin into a book or two, and -- for all I know -- earn themselves a considerable reputation and maybe even some money. This is a sensitive topic with me, so I have decided to copyright everything that rests herein, except "My Mandolin Sings" and its various versions and comments.
That this weblog could be adapted into a book of my own has obviously also occurred to me. That's why I created the Chronological Archive sidebar and the book-like organization under Pages, so clearly I have no problem with either approach, as long as I'm the one providing them.
I also have no problem with anyone using materials herein to stimulate their own original creative thinking and writing. That is, in fact, this blog's purpose.
One of my heroes is John Milton, who wrote many things with no expectation of any financial return whatsoever. We'd probably nowadays call that his pro bono work, borrowing a term from lawyers who take clients unable to pay them 'for the public good'. I doubt whether you can separate Milton's work like that -- he wrote everything he did largely for others' benefit -- but I think you get my drift. This blog is here for you to use as you see fit, but it's not here to steal.
___
I want to acknowledge those who transmitted, informed and otherwise contributed to the contents of this blogbook. It was my great good fortune to have some of the best professors I could have had during my college years, and parts of their lectures remain with me like gems in a vault.
For various reasons, I don't want to mention the most influential by name at this time. However, I will say my courses in literature, language, philosophy and science at Pfeiffer College in Misenheimer, NC, during the early 1970s, and English literature (especially for Chaucer, Shakespeare and the British novel) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the mid-1970s fill that storehouse I've found so valuable.
This is also true largely of the brother blog to this one
notinourstarsbutinourselves.blogspot.com
though the acknowledgements there would cull from a much larger list of courses and professors. As to my true teaching master the whole time, I think the titles to both blogs say it all.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Homework
Ancient Greek had two 'hands' -- a cursive or 'running' hand that was used for everyday writing and a 'book' hand that was used by scribes on scrolls. This book hand was called 'uncial' -- from a term that means 'twelfth part'. In short (ow), you could get twelve letters (formally called 'characters') per line on average in a scroll book.
This Greek uncial created scrolls in papyrus and much later on parchment for an early type of book called a 'codex'. But, as the ancient world gave way to the Middle Ages, this uncial hand got less readable as less-able hands put quill to vellum.
In the 9th Century, some Greek monks reformed the whole thing, creating 'minuscule'. This prompted a publishing revolution -- partly because you could get a lot more letters per book in minuscule, and partly because they were easier for copyists to make. Books got smaller, cheaper and then more widespread, as demand increased production.
But making sure scribes had the best texts to copy in the first place took painstaking research and careful forethought. Awareness that this was even necessary for holy writ took centuries, as did methods for doing it right, since ideas about and techniques for both largely passed with pagan antiquity. The whole process, such as it was, stayed inside the monastery until Renaissance humanism put another revolution in motion.
Though the famous Aldine press in Venice had been publishing typeset Greek literary classics for some time before that, the first New Testament in Greek set in movable type was printed in 1514 at a university in Spain under the auspices of a cardinal there as part of a multi-language project for the entire Bible. Some 200 characters were created for this and similar projects to represent all 24 Greek letters and their many scribal variations, along with combinations of Greek letters called 'ligatures'.
While this multi-language (called a polyglot) version was waiting for the pope's OK, Erasmus edited his own version of the Greek NT and got it published by a Swiss printer named Froben before the Catholic polyglot came out. (That's why Erasmus gets the credit. Whether he was racing to do that remains unclear.)
After the success of Erasmus, presses in France, Switzerland and Italy got busy with their versions in several sizes. Soon afterward, most of the literate Western world could get hold of a Greek book in some form with a far more familiar (to them) Latin translation on the facing page.
That's what I found, in a nutshell. However, the details of this story are much more complex. I'll let those interested find more on their own.
___
BTW, the digamma's name was pronounced more like 'vau'. And there were several other Greek letters that had dropped out of the ancient written language besides that one.
And one more note: I got all the above from books I have, not from the Internet. You do need books. Written by knowledgeable people. There just is no substitute.
This Greek uncial created scrolls in papyrus and much later on parchment for an early type of book called a 'codex'. But, as the ancient world gave way to the Middle Ages, this uncial hand got less readable as less-able hands put quill to vellum.
In the 9th Century, some Greek monks reformed the whole thing, creating 'minuscule'. This prompted a publishing revolution -- partly because you could get a lot more letters per book in minuscule, and partly because they were easier for copyists to make. Books got smaller, cheaper and then more widespread, as demand increased production.
But making sure scribes had the best texts to copy in the first place took painstaking research and careful forethought. Awareness that this was even necessary for holy writ took centuries, as did methods for doing it right, since ideas about and techniques for both largely passed with pagan antiquity. The whole process, such as it was, stayed inside the monastery until Renaissance humanism put another revolution in motion.
Though the famous Aldine press in Venice had been publishing typeset Greek literary classics for some time before that, the first New Testament in Greek set in movable type was printed in 1514 at a university in Spain under the auspices of a cardinal there as part of a multi-language project for the entire Bible. Some 200 characters were created for this and similar projects to represent all 24 Greek letters and their many scribal variations, along with combinations of Greek letters called 'ligatures'.
While this multi-language (called a polyglot) version was waiting for the pope's OK, Erasmus edited his own version of the Greek NT and got it published by a Swiss printer named Froben before the Catholic polyglot came out. (That's why Erasmus gets the credit. Whether he was racing to do that remains unclear.)
After the success of Erasmus, presses in France, Switzerland and Italy got busy with their versions in several sizes. Soon afterward, most of the literate Western world could get hold of a Greek book in some form with a far more familiar (to them) Latin translation on the facing page.
That's what I found, in a nutshell. However, the details of this story are much more complex. I'll let those interested find more on their own.
___
BTW, the digamma's name was pronounced more like 'vau'. And there were several other Greek letters that had dropped out of the ancient written language besides that one.
And one more note: I got all the above from books I have, not from the Internet. You do need books. Written by knowledgeable people. There just is no substitute.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Wow
It seems I was not the only one confused: a search for 'uncial' turned up a lot of interesting responses. As did one for 'capital I'.
What 'uncial' represents, even in the true script hand of various ancient languages, appears to be a crap shoot. Usually a mix of what we customarily consider capital and minuscule letters, 'uncial' may not be the term I need.
Upper case, lower case ... middle case? 'Case', in case (!) you were confused, is a typesetter's term from the days of manual letterpress (that's setting all the letters by hand, rubbing ink on them and pressing them against a piece of paper or a card). Once upon a time, 'moveable' type was just that, moving from press to press in a giant rack that held 'cases' of letters.
I recall seeing, but never using, an old letterpress in this retail store where I worked as a teen. It fascinated me. It was used in the store to print cards (I think 10" by 20") to advertise certain 'specials' offered from time to time that were to be displayed point-of-purchase (yeah, 'purchase' and 'pay for' are different. Another post.).
And this old letterpress had three sets (or 'cases') of its one and only alphabet (or 'font'). It was kept around because the guy who printed up the signs with the newer letterpress (that had only two sets of alphabets) occasionally needed an extra letter or two from the old one. Made of soft metal, many letters had been worn down by use over time and, frankly, this old deal was way too heavy to move -- so there it sat, collecting dust.
Something this guy pointed out to me one day was the difference in the 'i' letters for the old one, the difference being the one I described in the last post.
As I searched various Google fonts since I last posted, it seems this 'third' distinction is not even in the specs for digital fonts. It also seems that few, if any, digital san serif fonts exist with the proper form of capital 'I' -- the lineal 'caps' on that and the capital 'J' not being serifs, but actually parts of that size letter, just as the dot in the lower case or minuscule versions of those letters is not decorative, but essential.
In the offhand (I know, ouch) type (yeah) of script hand I'd used for 20 years or more, I did not bother dotting a single 'i'. But now -- using the more formally recognized script hand with dotted 'i' and 'j' -- the re-copied results look clearer. Poems just snap into focus (or further out, depending on how well they were written). Odd.
It seems my offhand hand was not so much "off", as merely my own kind of misapplied uncial. Hmmmm.
We are at the beginning of a revolution in typesetting. Isn't it high time we drop the old typewriter "two-case" alphabets and start doing it right, before the situation gets any more 'wrong'?
___
By the way, 'wow' is probably close to how the Greeks once pronounced a letter their alphabet actually lost -- the digamma.
It happens.
What 'uncial' represents, even in the true script hand of various ancient languages, appears to be a crap shoot. Usually a mix of what we customarily consider capital and minuscule letters, 'uncial' may not be the term I need.
Upper case, lower case ... middle case? 'Case', in case (!) you were confused, is a typesetter's term from the days of manual letterpress (that's setting all the letters by hand, rubbing ink on them and pressing them against a piece of paper or a card). Once upon a time, 'moveable' type was just that, moving from press to press in a giant rack that held 'cases' of letters.
I recall seeing, but never using, an old letterpress in this retail store where I worked as a teen. It fascinated me. It was used in the store to print cards (I think 10" by 20") to advertise certain 'specials' offered from time to time that were to be displayed point-of-purchase (yeah, 'purchase' and 'pay for' are different. Another post.).
And this old letterpress had three sets (or 'cases') of its one and only alphabet (or 'font'). It was kept around because the guy who printed up the signs with the newer letterpress (that had only two sets of alphabets) occasionally needed an extra letter or two from the old one. Made of soft metal, many letters had been worn down by use over time and, frankly, this old deal was way too heavy to move -- so there it sat, collecting dust.
Something this guy pointed out to me one day was the difference in the 'i' letters for the old one, the difference being the one I described in the last post.
As I searched various Google fonts since I last posted, it seems this 'third' distinction is not even in the specs for digital fonts. It also seems that few, if any, digital san serif fonts exist with the proper form of capital 'I' -- the lineal 'caps' on that and the capital 'J' not being serifs, but actually parts of that size letter, just as the dot in the lower case or minuscule versions of those letters is not decorative, but essential.
In the offhand (I know, ouch) type (yeah) of script hand I'd used for 20 years or more, I did not bother dotting a single 'i'. But now -- using the more formally recognized script hand with dotted 'i' and 'j' -- the re-copied results look clearer. Poems just snap into focus (or further out, depending on how well they were written). Odd.
It seems my offhand hand was not so much "off", as merely my own kind of misapplied uncial. Hmmmm.
We are at the beginning of a revolution in typesetting. Isn't it high time we drop the old typewriter "two-case" alphabets and start doing it right, before the situation gets any more 'wrong'?
___
By the way, 'wow' is probably close to how the Greeks once pronounced a letter their alphabet actually lost -- the digamma.
It happens.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Done ... (in script).
The search is over. The search for my 'hand'. Script hand, that is.
In working on my 'fair copy' thing (see Fair Deal, my post on July 18, 2010), I found that my old, informal script hand (handblock, print hand, whatever), which I've used for decades and worked just fine for notes and garden-variety jottings, just looked like sh*& on page after page of My Collected Works (first typed 'Words' -- which fits.)
So, I started trying to remember how I was taught script hand (we called it 'hand-printing' instead of 'handwriting', which was cursive) back in grade school. It looks pretty much like the "Normal" font for this Blogger account, though without serifs. But, when I got to writing titles for the poems, as well as a title page for the collection with its own title, it still looked wrong.
I didn't know what to do with 'I' -- the capital letter, that is. If I made it like a straight line, it looked like a little 'l', and that was confusing because I had one title with the word "Ill" in it.
But if I added little 'caps' on the I, it still looked wrong. And if I put a tiny 'serif' on the little 'l', it looked pretentious and even more wrong.
Then, like a bolt from the blue yesterday, it hit me. There are three kinds of letters in script hand. No typewriter I know can reproduce them, so it seems to me we've forgotten about that third kind.
Back in the days of Greek parchment manuscripts, there were three kinds of script. One was capital, one was uncial, and one was minuscule. Because both capital and uncial are large letters ("majuscule", in script-speak), they were combined in typesetting and then in personal typewriters.
But capital letters and uncial letters have different functions when all you've got is paper and pen. I can't reproduce it here, and I know of no custom type fonts that have them in a personal-computer form (the keyboards we use are mostly the same as typewriters -- with a number pad, a function pad and some command keys added).
What we casually call script hand is merely a combination of capital and minuscule ('little') letters. But if you add modern uncial English hand, and if you combine the three properly, there is no confusion.
Here is my short hand (ouch) guide:
Most uncials look just like short capital letters in modern script hand. There are two exceptions: the capital "I" and capital "J" have the caps, which are wider than serifs though not as wide as the cap on the capital "T". However, the uncials of those letters have no caps and are the same height as the other uncial letters. If you were writing capital letters in script hand that filled almost the entire space between the lines of standard pre-lineated paper, the uncials would be about three- or four-fifths that high.
The minuscule "i" and "j" are dotted, the dots reaching about the same height as the capital letters.
Capital letters are used to start sentences, identify proper names, etc. in both uncial and minuscule script hand. All-capital hand is for book titles (magazine names, etc.). A mix of capitals and uncials would be for chapter names (and perhaps the author's name, etc.), while capitals plus minuscules are for plain text. The all-uncial hand would be like bold text (citations for book titles, signage in text, etc.), with underscoring reserved throughout for emphasis, including subchapter names and so forth. Italics -- well, that's another matter. (Afternote {5/11/13}: You could just use cursive in those instances, though true italic script hand is where we get into calligraphy.)
I know all this is confusing, when a scan of my script hand formula would show what I mean in a second. I just don't have that capability here. Sorry.
Nobody I know does this anymore, and you'd only see it probably on fair copies nowadays. For the hand(ouch-ouch)ful of us who even want to do that.
But figuring it out made me happy. Thought I'd share.
___
BTW, 'lettering' in word balloons for comic books is usually different: it uses what I'm calling 'uncial' hand in all but the letter 'I'. It seems most comic-book letterers by convention use the uncial 'I' in all but one instance -- first-person singular, when they use a capital 'I' with its 'caps'.
Afternote (4/18/13): Forgot all about the numeral 'one'. Had used a single " | " stroke (but shorter) for decades, much like old manual typewriters that used a lowercase " l " for a numeral one (Google's Times typeface still does!). But the traditional little curved leader with a standard base (leader and left-side of base the same length) now works for me. Needed to deepen the curves on numerals two and three, give the open numeral four a little curve of its own, and put an extra tiny downstroke on the top of the numeral seven for full effect. A lot clearer now.
In working on my 'fair copy' thing (see Fair Deal, my post on July 18, 2010), I found that my old, informal script hand (handblock, print hand, whatever), which I've used for decades and worked just fine for notes and garden-variety jottings, just looked like sh*& on page after page of My Collected Works (first typed 'Words' -- which fits.)
So, I started trying to remember how I was taught script hand (we called it 'hand-printing' instead of 'handwriting', which was cursive) back in grade school. It looks pretty much like the "Normal" font for this Blogger account, though without serifs. But, when I got to writing titles for the poems, as well as a title page for the collection with its own title, it still looked wrong.
I didn't know what to do with 'I' -- the capital letter, that is. If I made it like a straight line, it looked like a little 'l', and that was confusing because I had one title with the word "Ill" in it.
But if I added little 'caps' on the I, it still looked wrong. And if I put a tiny 'serif' on the little 'l', it looked pretentious and even more wrong.
Then, like a bolt from the blue yesterday, it hit me. There are three kinds of letters in script hand. No typewriter I know can reproduce them, so it seems to me we've forgotten about that third kind.
Back in the days of Greek parchment manuscripts, there were three kinds of script. One was capital, one was uncial, and one was minuscule. Because both capital and uncial are large letters ("majuscule", in script-speak), they were combined in typesetting and then in personal typewriters.
But capital letters and uncial letters have different functions when all you've got is paper and pen. I can't reproduce it here, and I know of no custom type fonts that have them in a personal-computer form (the keyboards we use are mostly the same as typewriters -- with a number pad, a function pad and some command keys added).
What we casually call script hand is merely a combination of capital and minuscule ('little') letters. But if you add modern uncial English hand, and if you combine the three properly, there is no confusion.
Here is my short hand (ouch) guide:
Most uncials look just like short capital letters in modern script hand. There are two exceptions: the capital "I" and capital "J" have the caps, which are wider than serifs though not as wide as the cap on the capital "T". However, the uncials of those letters have no caps and are the same height as the other uncial letters. If you were writing capital letters in script hand that filled almost the entire space between the lines of standard pre-lineated paper, the uncials would be about three- or four-fifths that high.
The minuscule "i" and "j" are dotted, the dots reaching about the same height as the capital letters.
Capital letters are used to start sentences, identify proper names, etc. in both uncial and minuscule script hand. All-capital hand is for book titles (magazine names, etc.). A mix of capitals and uncials would be for chapter names (and perhaps the author's name, etc.), while capitals plus minuscules are for plain text. The all-uncial hand would be like bold text (citations for book titles, signage in text, etc.), with underscoring reserved throughout for emphasis, including subchapter names and so forth. Italics -- well, that's another matter. (Afternote {5/11/13}: You could just use cursive in those instances, though true italic script hand is where we get into calligraphy.)
I know all this is confusing, when a scan of my script hand formula would show what I mean in a second. I just don't have that capability here. Sorry.
Nobody I know does this anymore, and you'd only see it probably on fair copies nowadays. For the hand(ouch-ouch)ful of us who even want to do that.
But figuring it out made me happy. Thought I'd share.
___
BTW, 'lettering' in word balloons for comic books is usually different: it uses what I'm calling 'uncial' hand in all but the letter 'I'. It seems most comic-book letterers by convention use the uncial 'I' in all but one instance -- first-person singular, when they use a capital 'I' with its 'caps'.
Afternote (4/18/13): Forgot all about the numeral 'one'. Had used a single " | " stroke (but shorter) for decades, much like old manual typewriters that used a lowercase " l " for a numeral one (Google's Times typeface still does!). But the traditional little curved leader with a standard base (leader and left-side of base the same length) now works for me. Needed to deepen the curves on numerals two and three, give the open numeral four a little curve of its own, and put an extra tiny downstroke on the top of the numeral seven for full effect. A lot clearer now.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Done ... (Three)
MY MANDOLIN SINGS
Like a thrush on the heather,
My mandolin sings --
Dancing like a tiny feather,
The joy that it brings!
If times be weighed by weather,
I'm lonely or sad --
Wherever my heart's tether,
My mandolin sings.
Her strings beneath my fingers,
How happy our days!
Her high note chirping lingers
In air as she plays.
Deeply as a kitten purrs,
Her low notes uncurl.
Whatever part she prefers,
How happy our days.
Brooks babblin', pine limbs swirlin',
The mandolin sings.
Tails twitchin', wings unfurlin',
As nature, it springs!
Whenever mercy's fallin',
By day or by night,
I grant my heart her callin' --
The mandolin sings.
Creative Commons License 2012 William Mark Gabriel. (Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License)
Like a thrush on the heather,
My mandolin sings --
Dancing like a tiny feather,
The joy that it brings!
If times be weighed by weather,
I'm lonely or sad --
Wherever my heart's tether,
My mandolin sings.
Her strings beneath my fingers,
How happy our days!
Her high note chirping lingers
In air as she plays.
Deeply as a kitten purrs,
Her low notes uncurl.
Whatever part she prefers,
How happy our days.
Brooks babblin', pine limbs swirlin',
The mandolin sings.
Tails twitchin', wings unfurlin',
As nature, it springs!
Whenever mercy's fallin',
By day or by night,
I grant my heart her callin' --
The mandolin sings.
Creative Commons License 2012 William Mark Gabriel. (Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License)
Monday, September 17, 2012
Done ... (Two)
MORE CAME
If, in this web of copper, glass, concrete
And carbon, we could join our yielding souls
Any other way, I'd find this, our wholes
Inside these cubes of labor's being, sweet.
A blown kiss, or a gentle waving treat
Tenders memory's store more than touch foals
Taste or sense of soft-urging pressure's goals:
Greater longing, sooner flown down the street!
Still, our love for love owns nothing we see,
Though nothing replaces skin on skin impressed --
Our nows' deny us, even when framed art.
Electrons current our sharp need -- the heart,
Despite its pumping pleasure's seed, finds rest.
As ever, we bring what we send, thus free.
Copyright (C) 2012 William Mark Gabriel. All Rights Reserved.
If, in this web of copper, glass, concrete
And carbon, we could join our yielding souls
Any other way, I'd find this, our wholes
Inside these cubes of labor's being, sweet.
A blown kiss, or a gentle waving treat
Tenders memory's store more than touch foals
Taste or sense of soft-urging pressure's goals:
Greater longing, sooner flown down the street!
Still, our love for love owns nothing we see,
Though nothing replaces skin on skin impressed --
Our nows' deny us, even when framed art.
Electrons current our sharp need -- the heart,
Despite its pumping pleasure's seed, finds rest.
As ever, we bring what we send, thus free.
Copyright (C) 2012 William Mark Gabriel. All Rights Reserved.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Done ... (One)
WROTE UNDER A WILLOW OAK (TO ONE TIRED OF THE TIRING)
"Mannered and obsolete", I hear them moan,
Wincing over words forming ocean's rove,
In smartly correct theories that reprove
Any effort past bland themes they condone.
Have we words with secret lives of their own,
Huddled, shrinking from our meek dread of love,
In cold and dripping caves, who cannot move
Beyond the clapping hand of cliched koan?
Pure faith in the sweet pull of dendric ache
Reveals such lore each limbed hard holds within
Her sweet cascade of lissome Summer's chime.
There, we'll give more than they could dream to take
In soft dalliance with firmer rules' ken.
Pulsing Nature's touch pours out rhyme and time.
Copyright (C) 2012 William Mark Gabriel. All Rights Reserved.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Afternote Three: Wade in the Water, Children
There's this thing you see in every group -- subgroups. At group meetings, they usually sit together (which is why, if I'm new to a group, I deliberately sit in the back, away from the main body. This allows me to see all the subgroups.)
At poetry readings/meetings I've been to, there is the main group -- the core, the nucleus. They sit front-and-center, usually.
Then, there is usually a pair of support groups -- the wings, the banks, the estates. Yes, they often group politically and in the proper side relation, at least in view of the aforementioned subgroup watcher in the back of the room in that little table by himself.
Then, there are little nests of secondaries. Some carp, some kibbitz, some sit politely while wishing they were sitting further front. An interesting subgroup flits here and there among them -- the semi-outsiders. In poetry groups I've been in, the last are primarily musicians. (They want to play.)
Then, there are those around the bar. The rebels, outliers and mad scientists of the group, they form a nucleus of their own. The barista front-to-side, the barkeep/owner in the rear are referees, umpires, enforcers. The emcee/chair/etc. sits at the bar, keeping an eye on the rebels and an ear toward the barkeep/owner.
My seat is next to the swinging door where the cafe/caterer staff exit to dump garbage and wash dishes. Right where I belong.
What has always bugged me is this -- the subtext to these subgroups seems to be sustaining the attitude that such groups are all about being poets, want-to-be being poets, wish-to-be being poets or having-given-up-wanting-or-wishing-to-be-being poets.
Assuming all in the group-at-large have a gift for writing, this just seems to be a waste of valuable resources. Where are the critics? Where are the promoters? Where are -- most importantly -- the editors?
Are there critics at elbow with the rebels at the bar? Are there promoters sitting in the wings? Are there editors among the nests?
Critics, as I have tried to point out here, do not necessarily carp and tear down. They can, and should, serve a positive function in setting canons of taste (for which there is no "accounting" -- Victorian English for "quantifying"). This function has both a general aspect and a local aspect. ("A good poem is a good poem, but what's best for here?")
Promoters get the general audience to come to events. They make sure the events are run well, publicized and set in good places, and also feature the best and most exciting talent for that particular event (a New Talent Night would feature different poets than an Old Guard Night.).
I've saved the biggest waste for last: editors. They are often the poets who count themselves lucky to get (1) an honorable mention in contests, (2) more than a smattering of applause at open mic nights, or (3) anyone at the front table to remember their names.
But do they write well? Have they considered prose poetry, for instance? Writing essays about poetry of any kind? Starting or taking up or working on a journal? While I agree with most that you need to be a poet yourself to properly edit a journal, review or chapbook series, I don't see why you have to be a Dante or a Milton to do it. (I don't recall reading anywhere that either great ever edited anything other than his own work.)
To me, a great editor is a good poet with the broad taste of the best critics, an abiding concern with promoting other good poets, and a searing passion to make sure the best poems in every category see the widest possible circulation.
We need more of this water. Such growth happens around the country, but it occurs in diffusely localized situations. Hundreds of tiny puddles instead of a few big new waves.
If you're in a poetry group, you might use what I have written above (or what others you respect have written elsewhere) to re-assess the potential of your contribution. Critics, promoters and editors alike form the aqua vitae (in its literal sense) for great poetry movements.
And consider this: T.S. Eliot would have had to leave his masterpieces to the care of relatives (as Emily Dickinson had to do) without people like Harriet Monroe and Conrad Aiken. Without people like Joyce Glassman Johnson and Mark Van Doren, Jack Kerouac would have been the writer of one or two failed novels and a desk full of semi-coherent scribbles. And without Eliot or Kerouac or their like, who would remember the critics, promoters or editors who supported them? There is mutual benefit available to those ready and willing to grasp it.
My message is this: You, O poetry club member, can do more.
Just what is up to you.
At poetry readings/meetings I've been to, there is the main group -- the core, the nucleus. They sit front-and-center, usually.
Then, there is usually a pair of support groups -- the wings, the banks, the estates. Yes, they often group politically and in the proper side relation, at least in view of the aforementioned subgroup watcher in the back of the room in that little table by himself.
Then, there are little nests of secondaries. Some carp, some kibbitz, some sit politely while wishing they were sitting further front. An interesting subgroup flits here and there among them -- the semi-outsiders. In poetry groups I've been in, the last are primarily musicians. (They want to play.)
Then, there are those around the bar. The rebels, outliers and mad scientists of the group, they form a nucleus of their own. The barista front-to-side, the barkeep/owner in the rear are referees, umpires, enforcers. The emcee/chair/etc. sits at the bar, keeping an eye on the rebels and an ear toward the barkeep/owner.
My seat is next to the swinging door where the cafe/caterer staff exit to dump garbage and wash dishes. Right where I belong.
What has always bugged me is this -- the subtext to these subgroups seems to be sustaining the attitude that such groups are all about being poets, want-to-be being poets, wish-to-be being poets or having-given-up-wanting-or-wishing-to-be-being poets.
Assuming all in the group-at-large have a gift for writing, this just seems to be a waste of valuable resources. Where are the critics? Where are the promoters? Where are -- most importantly -- the editors?
Are there critics at elbow with the rebels at the bar? Are there promoters sitting in the wings? Are there editors among the nests?
Critics, as I have tried to point out here, do not necessarily carp and tear down. They can, and should, serve a positive function in setting canons of taste (for which there is no "accounting" -- Victorian English for "quantifying"). This function has both a general aspect and a local aspect. ("A good poem is a good poem, but what's best for here?")
Promoters get the general audience to come to events. They make sure the events are run well, publicized and set in good places, and also feature the best and most exciting talent for that particular event (a New Talent Night would feature different poets than an Old Guard Night.).
I've saved the biggest waste for last: editors. They are often the poets who count themselves lucky to get (1) an honorable mention in contests, (2) more than a smattering of applause at open mic nights, or (3) anyone at the front table to remember their names.
But do they write well? Have they considered prose poetry, for instance? Writing essays about poetry of any kind? Starting or taking up or working on a journal? While I agree with most that you need to be a poet yourself to properly edit a journal, review or chapbook series, I don't see why you have to be a Dante or a Milton to do it. (I don't recall reading anywhere that either great ever edited anything other than his own work.)
To me, a great editor is a good poet with the broad taste of the best critics, an abiding concern with promoting other good poets, and a searing passion to make sure the best poems in every category see the widest possible circulation.
We need more of this water. Such growth happens around the country, but it occurs in diffusely localized situations. Hundreds of tiny puddles instead of a few big new waves.
If you're in a poetry group, you might use what I have written above (or what others you respect have written elsewhere) to re-assess the potential of your contribution. Critics, promoters and editors alike form the aqua vitae (in its literal sense) for great poetry movements.
And consider this: T.S. Eliot would have had to leave his masterpieces to the care of relatives (as Emily Dickinson had to do) without people like Harriet Monroe and Conrad Aiken. Without people like Joyce Glassman Johnson and Mark Van Doren, Jack Kerouac would have been the writer of one or two failed novels and a desk full of semi-coherent scribbles. And without Eliot or Kerouac or their like, who would remember the critics, promoters or editors who supported them? There is mutual benefit available to those ready and willing to grasp it.
My message is this: You, O poetry club member, can do more.
Just what is up to you.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Afternote Two: Quartos
Why did ol' Tom write the Four Quartets?
To be famous? He already was. To secure his literary heritage? Nothing is less secure. To make some 'grand statement'? See the first two answers.
Without having read any major biographies or done any real research, I want to suggest an answer: he was afraid of moving back to London and helping people cope with the Blitz.
To me, Four Quartets lives under an umbrella of the poet's search for 'ultimate answers' in life and death -- hiding under the umbrella is Eliot's real-world fear of getting blown to bits by a buzz bomb.
He probably realized volunteering to work as an air raid warden would get him sent to the worst place in London -- an area surrounding an old Roman road that would have made an easy WW2-bomber target.
This road is in the poem. I'll let you find it. The road runs through the whole work -- sometimes quite literally, sometimes in bits, like a mosaic.
I am probably way off-base. (Online sources have him drafting Four Quartets while he was an air raid warden or watchman or whatever.) I usually am. But just think about it, anyway. Eliot may even have had a real, direct and personal motive for actually going and doing what scared him the most. Something that would have overmastered his fear.
Think about that, too.
To be famous? He already was. To secure his literary heritage? Nothing is less secure. To make some 'grand statement'? See the first two answers.
Without having read any major biographies or done any real research, I want to suggest an answer: he was afraid of moving back to London and helping people cope with the Blitz.
To me, Four Quartets lives under an umbrella of the poet's search for 'ultimate answers' in life and death -- hiding under the umbrella is Eliot's real-world fear of getting blown to bits by a buzz bomb.
He probably realized volunteering to work as an air raid warden would get him sent to the worst place in London -- an area surrounding an old Roman road that would have made an easy WW2-bomber target.
This road is in the poem. I'll let you find it. The road runs through the whole work -- sometimes quite literally, sometimes in bits, like a mosaic.
I am probably way off-base. (Online sources have him drafting Four Quartets while he was an air raid warden or watchman or whatever.) I usually am. But just think about it, anyway. Eliot may even have had a real, direct and personal motive for actually going and doing what scared him the most. Something that would have overmastered his fear.
Think about that, too.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Afternote One -- Remember when I wrote "Jean-Louis"?
It's funny how one mention of the name "Kerouac" can bring out the PARRRRR-TAYYYY AAAANNNIMAL -- WOOO! in certain burnt-out cases around my age.
It seems people don't understand the guy any more now than they did back when he was alive. A 'regular guy' with a troubled past, a football injury that killed his college career when the term 'red shirt' meant something else, and a yen after that to find the truth wherever it lead him is what I think of when I hear the name, personally.
Maybe all the drugs and drink and vido loco in his poetry was necessary for him to find what he was looking for, and maybe it wasn't.
What this blog has been about -- all about, really -- is that, if it ever was necessary, it no longer is.
P.S.: That doesn't mean you won't suffer travails, neighbors -- just that you don't necessarily need to dive in looking for them.
___
After-afternote (11/28/12): I wrote the first sentence above never having read On The Road. Truly. I was only interested in Kerouac the poet, having heard years ago he was a mediocre novelist. Now that I've just finished On The Road (the standard prose version, looking for clues to his Blues), I know why the 'party animal' label sticks to him so securely, even after a half century.
As for his being a mediocre novelist, Kerouac may have had the last laugh: look at some of the longer prose poems of Baudelaire (one of Kerouac's more obvious forebears) and compare them to the allegedly awkward beginning and 'overwritten' sections of On the Road. Hmmm ... . Maybe the novel wasn't the point, after all.
It seems people don't understand the guy any more now than they did back when he was alive. A 'regular guy' with a troubled past, a football injury that killed his college career when the term 'red shirt' meant something else, and a yen after that to find the truth wherever it lead him is what I think of when I hear the name, personally.
Maybe all the drugs and drink and vido loco in his poetry was necessary for him to find what he was looking for, and maybe it wasn't.
What this blog has been about -- all about, really -- is that, if it ever was necessary, it no longer is.
P.S.: That doesn't mean you won't suffer travails, neighbors -- just that you don't necessarily need to dive in looking for them.
___
After-afternote (11/28/12): I wrote the first sentence above never having read On The Road. Truly. I was only interested in Kerouac the poet, having heard years ago he was a mediocre novelist. Now that I've just finished On The Road (the standard prose version, looking for clues to his Blues), I know why the 'party animal' label sticks to him so securely, even after a half century.
As for his being a mediocre novelist, Kerouac may have had the last laugh: look at some of the longer prose poems of Baudelaire (one of Kerouac's more obvious forebears) and compare them to the allegedly awkward beginning and 'overwritten' sections of On the Road. Hmmm ... . Maybe the novel wasn't the point, after all.
Friday, June 22, 2012
The Light
He lived way up there. That guy everybody avoided. For all sorts of reasons. There were rumors, of course. That there were more than just him up there in that little cave just past all the big rocks. But that's all they were, rumors.
When one of Dum Dum's successors saw the same old pattern of theft-war-aftermath evolving and had just had enough of it -- he decided to go up there. Go up there and talk to the Fool on the Hill.
Dum deDum (i know, sorry) came back a changed man. He didn't look much different. But his attachment to his historic role and to the tribe in general had dramatically changed.
He knew how to alter the course of history, for one thing. The tide had to establish itself first, but he could change its course once it did. If it truly mattered. And with seemingly little effort.
Dum deDum could make his own poems -- and I mean really compose them. He didn't just cleave to the same old same old, either. He could make it all very different, but somehow without departing from tradition too much. They also were very satisfying to hear. (That was the strangest part.)
He didn't hate the smug and smelly Tribe Over There (more or less distance, this time). He didn't love his own tribe any more or any less for it, either.
The people who had pretty much had Dum deDum all figured out didn't any more. It frustrated them, and they went looking for the Fool on the Hill because of it. He was gone.
Other people began watching Dum deDum -- and I mean in every little detail. Followed him everywhere, too -- making note of his every move. Some imitated everything he did, obsessively. Others just stared, their mouths agape. How could he do those things? What made him so different all of a sudden? Just who did this guy think he was, anyway? They all stood, perplexed.
Dum deDum didn't seem to care. He also wasn't particularly impressed with himself, which just infuriated everyone else all the more.
But the tribe's leaders -- particularly Ug the 27th (just to pick a number) -- listened to Dum deDum. They weren't as distracted by his mannerisms (or lack of them) or peculiarly insulting statements and questions as the rest were. The leaders seemed to be able to make something of things he said and did.
The tribe began to grow. Develop something we now call "civility" -- the start of "civil-ization". As a result, there was another kidnapping -- this time a ring of People Who Turned Out to be Not What They Seemed got Dum deDum. But this time, Dum deDum just rode with it, despite being constantly harassed and needled by the kidnapping ring. Leaving his familiar surroundings also bothered him, but he wasn't destroyed by it. In fact, he barely broke stride. Though he could be, and was at times, very uncivil.
The kidnapping failed ultimately because the ring fell apart, its members squabbling among themselves. Dum deDum just seemed to take wing and fly away.
I'm not sure what happened next. I do know this. Searching for liberation, Dum deDum had found The Light. And he carried it with him for the rest of his life.
When one of Dum Dum's successors saw the same old pattern of theft-war-aftermath evolving and had just had enough of it -- he decided to go up there. Go up there and talk to the Fool on the Hill.
Dum deDum (i know, sorry) came back a changed man. He didn't look much different. But his attachment to his historic role and to the tribe in general had dramatically changed.
He knew how to alter the course of history, for one thing. The tide had to establish itself first, but he could change its course once it did. If it truly mattered. And with seemingly little effort.
Dum deDum could make his own poems -- and I mean really compose them. He didn't just cleave to the same old same old, either. He could make it all very different, but somehow without departing from tradition too much. They also were very satisfying to hear. (That was the strangest part.)
He didn't hate the smug and smelly Tribe Over There (more or less distance, this time). He didn't love his own tribe any more or any less for it, either.
The people who had pretty much had Dum deDum all figured out didn't any more. It frustrated them, and they went looking for the Fool on the Hill because of it. He was gone.
Other people began watching Dum deDum -- and I mean in every little detail. Followed him everywhere, too -- making note of his every move. Some imitated everything he did, obsessively. Others just stared, their mouths agape. How could he do those things? What made him so different all of a sudden? Just who did this guy think he was, anyway? They all stood, perplexed.
Dum deDum didn't seem to care. He also wasn't particularly impressed with himself, which just infuriated everyone else all the more.
But the tribe's leaders -- particularly Ug the 27th (just to pick a number) -- listened to Dum deDum. They weren't as distracted by his mannerisms (or lack of them) or peculiarly insulting statements and questions as the rest were. The leaders seemed to be able to make something of things he said and did.
The tribe began to grow. Develop something we now call "civility" -- the start of "civil-ization". As a result, there was another kidnapping -- this time a ring of People Who Turned Out to be Not What They Seemed got Dum deDum. But this time, Dum deDum just rode with it, despite being constantly harassed and needled by the kidnapping ring. Leaving his familiar surroundings also bothered him, but he wasn't destroyed by it. In fact, he barely broke stride. Though he could be, and was at times, very uncivil.
The kidnapping failed ultimately because the ring fell apart, its members squabbling among themselves. Dum deDum just seemed to take wing and fly away.
I'm not sure what happened next. I do know this. Searching for liberation, Dum deDum had found The Light. And he carried it with him for the rest of his life.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
"This guy is just nuts!"
Some more reference work (not a lot, really) found me the more thoroughgoing source for "epic". The Greek word epos means a "word" -- "word" as in a "statement" or "utterance", rather than an individual noun, verb, adjective or adverb. It also means, by association, a tale, a story or a lay. In plural, the word refers to poetry in "heroic" verse or just plain "epic poetry".
That makes it the opposite of melei -- or lyric poetry. The singular masculine form, melos, initially referred to a "limb" -- arm or leg, not part of a tree -- and secondarily, to a song or a strain of lyric poetry. It was also used to distinguish what the chorus sang in tragic drama, as opposed to the dialogue. I had to think about "limb" overnight. Then, an idea came -- the word for one of the favorite metrical feet in Greek, the dactyl, originally meant "finger" -- one long, followed by two shorts (counting outward from the knuckle). So, maybe (this is what the scholars call a "conjecture" and the lawyers a "surmise" -- what you and I call a wild guess), a finger, then a hand, then a forearm, then the upper arm, then the shoulder -- a lyric poem! (I said it was a wild guess.)
But I'm not talking about melos here. By using "ode" and "hymn" I'm trying to recall (yeah, here we go) the state of humanity in prehistoric times. Which isn't that long ago. You can't have history without writing, so we're talking the last 7,000 years or so of the some 100,000 years of the fully human experience.
Using Greek words makes this jump more convenient. True histories didn't appear (AFAIK) until well into the beginning of civilization. But, unlike the Latin-speaking peoples, the Greeks had a fully developed epic (Illiad, Odyssey) and hymnic (the Homeric hymns) "literature" before they even had their own alphabet (alpha, beta, gamma, ... yeah, that's the word for it) to write it down with. Their odic literature came either just before or not that far after that, historically. (Tragedy may have come from the word meaning "goat song". First you get a goat-sacrifice ode, then you get a goat-sacrifice call-and-response ode, then you get someone to poetically recite the story of how the first goat got sacrificed while the call-and-response ode goes on behind you, then you get somebody to impersonate the first goat-sacrificer ... . Who plays the goat? Whoever's goat they got! Ouch.)
So, yeah, Melos and Epos are the two parts of basic Greek poetic theory. Let me repeat -- theory.
Going back to my crazy Stone Age thing, Dum-Dum (my new name for the first memorizer/reciter -- he had a verbal rhythm going, and he was too "dumb" for anything related to hunting, except to maybe conk on the head and use for mastodon bait. That possibility will improve your memory skills!) wouldn't have had the necessity or even time to write lyric poetry as we think of it. Maybe Oa had had a few starts at it, but really, when your first thought at every sunrise was "How do I survive today?", imitating bird calls in word-rhythm would just not be a priority.
You'd need you some civilization for that Melos stuff to get started. Or maybe just the ghastly peace that follows a long and horrible war. So Dum-Dum's understudy would maybe have cut a reed and started to blow sad bird calls through it, so he could compose him some First-Ever-Post-War Blues.
Who knows?
_____
There is critical basis for all this craziness I've set down here -- though, unfortunately, I've had to resort to my much-fractured memory (again with that!) of yet another book I gave away, the classic Epic and Romance by W.P. Ker. I may have the whole ode-hymn-epic deal ack-basswards or may be thinking of another book entirely, so I'll leave you to find this one (it's a free Google EBook) and read it for yourselves to see.
However, you'll need more than that to vett all I've written in this and the last two posts. Finding a good historical linguist (known as a "philologist" in my day, and maybe still) will be a start, or at least some background essays or books by that person or persons.
Note: If you are taking a course in something related to this, and you use my stuff here -- you risk flunking the course. I am no expert. I am just trying to get a certain discussion going again.
That makes it the opposite of melei -- or lyric poetry. The singular masculine form, melos, initially referred to a "limb" -- arm or leg, not part of a tree -- and secondarily, to a song or a strain of lyric poetry. It was also used to distinguish what the chorus sang in tragic drama, as opposed to the dialogue. I had to think about "limb" overnight. Then, an idea came -- the word for one of the favorite metrical feet in Greek, the dactyl, originally meant "finger" -- one long, followed by two shorts (counting outward from the knuckle). So, maybe (this is what the scholars call a "conjecture" and the lawyers a "surmise" -- what you and I call a wild guess), a finger, then a hand, then a forearm, then the upper arm, then the shoulder -- a lyric poem! (I said it was a wild guess.)
But I'm not talking about melos here. By using "ode" and "hymn" I'm trying to recall (yeah, here we go) the state of humanity in prehistoric times. Which isn't that long ago. You can't have history without writing, so we're talking the last 7,000 years or so of the some 100,000 years of the fully human experience.
Using Greek words makes this jump more convenient. True histories didn't appear (AFAIK) until well into the beginning of civilization. But, unlike the Latin-speaking peoples, the Greeks had a fully developed epic (Illiad, Odyssey) and hymnic (the Homeric hymns) "literature" before they even had their own alphabet (alpha, beta, gamma, ... yeah, that's the word for it) to write it down with. Their odic literature came either just before or not that far after that, historically. (Tragedy may have come from the word meaning "goat song". First you get a goat-sacrifice ode, then you get a goat-sacrifice call-and-response ode, then you get someone to poetically recite the story of how the first goat got sacrificed while the call-and-response ode goes on behind you, then you get somebody to impersonate the first goat-sacrificer ... . Who plays the goat? Whoever's goat they got! Ouch.)
So, yeah, Melos and Epos are the two parts of basic Greek poetic theory. Let me repeat -- theory.
Going back to my crazy Stone Age thing, Dum-Dum (my new name for the first memorizer/reciter -- he had a verbal rhythm going, and he was too "dumb" for anything related to hunting, except to maybe conk on the head and use for mastodon bait. That possibility will improve your memory skills!) wouldn't have had the necessity or even time to write lyric poetry as we think of it. Maybe Oa had had a few starts at it, but really, when your first thought at every sunrise was "How do I survive today?", imitating bird calls in word-rhythm would just not be a priority.
You'd need you some civilization for that Melos stuff to get started. Or maybe just the ghastly peace that follows a long and horrible war. So Dum-Dum's understudy would maybe have cut a reed and started to blow sad bird calls through it, so he could compose him some First-Ever-Post-War Blues.
Who knows?
_____
There is critical basis for all this craziness I've set down here -- though, unfortunately, I've had to resort to my much-fractured memory (again with that!) of yet another book I gave away, the classic Epic and Romance by W.P. Ker. I may have the whole ode-hymn-epic deal ack-basswards or may be thinking of another book entirely, so I'll leave you to find this one (it's a free Google EBook) and read it for yourselves to see.
However, you'll need more than that to vett all I've written in this and the last two posts. Finding a good historical linguist (known as a "philologist" in my day, and maybe still) will be a start, or at least some background essays or books by that person or persons.
Note: If you are taking a course in something related to this, and you use my stuff here -- you risk flunking the course. I am no expert. I am just trying to get a certain discussion going again.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
In Memory
Let's say you are Ug's poetry memorizer/reciter.
You keep in memory the Great Hunt Exploit (jogged by your meditative viewing of the Great Hunt Painted on the Cave Wall), you hold in mind his own hymn "The Day I Made the Lightning Mine" (Ug has an ego, folks).
Plus, you keep the tribe's hymns, chants and seasonal odes Oa has composed ready to recite. (She keeps the lullabyes, berry-gathering lays and open-pit-cooking songs to her own store.)
Then, something terrible happens. The tribe two hills over has decided your tribe has a good thing going and has also decided it's time to make it theirs. This tribe decided that (a) asking your tribe to teach them would be too much work (that learning and memorizing stuff is hard) (b) making war on your tribe would be too expensive (plus, their tribe might lose) so (c) kidnapping you is their best bet.
You don't notice those smug-and-smelly evildoers over there by the bushes as you take a break to take care of your business. And -bang- before you know it, they've got that animal skinbag over your head, and off you go to the really smug-and-smelly-bad tribe two hills over. (They're smelly because they don't believe in baths, and they're smug because they believe this personal choice makes them the superior animal.)
Nestled in them thar hills is a lotta bad stuff gettin' hid from plain sight. And you couldn't help but notice -- as you are forced to teach the smug and the smelly your language, which they didn't want to learn in the first place -- they have Ug's pretty cousin thought eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger actually tied up over in Cave 3a where the s'n's boys 'r makin' her make them some babies, and Ug's medicine man's long-lost brother over down in the Cave With No Number makin' him do spells for the Two Hills Over Tribe.
And you know what's coming. War.
And war comes. And it's a long one. It does to both tribes what war has done ever since. You, the memorizer/reciter, survive -- barely.
And, years later, you decide you're going to make your Last Stand composing a poem that links all the elements you've so carefully shepherded all your life. It will call together all your narrative, hymnic and lyric skills to pull off. Plus, your memories of happier days. And your memories of ones less so.
Once you get started, you have to make sure your apprentice (another bare survivor) gets it all down, because this is the Long Poem About the Good Tribe that Was. And how its members had to Go Bad to Get What Was Theirs Back. And how one son of Ug got through it all and lived to carry on.
We now call those poems "epic". The Greek word is one for "word" or "song". Your epic becomes the basis for all learning the tribe experiences henceforth, as it struggles toward a form of organization intended to prevent warfare (and, inevitably it seems, fails) called "civilization".
Epics have changed over the centuries. They have dealt with all sorts of struggles -- ethical, spiritual and even philosophical (see, again, The Top Ten {April 14, 2010} for more). But those changes haven't diminished human society's need for them.
I'm not sure epic poems are necessary nowadays solely to help schoolchildren develop good memory skills (along with the good reading, writing and overall learning skills that accompany a good memory). But knowledge of what epics are probably is needed for composing the poems of the future that will help make whatever they learn more meaningful.
You keep in memory the Great Hunt Exploit (jogged by your meditative viewing of the Great Hunt Painted on the Cave Wall), you hold in mind his own hymn "The Day I Made the Lightning Mine" (Ug has an ego, folks).
Plus, you keep the tribe's hymns, chants and seasonal odes Oa has composed ready to recite. (She keeps the lullabyes, berry-gathering lays and open-pit-cooking songs to her own store.)
Then, something terrible happens. The tribe two hills over has decided your tribe has a good thing going and has also decided it's time to make it theirs. This tribe decided that (a) asking your tribe to teach them would be too much work (that learning and memorizing stuff is hard) (b) making war on your tribe would be too expensive (plus, their tribe might lose) so (c) kidnapping you is their best bet.
You don't notice those smug-and-smelly evildoers over there by the bushes as you take a break to take care of your business. And -bang- before you know it, they've got that animal skinbag over your head, and off you go to the really smug-and-smelly-bad tribe two hills over. (They're smelly because they don't believe in baths, and they're smug because they believe this personal choice makes them the superior animal.)
Nestled in them thar hills is a lotta bad stuff gettin' hid from plain sight. And you couldn't help but notice -- as you are forced to teach the smug and the smelly your language, which they didn't want to learn in the first place -- they have Ug's pretty cousin thought eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger actually tied up over in Cave 3a where the s'n's boys 'r makin' her make them some babies, and Ug's medicine man's long-lost brother over down in the Cave With No Number makin' him do spells for the Two Hills Over Tribe.
And you know what's coming. War.
And war comes. And it's a long one. It does to both tribes what war has done ever since. You, the memorizer/reciter, survive -- barely.
And, years later, you decide you're going to make your Last Stand composing a poem that links all the elements you've so carefully shepherded all your life. It will call together all your narrative, hymnic and lyric skills to pull off. Plus, your memories of happier days. And your memories of ones less so.
Once you get started, you have to make sure your apprentice (another bare survivor) gets it all down, because this is the Long Poem About the Good Tribe that Was. And how its members had to Go Bad to Get What Was Theirs Back. And how one son of Ug got through it all and lived to carry on.
We now call those poems "epic". The Greek word is one for "word" or "song". Your epic becomes the basis for all learning the tribe experiences henceforth, as it struggles toward a form of organization intended to prevent warfare (and, inevitably it seems, fails) called "civilization".
Epics have changed over the centuries. They have dealt with all sorts of struggles -- ethical, spiritual and even philosophical (see, again, The Top Ten {April 14, 2010} for more). But those changes haven't diminished human society's need for them.
I'm not sure epic poems are necessary nowadays solely to help schoolchildren develop good memory skills (along with the good reading, writing and overall learning skills that accompany a good memory). But knowledge of what epics are probably is needed for composing the poems of the future that will help make whatever they learn more meaningful.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Knee MON Icks
There has been some debate lately (*runs to check latest*) across The Pond over whether schoolchildren should be required to recite poetry from memory.
It has given some there the mental image of a squirming 10-year-old boy in knickers (in the US, those are short trousers for boys) struggling to get passing marks from his scowling schoolmaster as the child stumbles over a selection from "The Lady of Shallot" (Tennyson's poem that eventually led him to write The Idylls of the King [see The Top Ten in my archive {April 14, 2010}]).
I can testify to this: they made us when I was 11 or 12 do Leigh Hunt's much easier "Abou ben Adhem" -- and it calls to my mind memories of me howling with laughter to one poor girl's minor fumbles, only to have me make a complete ass of myself with the same thing a few weeks later (it was a one-student-per-week attempt -- you got to volunteer which week).
I have always been bad at rote memorization. The students who were good at it back then also were the ones who got straight As in every other subject and ended up going to Ivy League or other high-quality private colleges in later years. I don't know if there's a connection to be made with that or not. My Abou ben Adam humiliation was 45 years ago.
Things have changed since then. Substantially (except for me being humiliated).
Here is what I can offer (and, since this blog has been about renewing traditional poetry, I feel I should): the words in Greek for memory (there, of course, are more than one) stem from "mnaomai", which means "to be mindful of a person or thing". We get from that "mneimonikos", which means "of or for remembrance", or "memory". Another word that means the same thing is "mnemosunei" (The "u" is usually transliterated as a "y", and the "ei" in my transliteration is spelled in Greek with a letter than looks like a little "n" with a long tail, named "eta".).
The name for the mother of the Muses is "Mnemosyne" -- which is really just the (traditionally transliterated) proper noun form of "mnemosunei".
The first part of the last sentence is my point. The Greeks realized that memory is the "mother" of poetry, which in turn is the source for its sibling arts.
It turns out recent research shows that the cave paintings I referred to in my posts Old Long Since and What I Meant (I think) {Nov. 29 and 30, 2010} may indeed have referred to ancient lost poems. These poems would have had to have been composed mentally and preserved by memory. The paintings are some 30,000 years old. Writing dates from about 7,000 years ago and the Greek alphabet from about 3,000 years ago. My information on all that may itself be "dated". You should double-check it yourself for accuracy, because I am writing from memory. (Yep. That thing. That I'm not so good at. That I used to make my customary B grades in school. That I got from just listening in class, because I had trouble memorizing stuff I was supposed to study at home. That didn't work for math ... that -- I'll assume you get my drift here.).
Reciters of these lost "cave" poems could have used the cave paintings to jog their memories, because the poems were likely long ballads commemorating (yep) a successful long hunt for a huge beast that would have fed the whole tribe for as long as the cooked meat could have been preserved back then (i.e., not that long).
There would have been other poems written by Ug the Fire Priest (see my post Ug! Fire! {August 8, 2009} for more on him), memorializing (uh-huh) his discovery of the lightning-sourced flamey stuff his people used to preserve that mastodon meat for as long as they could. These poems would have sounded more like "hymns" -- a word that in Greek refers to a poem written "in praise of" a person or thing.
And Oa the wife of Ug may have kept a few bits he composed to her while they were wooing, called by the Greeks "odes". If you wrote one of those to be sung with a lyre, then it was a "lyric" ode. (Again, double check all this for yourself. I'm usually off-base on something or other.). Maybe she had a few odes of her own. Personal ones -- ones so personal she would have had to burn them later with some of that flamey stuff if she'd ever dared to write them down (if she'd had anything to write them down on, if there was something to write them down with, if there was writing, if ... ) -- see my post Ouch! {November 7, 2008} for more.
The balladic instinct is tribal, the hymnic is familial and the odic is individual. That's a lot to keep in mind, I admit. But it may be worth remembering. (Yeah, I know: ouch.)
Obviously, we need something more current than "The Lady of Shallot" to wrap all this in one bundle, so schoolchildren can recall (ouch) the entire poetic experience instinctually without having to read a mountain of books first, and then mull them over by themselves for decades and then somehow boil it all down in a blog and then hope somebody ... .
There have been a lot of poems written in English since "The Lady of Shallot" was published. But how many do you remember?
Line by line?
And then can get a 12-year-old to recite?
It seems there is more work to do, don't you think?
_____
I don't allow links on this blog, so I'll include back dates here in {brackets} and from now on. Also, I've since amended the "dates" for writing and Greek alphabetics -- I was thinking 5,000 BC and typing "years ago"!
It has given some there the mental image of a squirming 10-year-old boy in knickers (in the US, those are short trousers for boys) struggling to get passing marks from his scowling schoolmaster as the child stumbles over a selection from "The Lady of Shallot" (Tennyson's poem that eventually led him to write The Idylls of the King [see The Top Ten in my archive {April 14, 2010}]).
I can testify to this: they made us when I was 11 or 12 do Leigh Hunt's much easier "Abou ben Adhem" -- and it calls to my mind memories of me howling with laughter to one poor girl's minor fumbles, only to have me make a complete ass of myself with the same thing a few weeks later (it was a one-student-per-week attempt -- you got to volunteer which week).
I have always been bad at rote memorization. The students who were good at it back then also were the ones who got straight As in every other subject and ended up going to Ivy League or other high-quality private colleges in later years. I don't know if there's a connection to be made with that or not. My Abou ben Adam humiliation was 45 years ago.
Things have changed since then. Substantially (except for me being humiliated).
Here is what I can offer (and, since this blog has been about renewing traditional poetry, I feel I should): the words in Greek for memory (there, of course, are more than one) stem from "mnaomai", which means "to be mindful of a person or thing". We get from that "mneimonikos", which means "of or for remembrance", or "memory". Another word that means the same thing is "mnemosunei" (The "u" is usually transliterated as a "y", and the "ei" in my transliteration is spelled in Greek with a letter than looks like a little "n" with a long tail, named "eta".).
The name for the mother of the Muses is "Mnemosyne" -- which is really just the (traditionally transliterated) proper noun form of "mnemosunei".
The first part of the last sentence is my point. The Greeks realized that memory is the "mother" of poetry, which in turn is the source for its sibling arts.
It turns out recent research shows that the cave paintings I referred to in my posts Old Long Since and What I Meant (I think) {Nov. 29 and 30, 2010} may indeed have referred to ancient lost poems. These poems would have had to have been composed mentally and preserved by memory. The paintings are some 30,000 years old. Writing dates from about 7,000 years ago and the Greek alphabet from about 3,000 years ago. My information on all that may itself be "dated". You should double-check it yourself for accuracy, because I am writing from memory. (Yep. That thing. That I'm not so good at. That I used to make my customary B grades in school. That I got from just listening in class, because I had trouble memorizing stuff I was supposed to study at home. That didn't work for math ... that -- I'll assume you get my drift here.).
Reciters of these lost "cave" poems could have used the cave paintings to jog their memories, because the poems were likely long ballads commemorating (yep) a successful long hunt for a huge beast that would have fed the whole tribe for as long as the cooked meat could have been preserved back then (i.e., not that long).
There would have been other poems written by Ug the Fire Priest (see my post Ug! Fire! {August 8, 2009} for more on him), memorializing (uh-huh) his discovery of the lightning-sourced flamey stuff his people used to preserve that mastodon meat for as long as they could. These poems would have sounded more like "hymns" -- a word that in Greek refers to a poem written "in praise of" a person or thing.
And Oa the wife of Ug may have kept a few bits he composed to her while they were wooing, called by the Greeks "odes". If you wrote one of those to be sung with a lyre, then it was a "lyric" ode. (Again, double check all this for yourself. I'm usually off-base on something or other.). Maybe she had a few odes of her own. Personal ones -- ones so personal she would have had to burn them later with some of that flamey stuff if she'd ever dared to write them down (if she'd had anything to write them down on, if there was something to write them down with, if there was writing, if ... ) -- see my post Ouch! {November 7, 2008} for more.
The balladic instinct is tribal, the hymnic is familial and the odic is individual. That's a lot to keep in mind, I admit. But it may be worth remembering. (Yeah, I know: ouch.)
Obviously, we need something more current than "The Lady of Shallot" to wrap all this in one bundle, so schoolchildren can recall (ouch) the entire poetic experience instinctually without having to read a mountain of books first, and then mull them over by themselves for decades and then somehow boil it all down in a blog and then hope somebody ... .
There have been a lot of poems written in English since "The Lady of Shallot" was published. But how many do you remember?
Line by line?
And then can get a 12-year-old to recite?
It seems there is more work to do, don't you think?
_____
I don't allow links on this blog, so I'll include back dates here in {brackets} and from now on. Also, I've since amended the "dates" for writing and Greek alphabetics -- I was thinking 5,000 BC and typing "years ago"!
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Double the Trouble
My Parade Ground
In one sweet autumnal comedy last
Before annual fire of winter's clot
Reburied that city and bound it fast,
The mounted royal splendor liked me not.
Despite the best intentions a pup's got,
Those folk held their strictly private charade
Law at season's end, so I spent my pot
Playing the fool in my only parade.
The chromes, still glossy, tell my sorry past
Like a bad movie still more badly shot:
Backs avert, voided landscapes leaved and grassed
But sans humans -- who'd clearly fled the spot
And had dandylioned another plot
With that stupid tourist rising the grade.
Off season? That'd be good by me to trot,
Playing the fool in my only parade.
Heads, noses high, as if caught by foul blast,
Blocked my view at finish line; looks to rot
A stranger into my viewfinder were cast;
Then, a lone beret at cafe to blot
Familiarity with a green dot.
The final roll -- empty streets high in shade.
Last insult: I underexposed that lot,
Playing the fool in my only parade.
Six months before, a breakaway'd ended,
And that week, the country debated, blow
By blow, how relations would be mended.
I told myself, (ahem) I'd be a show
Of solidarity waving, although
My parlez-vous summed zip. What I displayed
Instead was how a dimwit blows his dough,
Playing the fool in my only parade.
Yet, I watched, I learned and then appended
What I found to my store of facts in tow;
They, the same: our workdays passed and blended
My bank's regrets with their wants in escrow.
Some followed my advice from column's row:
"Give time to travelers who with you've stayed,
No matter the season -- I did, you know,
Playing the fool in my only parade."
Twenty years clicked: an article wended
Its way to national view -- this is so --
That one city'd "successfully fended
Off its country's economical woe
With a steady stream of foreign cash flow"
From year-round pilgrimages tourists made.
I'll take applause for my work years ago,
Playing the fool in my only parade.
Princes, hire no clown in part-colored gown
To ply you with jests while on promenade;
My eyes stay open to what's up downtown,
Playing the fool in my only parade.
Copyright (C) 2012 William Mark Gabriel. All Rights Reserved.
___
The events actually are from the only vacation (apart from just staying home and sleeping in) I ever had, in 1980. The "article wended" was on the 'net in either '00 or early '01. I wrote the above earlier this year after spring cleaning turned up some old Kodachrome slides. While reviewing them, I recalled that I had been warned by a friend that the week in question was the worst possible for an Anglophone to visit this particular place, but I -- in my infinite 26-year-old wisdom -- thought I knew better. The work above is -- or at least tries to be -- a pastiche of Byron. I don't know if he ever wrote double ballades (this one, technically, isn't one, either -- I had to cheat on the rhyme), but the famous verse form of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan is similar.
BTW, I still think fondly of the place I visited way back then -- especially its wonderful Old City -- where, stupidly, I took no photos at all. (The trip wasn't a total loss: their TV shows were better!)
In one sweet autumnal comedy last
Before annual fire of winter's clot
Reburied that city and bound it fast,
The mounted royal splendor liked me not.
Despite the best intentions a pup's got,
Those folk held their strictly private charade
Law at season's end, so I spent my pot
Playing the fool in my only parade.
The chromes, still glossy, tell my sorry past
Like a bad movie still more badly shot:
Backs avert, voided landscapes leaved and grassed
But sans humans -- who'd clearly fled the spot
And had dandylioned another plot
With that stupid tourist rising the grade.
Off season? That'd be good by me to trot,
Playing the fool in my only parade.
Heads, noses high, as if caught by foul blast,
Blocked my view at finish line; looks to rot
A stranger into my viewfinder were cast;
Then, a lone beret at cafe to blot
Familiarity with a green dot.
The final roll -- empty streets high in shade.
Last insult: I underexposed that lot,
Playing the fool in my only parade.
Six months before, a breakaway'd ended,
And that week, the country debated, blow
By blow, how relations would be mended.
I told myself, (ahem) I'd be a show
Of solidarity waving, although
My parlez-vous summed zip. What I displayed
Instead was how a dimwit blows his dough,
Playing the fool in my only parade.
Yet, I watched, I learned and then appended
What I found to my store of facts in tow;
They, the same: our workdays passed and blended
My bank's regrets with their wants in escrow.
Some followed my advice from column's row:
"Give time to travelers who with you've stayed,
No matter the season -- I did, you know,
Playing the fool in my only parade."
Twenty years clicked: an article wended
Its way to national view -- this is so --
That one city'd "successfully fended
Off its country's economical woe
With a steady stream of foreign cash flow"
From year-round pilgrimages tourists made.
I'll take applause for my work years ago,
Playing the fool in my only parade.
Princes, hire no clown in part-colored gown
To ply you with jests while on promenade;
My eyes stay open to what's up downtown,
Playing the fool in my only parade.
Copyright (C) 2012 William Mark Gabriel. All Rights Reserved.
___
The events actually are from the only vacation (apart from just staying home and sleeping in) I ever had, in 1980. The "article wended" was on the 'net in either '00 or early '01. I wrote the above earlier this year after spring cleaning turned up some old Kodachrome slides. While reviewing them, I recalled that I had been warned by a friend that the week in question was the worst possible for an Anglophone to visit this particular place, but I -- in my infinite 26-year-old wisdom -- thought I knew better. The work above is -- or at least tries to be -- a pastiche of Byron. I don't know if he ever wrote double ballades (this one, technically, isn't one, either -- I had to cheat on the rhyme), but the famous verse form of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan is similar.
BTW, I still think fondly of the place I visited way back then -- especially its wonderful Old City -- where, stupidly, I took no photos at all. (The trip wasn't a total loss: their TV shows were better!)
Thursday, April 12, 2012
"Put not your trust in princes ... ."
I realize Ezra Pound was a fascist.
While his Cantos, yellowed and tattered in hardback, sits not forty feet from my elbow here at the public library (where I've posted all these), so does The Trial of Ezra Pound -- the account written by his attorney after defending him against a charge of treason. (Pound was found not competent to stand trial.)
I have been aware of Pound's some 300 broadcasts on behalf of Mussolini and the Axis powers during World War II for decades, my Poetry 101 professor in college even discussing the issue with us in class, having been himself a WWII vet in North Africa who'd heard some of Pound's radio diatribes (if they can be called even that) while there. He pointed out to us that Faber & Faber remained his UK publisher during that period, and that some people back then thought it was good that "the trains ran on time" when Mussolini first came to power.
Shortly after I became more aware of just how bad these broadcasts were (while reading an article in yet another public library by {I think, not sure} Kenneth Koch in the early 1980s), I bundled up most of my Pound-related books and handed them over to charity.
In the bookstore boom of the late 1990s, I rebought Confucius to cummings, the Selected Poems of Ezra Pound, and Rimbaud's Illuminations -- an author Pound put in his pet literary canon, as can be seen in the essay "How to Read" in his Literary Essays. I checked my boxes of books in storage today, and the Selected Poems appears to be missing. I'm sure I donated that one all over again. My relationship to this author is complicated, to say the least.
A transcript of some of his broadcasts surfaced on the 'net last year, and what I thought I knew about Pound fell through a trapdoor into Chaos. I'd had no idea they were that bad. Had I been foreman of a jury and saw those transcripts, Pound would have gotten the firing squad. Or I would have resigned in protest. No problem.
I want to be as clear as possible: to say I find the reality of Pound's Fascist background deplorable would be far too mild a word. Unforgiveable? It all happened before I was born, so I'm not in that position. I just don't know a word that would fit.
But without Pound's Literary Essays and Personae, I would not be the writer I am. I probably wouldn't be one at all. Maybe some of you (many? how would I know?) think that would have been a good thing. (Could I have just gone to law school instead? Wallace Stevens did. I don't like Wallace Stevens' poetry. It's not bad -- it just never grabbed me, that's all. Including "Sunday Morning". I mean, you'd think ... but no. Sorry.)
Why am I going into all this? "Antennae of their race" in my ballata below was not intended as a compliment to Pound's legacy. (Read the whole verse again, if you're not sure.) But my interest in Italian poetry, French poetry, German poetry, and my sustained interest in English poetry and just plain poetry all derive from his writing -- so that's why he's also the subject of an allusion in my ballade posted before the ballata in this blog -- not necessarily as a compliment, but as an attempt to be accurate.
In sum, I'm going to stand by my assessment and advice I first wrote in my post From C to Shining c in this blog -- mainly because continued hand-wringing over the crimes of someone who's dead and gone won't change anything, except to learn from their mistakes when possible and to amend them where possible.
I'll add one more note: also about forty feet from my elbow right now is an (out of print) slim paperback from those past masters of the slim paperback: Dover. It's called Early Poems of Ezra Pound. Some of his earliest work stands on its own and deserves to be in its own little collection.
That so much of the rest of Pound's work can be so often troubling is headstone (and lesson) enough.
While his Cantos, yellowed and tattered in hardback, sits not forty feet from my elbow here at the public library (where I've posted all these), so does The Trial of Ezra Pound -- the account written by his attorney after defending him against a charge of treason. (Pound was found not competent to stand trial.)
I have been aware of Pound's some 300 broadcasts on behalf of Mussolini and the Axis powers during World War II for decades, my Poetry 101 professor in college even discussing the issue with us in class, having been himself a WWII vet in North Africa who'd heard some of Pound's radio diatribes (if they can be called even that) while there. He pointed out to us that Faber & Faber remained his UK publisher during that period, and that some people back then thought it was good that "the trains ran on time" when Mussolini first came to power.
Shortly after I became more aware of just how bad these broadcasts were (while reading an article in yet another public library by {I think, not sure} Kenneth Koch in the early 1980s), I bundled up most of my Pound-related books and handed them over to charity.
In the bookstore boom of the late 1990s, I rebought Confucius to cummings, the Selected Poems of Ezra Pound, and Rimbaud's Illuminations -- an author Pound put in his pet literary canon, as can be seen in the essay "How to Read" in his Literary Essays. I checked my boxes of books in storage today, and the Selected Poems appears to be missing. I'm sure I donated that one all over again. My relationship to this author is complicated, to say the least.
A transcript of some of his broadcasts surfaced on the 'net last year, and what I thought I knew about Pound fell through a trapdoor into Chaos. I'd had no idea they were that bad. Had I been foreman of a jury and saw those transcripts, Pound would have gotten the firing squad. Or I would have resigned in protest. No problem.
I want to be as clear as possible: to say I find the reality of Pound's Fascist background deplorable would be far too mild a word. Unforgiveable? It all happened before I was born, so I'm not in that position. I just don't know a word that would fit.
But without Pound's Literary Essays and Personae, I would not be the writer I am. I probably wouldn't be one at all. Maybe some of you (many? how would I know?) think that would have been a good thing. (Could I have just gone to law school instead? Wallace Stevens did. I don't like Wallace Stevens' poetry. It's not bad -- it just never grabbed me, that's all. Including "Sunday Morning". I mean, you'd think ... but no. Sorry.)
Why am I going into all this? "Antennae of their race" in my ballata below was not intended as a compliment to Pound's legacy. (Read the whole verse again, if you're not sure.) But my interest in Italian poetry, French poetry, German poetry, and my sustained interest in English poetry and just plain poetry all derive from his writing -- so that's why he's also the subject of an allusion in my ballade posted before the ballata in this blog -- not necessarily as a compliment, but as an attempt to be accurate.
In sum, I'm going to stand by my assessment and advice I first wrote in my post From C to Shining c in this blog -- mainly because continued hand-wringing over the crimes of someone who's dead and gone won't change anything, except to learn from their mistakes when possible and to amend them where possible.
I'll add one more note: also about forty feet from my elbow right now is an (out of print) slim paperback from those past masters of the slim paperback: Dover. It's called Early Poems of Ezra Pound. Some of his earliest work stands on its own and deserves to be in its own little collection.
That so much of the rest of Pound's work can be so often troubling is headstone (and lesson) enough.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
The Bent Ballata
It turns out that the basic 'ballata' form is not that much different from some English poems and not all that hard to write. A definition in Wikipedia may refer to some text-for-music form -- the ballata poems I found in my old book of Italian poems (The Penguin Book of Italian Verse, edited and translated by George Kay) do not usually rhyme the way it says. They nearly all rhyme ABABBa -- or something similar. The little "a" in the rhyme scheme I'm using refers to a rhyme sound or word or line that recurs at the end of each stanza, not within the stanza itself. The 'ballatetta' is something I got from what Guido Cavalcanti called some of his ballata poems in that anthology -- his can be much more complex with very long stanzas and intricate rhyme schemes.* Wikipedia offers a link to the Italian text under the article titled with his name. Cavalcanti was a friend and colleague of Dante.
The form I used for my effort at a ballata I got from Angelo Poliziano, a friend and colleague of Lorenzo the Magnificent, also a master at the ballata. The Wikipedia article says that the 'ballata' is not like the French ballade, but like some other French form it names. However, the ballata poems by Poliziano and de Medici in my anthology look exactly like the French ballade of Villon -- though some of them use refraining rhyme sounds and words instead of refraining lines, and the verses do not rhyme with each other. Sometimes the Italian poems use refrain lines, though. The big difference is that they do not use an envoi at the end, but use a verset at the beginning. Dante's and Cavalcanti's ballata poems also use the beginning verset, at least in my anthology. It's probably not called a "verset". That's just my term for it. Each one of them introduces the refrain, whether a line, a word or a rhyme sound.
My effort -- "Spring's Flung" -- is based on one of Poliziano's (starting "Ben venga maggio" {'Welcome May' in the translation in my book}), at least in basic verse structure. I used a meter that I associate with dance -- trochaic tetrameter. It has a little beat at the end to stop the line, as I discussed in my post "Trochee Trips from Long to Short ...". The dance angle is something I got from the basic definition of "ballata" -- "a song for dance". The title of my effort is no conscious attempt at originality or ironic reference -- I just thought of it as I finished typing the text into the blog editor. I didn't have one before that. (Note: I've since slightly changed it and added a what I think is a made-up word to the verset {since changed}. I have also corrected two lines in the first full verse that each had one too many syllables [Egad!])
In the text itself, I appear to have either coined some words or bent them so far out of their ordinary usage that they might as well have been coined. "Sapping", for instance, refers to both growth and dehydration, in the sense of "drawing out" rather than draining, say, of strength (although you could think if it that way, if you want to). Also, "fond" refers to the older definition of "foolish," rather than liking something or someone. I took "capsuled heat" from a Borges short story -- though that exact term does not appear it the story, as far as I recall. And "antennae of their race" is an allusion to Ezra Pound.
I could say more, but I'd rather just let you have fun with what I've written. Again, you'll have to decide for yourself whether it's a poem or something 'bent'.
________
*Poems that old don't usually have titles, other than their first lines. The Cavalcanti poem I have been thinking of is "Fresca rosa novella" (translated 'Fresh new rose', in my anthology) -- which is an exception, in several ways. It is the only one of his in my anthology not termed a "ballatetta" by Cavalcanti, and it does have a rhyme scheme that resembles what Wikipedia has been calling a "ballata". Maybe it's the author's effort at saying "This is the authentic ballata of the troubadors" or something like that -- but that's just my wild guess. The rhyme scheme is ABBABAABCDDEEa for each of three verses, and the beginning "verset" uses the rhyme scheme of last four lines of the main verse pattern. The little "a" is the refrain rhyme at the last part of each verse and the verset, fully a part of each one's final sentence but metrically a tag. Also, not only do the verses not rhyme with each other, but, once a rhyme sound is employed, it is ruled out for the rest of the poem, except for the refraining one that doesn't appear anywhere else. When I was thinking of "impossible to do successfully in English", this is the one I meant.
The form I used for my effort at a ballata I got from Angelo Poliziano, a friend and colleague of Lorenzo the Magnificent, also a master at the ballata. The Wikipedia article says that the 'ballata' is not like the French ballade, but like some other French form it names. However, the ballata poems by Poliziano and de Medici in my anthology look exactly like the French ballade of Villon -- though some of them use refraining rhyme sounds and words instead of refraining lines, and the verses do not rhyme with each other. Sometimes the Italian poems use refrain lines, though. The big difference is that they do not use an envoi at the end, but use a verset at the beginning. Dante's and Cavalcanti's ballata poems also use the beginning verset, at least in my anthology. It's probably not called a "verset". That's just my term for it. Each one of them introduces the refrain, whether a line, a word or a rhyme sound.
My effort -- "Spring's Flung" -- is based on one of Poliziano's (starting "Ben venga maggio" {'Welcome May' in the translation in my book}), at least in basic verse structure. I used a meter that I associate with dance -- trochaic tetrameter. It has a little beat at the end to stop the line, as I discussed in my post "Trochee Trips from Long to Short ...". The dance angle is something I got from the basic definition of "ballata" -- "a song for dance". The title of my effort is no conscious attempt at originality or ironic reference -- I just thought of it as I finished typing the text into the blog editor. I didn't have one before that. (Note: I've since slightly changed it and added a what I think is a made-up word to the verset {since changed}. I have also corrected two lines in the first full verse that each had one too many syllables [Egad!])
In the text itself, I appear to have either coined some words or bent them so far out of their ordinary usage that they might as well have been coined. "Sapping", for instance, refers to both growth and dehydration, in the sense of "drawing out" rather than draining, say, of strength (although you could think if it that way, if you want to). Also, "fond" refers to the older definition of "foolish," rather than liking something or someone. I took "capsuled heat" from a Borges short story -- though that exact term does not appear it the story, as far as I recall. And "antennae of their race" is an allusion to Ezra Pound.
I could say more, but I'd rather just let you have fun with what I've written. Again, you'll have to decide for yourself whether it's a poem or something 'bent'.
________
*Poems that old don't usually have titles, other than their first lines. The Cavalcanti poem I have been thinking of is "Fresca rosa novella" (translated 'Fresh new rose', in my anthology) -- which is an exception, in several ways. It is the only one of his in my anthology not termed a "ballatetta" by Cavalcanti, and it does have a rhyme scheme that resembles what Wikipedia has been calling a "ballata". Maybe it's the author's effort at saying "This is the authentic ballata of the troubadors" or something like that -- but that's just my wild guess. The rhyme scheme is ABBABAABCDDEEa for each of three verses, and the beginning "verset" uses the rhyme scheme of last four lines of the main verse pattern. The little "a" is the refrain rhyme at the last part of each verse and the verset, fully a part of each one's final sentence but metrically a tag. Also, not only do the verses not rhyme with each other, but, once a rhyme sound is employed, it is ruled out for the rest of the poem, except for the refraining one that doesn't appear anywhere else. When I was thinking of "impossible to do successfully in English", this is the one I meant.
Monday, April 9, 2012
"Another one?" "Oh, no ... ."
Spring's Flung
Tide of green refreshes vernal day,
Light within the heart invigors clay.
When the dewy morning leaves its light
Scattered moth-like among blooming hills,
When the clamoring avian mobs indict
Warring tribes of feathers, claws and bills,
When petals' waft perfumes nostril's gills,
Heart prepares the soul to welcome day.
Armies marching joyous, legs of six,
Rank and file, antennae of their race,
Tune their search for royals' daily fix,
While the lucid wings of fighters chase
Semenated draughts in vulvar space,
Prancing minions herd their lust for day.
Blackened soils in molded work for death
Wait, the spoils of wars in air to come;
Jaws of worms, in lively touch, by breath
Take their holy work, the rot to sum.
Each awaits to each his mortal drum:
Worms in earth reverse the thirst for day.
Seeds in dust prepare their jaunt for life,
Whether tendril, rhizome, root inters;
Germination finds its way through strife --
Muddy, desert, flaming, pecked --, refers
Air that crawlers hale from out their furs
Rootward, shroving budded fruit to day.
Spirit's fond when sap is furling green,
Equal night recurs that winnowed heart
Find its tender shadow's blossomed mean.
Dark our pater: heaven's living art
Lumes its presence outward, hallowed dart.
Thickened blood's as sweet as sapping day.
Lord Penumbra hides the fire unknown
By his crowning, capsuled heat its shade;
Soul the mirror, breath the flesh, the bone --
Question answering by nothing made.
Finding searches end, beginnings laid,
While our hate of hatred lights the day.
Copyright (C) 2012 William Mark Gabriel. All Rights Reserved.
Tide of green refreshes vernal day,
Light within the heart invigors clay.
When the dewy morning leaves its light
Scattered moth-like among blooming hills,
When the clamoring avian mobs indict
Warring tribes of feathers, claws and bills,
When petals' waft perfumes nostril's gills,
Heart prepares the soul to welcome day.
Armies marching joyous, legs of six,
Rank and file, antennae of their race,
Tune their search for royals' daily fix,
While the lucid wings of fighters chase
Semenated draughts in vulvar space,
Prancing minions herd their lust for day.
Blackened soils in molded work for death
Wait, the spoils of wars in air to come;
Jaws of worms, in lively touch, by breath
Take their holy work, the rot to sum.
Each awaits to each his mortal drum:
Worms in earth reverse the thirst for day.
Seeds in dust prepare their jaunt for life,
Whether tendril, rhizome, root inters;
Germination finds its way through strife --
Muddy, desert, flaming, pecked --, refers
Air that crawlers hale from out their furs
Rootward, shroving budded fruit to day.
Spirit's fond when sap is furling green,
Equal night recurs that winnowed heart
Find its tender shadow's blossomed mean.
Dark our pater: heaven's living art
Lumes its presence outward, hallowed dart.
Thickened blood's as sweet as sapping day.
Lord Penumbra hides the fire unknown
By his crowning, capsuled heat its shade;
Soul the mirror, breath the flesh, the bone --
Question answering by nothing made.
Finding searches end, beginnings laid,
While our hate of hatred lights the day.
Copyright (C) 2012 William Mark Gabriel. All Rights Reserved.
Friday, March 30, 2012
The Ballad of the Ballade
Yes, it's a ballade -- with an "e". The reference to birds is a signature trope from the troubadors, one of whom I believe may have invented the form. It is best known for the French literary poet Francois Villon, whom I posted on very early in this blog. The standard translation of his masterwork, The Testament, is by American master Galway Kinnell, also referenced in that blog post (The Forensic Caesura, in the 2008 archive).
Kinnell, in his introduction, says something about rhyme being a "dead hand" for a modern poet, and writing ballades made me see where he was coming from. That B rhyme has got to match a lot of English words! And this is the shorter form of ballade used by Villon.
I had to struggle with this one because all my beforehand planning meant nothing once I started to write! I think English really rewards the laconic writer (Perhaps French the prolix*? I wouldn't know.), but with the ballade, you have the English quatrain doubled, with a mandatory refrain line at the end. So, you've got to use "beefier" ideas to fill the ballade out, but you have the requirements of much tougher rhyme scheme and overall form to meet than say, the sonnet. Remember, English, like German, has fewer rhyme words than any Romance language. For example, the Italian ballata and ballatteta, similar to the French ballade, have much tougher rhyme schemes than the French form does. I doubt the Italian form (or forms -- not sure if ballata and ballatetta are that different) can even be attempted in English for original poetry.
This blog is mostly about form, but the matter of my ballade deserves some comment from me, too. Though I think it's hard (if not impossible) to critique your own work usefully, here goes:
I was tempted to put "Easter" in quotation marks in the title, because I'm not referring strictly to the Christian festival day so much as the general idea of springtime resurrection. And though the envoi (that's the last four lines, my friends) pointedly refers to a natural disunity, the unity of nature is the dominant theme of the work (I say "work" because, if you remember, someone else has got to call it a poem before it gets to be one, at least in my book.). Irony is tough to bring forth, especially these days, in formal verse, partly because I think you need swings in diction ("'Twixt" and "on the make", for instance) to really pull it off -- but the form is so daunting that it can stifle that sort of thing, or make it come off as really pompous (a perennial problem for me). I revised "twixt" out several times, only to put it back in, simply because I needed the "x" to suggest the real theme here. (I'm serious.) Still, I thought the exercise was worth it, partly because, as the third of a series of ballades (the other two are too personal to put here), it needs contextual references to Villon for the whole to work, at least for me.
So yes, maybe it's OK for English writers to use French verse forms, after all. But I still think you need a really good reason to do it.You'll have to decide for yourself whether or not I had one.
___
* I meant 'prolix' in the original sense of 'extended', not necessarily with the negative connotations we have in the word's modern sense.
Kinnell, in his introduction, says something about rhyme being a "dead hand" for a modern poet, and writing ballades made me see where he was coming from. That B rhyme has got to match a lot of English words! And this is the shorter form of ballade used by Villon.
I had to struggle with this one because all my beforehand planning meant nothing once I started to write! I think English really rewards the laconic writer (Perhaps French the prolix*? I wouldn't know.), but with the ballade, you have the English quatrain doubled, with a mandatory refrain line at the end. So, you've got to use "beefier" ideas to fill the ballade out, but you have the requirements of much tougher rhyme scheme and overall form to meet than say, the sonnet. Remember, English, like German, has fewer rhyme words than any Romance language. For example, the Italian ballata and ballatteta, similar to the French ballade, have much tougher rhyme schemes than the French form does. I doubt the Italian form (or forms -- not sure if ballata and ballatetta are that different) can even be attempted in English for original poetry.
This blog is mostly about form, but the matter of my ballade deserves some comment from me, too. Though I think it's hard (if not impossible) to critique your own work usefully, here goes:
I was tempted to put "Easter" in quotation marks in the title, because I'm not referring strictly to the Christian festival day so much as the general idea of springtime resurrection. And though the envoi (that's the last four lines, my friends) pointedly refers to a natural disunity, the unity of nature is the dominant theme of the work (I say "work" because, if you remember, someone else has got to call it a poem before it gets to be one, at least in my book.). Irony is tough to bring forth, especially these days, in formal verse, partly because I think you need swings in diction ("'Twixt" and "on the make", for instance) to really pull it off -- but the form is so daunting that it can stifle that sort of thing, or make it come off as really pompous (a perennial problem for me). I revised "twixt" out several times, only to put it back in, simply because I needed the "x" to suggest the real theme here. (I'm serious.) Still, I thought the exercise was worth it, partly because, as the third of a series of ballades (the other two are too personal to put here), it needs contextual references to Villon for the whole to work, at least for me.
So yes, maybe it's OK for English writers to use French verse forms, after all. But I still think you need a really good reason to do it.You'll have to decide for yourself whether or not I had one.
___
* I meant 'prolix' in the original sense of 'extended', not necessarily with the negative connotations we have in the word's modern sense.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
"I thought he said to 'Leave it to the French'!"
Easter Comes Early
Before the hills clothe their dry banks with green,
The cold ground's morbid grip begins to break,
And blue crocuses start to sprout their sheen;
The past falls away like dead limbs that shake
Off maples and oaks in dry wind's take.
As sap rises in trunks, so warmth does in me;
It lights a fire that burns for its own sake,
Watching birds cry 'havoc' from tree to tree.
After the fall's abyssal seres the scene,
The tiny feathers weave their bobbins' stake;
They cross the shorn limbs' riot, as they glean
What they may while hungry hearts and loins quake.
The bulbs push petalled flame in spiralled rake
As dancers' flowing waves lip spuming sea.
My draught of wind shudders in their wake,
Watching birds cry 'havoc' from tree to tree.
While I gaze through warping space, the timing's keen
'Twixt hawk and sparrow, both on the make
For prey, neither finding the other mean:
Dart or dagger the same in root's mandrake.
We join in search for our creation's ache;
Whether meal or meaning, our goal's to be.
Truth's nightingale's fraud, though he's no fake,
Watching birds cry 'havoc' from tree to tree.
Chiefs of state and those who want to hold it,
Buy this petty advice (it's yours for free!):
There's no union in nature -- I've polled it,
Watching birds cry 'havoc' from tree to tree.
Copyright (C) 2012 William Mark Gabriel. All Rights Reserved.
I plan to have some notes later on. For now: "abyssal" is an adjective without a noun. I want the cracked grammar to go along with the cracked time-sense in that line. Also, "cry 'havoc'" is not original with me. As best I recall, it's in one of Pound's translations of either de Born or Daniel. Neither text is available to me right now (another book giveaway mistake). They're in, I think, the Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, published originally by New Directions.
Till more comments come, please look at the structure here and compare it to the English (or Shakespearean) sonnet structure I suggested in my post Conceited Metaphors.
Before the hills clothe their dry banks with green,
The cold ground's morbid grip begins to break,
And blue crocuses start to sprout their sheen;
The past falls away like dead limbs that shake
Off maples and oaks in dry wind's take.
As sap rises in trunks, so warmth does in me;
It lights a fire that burns for its own sake,
Watching birds cry 'havoc' from tree to tree.
After the fall's abyssal seres the scene,
The tiny feathers weave their bobbins' stake;
They cross the shorn limbs' riot, as they glean
What they may while hungry hearts and loins quake.
The bulbs push petalled flame in spiralled rake
As dancers' flowing waves lip spuming sea.
My draught of wind shudders in their wake,
Watching birds cry 'havoc' from tree to tree.
While I gaze through warping space, the timing's keen
'Twixt hawk and sparrow, both on the make
For prey, neither finding the other mean:
Dart or dagger the same in root's mandrake.
We join in search for our creation's ache;
Whether meal or meaning, our goal's to be.
Truth's nightingale's fraud, though he's no fake,
Watching birds cry 'havoc' from tree to tree.
Chiefs of state and those who want to hold it,
Buy this petty advice (it's yours for free!):
There's no union in nature -- I've polled it,
Watching birds cry 'havoc' from tree to tree.
Copyright (C) 2012 William Mark Gabriel. All Rights Reserved.
I plan to have some notes later on. For now: "abyssal" is an adjective without a noun. I want the cracked grammar to go along with the cracked time-sense in that line. Also, "cry 'havoc'" is not original with me. As best I recall, it's in one of Pound's translations of either de Born or Daniel. Neither text is available to me right now (another book giveaway mistake). They're in, I think, the Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, published originally by New Directions.
Till more comments come, please look at the structure here and compare it to the English (or Shakespearean) sonnet structure I suggested in my post Conceited Metaphors.
