Earl Gray

Earl Gray
"You can argue with me but, in the end, you'll have to face that fact that you're arguing with a squirrel." - Earl Gray

Friday, August 13, 2021

Ta-Da!

 


     When British troops landed in India the residents, who spoke unstressed tongues, noticed a similarity between the "Left!  Right!" marching cadence and the binary stresses of the English language.  We accept the alternating stresses but why do we describe our speech as iambic as opposed to trochaic?

     Part of the reason is in the effect of pronouns and articles on our subject-verb-object pattern:

"She saw | the boy."

     Another reason is that ending on an accented syllable sounds more momentous, decisive or conclusive.  Trailing off seems tentative, wistful, or uncertain.  Thus, our poetry is iambic (de-DUM) or, occasionally, anapestic (de-de-DUM), and very rarely trochaic (DEM-de), dactyllic (DUM-de-de), or amphibrachic (de-DUM-de).

     What do we do when we want to finish with a flourish?  In sonnets we go from ending lines with distant/alternating rhymes to a couplet.  Typical would be the ababcc scheme in this sestet:


Prairie Prayer


Come autumn, combines comb the fields
to harvest gold canola oil
for toast before November yields
its cold. Like whitened coffee, soil
beneath integument snow extols
the blood and bone of remnant souls.


     A less formal approach is to use extra stresses.  In iambic work this creates a "Ta-Da!" effect, often as part of a double iamb.  For example, we note the last line of "Kemla's Aloha":


Kemla's Aloha

You showed me home is a person not a place.
I watch as time collapses in your wake,
as every story, fully told, can trace
a common path, each stream to the same lake.

Classical Diaeresis  

     A more elaborate technique is classical diaeresis, ending a poem with a word in the verse's cadence.  For example, the first stanza of the iambic pentameter "Beans" ends with an iamb;  all previous disyllabic words are trochaic.

September came like winter's ailing child,
but left us viewing Valparaiso's pride.  
Your face was always saddest when you smiled.  
You smiled as every doctored moment lied.  
You lie with orphans' parents, long reviled.


     Hand this text to someone and have them read it aloud.  Notice how "reviled" sounds like a finale?  This parallels the finality of the parents' death.  By contrast, the second stanza uses the spondaic approach, creating a sense of lingering consequence.

As close as coppers, yellow beans still line
Mapocho's banks.  It leads them to the sea;
entwined on rocks and saplings each new vine
recalls that dawn in nineteen seventy three
when every choking bastard weed grew wild.


    The stanza contains two iambs, "entwined" and "recalls", but that final line begins with, arguably, three pounding iambs ("ev'ry choking bastard"), setting up another instance of diaeresis, but the slightly less conclusive spondee, "grew wild", leaves on a more ominous note.

     The first thing we should learn about any technique is when not to use it.

Monday, February 8, 2021

The Remains of the Clay


"The further a society drifts from the truth the more it will hate those who speak it."

- George Orwell

Definition of rhetoric


1 : the art of speaking or writing effectively: such as
a : the study of principles and rules of composition formulated by critics of ancient times
b : the study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion
2a : skill in the effective use of speech
b : a type or mode of language or speech also : insincere or grandiloquent language
3 : verbal communication : discourse

Definition of prose 

1a : the ordinary language people use in speaking or writing
b : a literary medium distinguished from poetry especially by its greater irregularity and variety of rhythm and its closer correspondence to the patterns of everyday speech
2 : a dull or ordinary style, quality, or condition

Definition of poetry 

1 : verbatim speech


      The average North American doesn't attend poetry readings or slams and it certainly doesn't buy volumes of contemporary poetry.  We have been exposed to what Leonard Cohen would describe as "other forms of boredom advertised as poetry":

Inaugural Poem: "Praise Song for the Day"

Watch Poet Richard Blanco Read the Inaugural Poem

Inaugural poet Amanda Gorman delivers a poem at Joe Biden's inauguration

       And now we see this:

Amanda Gorman Recites 'Chorus of the Captains' at Super Bowl LV

    Today we honor our three captains for their actions and impact in a time of uncertainty and need.

    They have taken the lead, exceeding all expectations and limitations, uplifting their communities and nation as leaders, healers, and educators.

    James has felt the wounds of warfare but this warrior still shares his home with at-risk kids. During COVID he's even lent a hand, live-streaming football for family and fans.

    Trimaine is an educator who works non-stop providing his community with hot spots, laptops, and tech workshops, so his students have all the tools they need to succeed in life and in school.

    Susie is the ICU nurse manager at a Tampa hospital. Her chronicles prove that even in tragedy, hope is possible. She lost her grandmothers to the pandemic, and fights to save other lives in the ICU battle zone defining the front line heroes risking their lives for our own.

    Let us walk with these warriors, charge on with these champions, and carry forth the call of our captains. We celebrate them by acting with courage and compassion, by doing what is right and just.

    For while we honor them today, it is they who every day honor us.


     That is it.  Those are the only four 21st century "poems" that a sizeable minority, if not a majority, of North Americans have witnessed.  (For what it's worth, Maya Angelou's poem from Clinton's 1993 inauguration was significantly better.)

     Whether this is prose or rhetoric and whether or not we appreciate the heartfelt sentiments, it is not being memorized and performed--"covered"--the way songs are, the way poetry was when it was alive.  These pieces aren't quoted at all, let alone from memory.  By our inaction you, I, and everyone else--including the author--have spoken:  "None of this is poetry."  The lack of mnemonics (other that some overconsonance at Biden's inauguration) shows a lack of effort and/or intent to create poetry.

     "But what is the harm?" one might ask of this misapprehension.

     The next time someone tries to define poetry by its content, demanding that poetry be thought provoking or poignant, ask the person what prose authors they read.  Suggesting that poetry has some monopoly on and obligation to limit itself to philosophy or romance, aside from being laughably easy to disprove, does a disservice to all of our communication.  It delegitimizes the bulk of our canon:  humor, biography, bawdiness, commentary, narrative, history, description, etc.

"Only ignorance is fatal."

     On January 6th, 2021, the world saw what happens when deliberate misrepresentation becomes widespread.  The only defense is education and reflection, preferably in that order.

     Find some words worth memorizing.  Carry them with you, using spare moments to learn them.  Practice in a mirror.  Make a video.  Go to an open mic and perform them.  Carry them with you for the rest of your life.

     That is poetry.

     The rest is wind.


Thursday, January 21, 2021

Inaugural Poet Amanda Gorman - "The Hill We Climb"

 


      22 year old Los Angeles aspiring poet Amanda Gorman was Joe Biden's choice for inaugural poet.  How did she do?

      Well, it depends on your filter.    We bear in mind that, during the art form's struggle to exist during these last 50 years, the anglophone world has experienced only three poems together:  "Praise Song for the Day", "One Today", and now, ironically, "The Hill We Climb".  To be sure, Ms. Gorman is no Margaret Ann Griffiths.  If you're looking for performance it would be at the midpoint of your local slam, well out of the Winners' Circle but significantly better than the average print world author's reading.  Amanda had practiced her delivery but still relied on text at the lectern and on teleprompters.  This wasn't a random sampling of her collection.  It was written for this auspicious occasion.  The fact that Amanda Gorman didn't bother to memorize it speaks volumes.

      On the one hand, it didn't work as poetry but, on the other hand, it was infinitely better than the cringeworthy efforts--if that's the right word--of Elizabeth Alexander and Richard Blanco.  It did contain a little word play but, all in all, it was unremarkable except for one overused (e.g. "...compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions") technique.  At this rate we can hope that by 2040 the caliber of verse will have reached the level of [c]rap lyrics and by 2100 it could pass as a first draft on Gazebo.

When day comes we ask ourselves,
Where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice.
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny black girl
Descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
Can dream of becoming president
Only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
But that doesn’t mean that we are
striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know to put our future first
We must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
So we can reach out our arms
To one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat
But because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision
That everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promise to glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare.
Because being American is more than a pride we inherit
It’s the past we step into
And how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
Rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed,
it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth,
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future,
history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter.
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So while we once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?,
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be.
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free.
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain;
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with.
Every breath from my bronze pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
We will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south.
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge
battered and beautiful.
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid,
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

 


    Obviously, it needs to be cut down to about 1/8th of its length.  In its current form it is rambling, self-absorbed, turgid, clichĂ©-festooned droning with some random rhyming.  It was as if Amanda had attended the class on sonics (e.g. alliteration, consonance, assonance) but skipped all of the other lectures (e.g. definitionperformance, meter, free verse, rhyme schemes, compression, etc.).  It was a vessel for an abbreviated voyage along poetry's surface.  Yes, it was Shakespeare compared to her two predecessors but that isn't saying much.  It did nothing to revive any long dead interest in poetry, even--if not especially--within Amanda Gorman herself.  The sudden fame won't encourage her to learn the rest of the craft.

      Mind you, it didn't clear the crowds, as Ms. Alexander's flat prose did in 2008.  So there's that.


Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Melody Is Memory


     All of us understand that poetry is a mode of speech defined by memorable words.  Prosody is the science of making verses easier to recall, either through concision or repetition.  Even if one were to argue that "forgettable poetry" is not an oxymoron a tautological question of relevance arises:  "If no one cares then who cares?  If a tree falls in the forest does anybody give a damn?"

     As with all speech, poetry requires an audience.  The vast majority of people today cannot recite a stanza written in this millennium but can sing thousands of contemporary lyrics.  As a practical matter, poetry is less a mode of speech than singing.  Those concerned about adding the medium of music will bear in mind that long before the 20th century disappearance of spoken verse its most successful example was Shakespeare's theater.

     What aspect of song penetrates our memories most efficiently?  A drum beat might meet with blank stares.  A chord progression might not be identified but two or three notes can spark recognition and many to sing along.  Verse being a participation sport, this defines modern poetry just as "verbatim" has defined it from its inception.

     Technically challenged poets speak vaguely of "musicality", a term that provokes cringing and eye rolls from geeks.  The truth is that poetry needs more than facsimile;  it requires actual music to attract an audience.  (And, perhaps, a readership.  Royalties from all contemporary poetry books combined wouldn't add up to those from one Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan lyric collection.)

      Content regents and corazoners will insist that the profound and poignant will attract attention [sooner or later].  All the evidence points to a very different conclusion.  Melody is everything in song and, thus, verse.  Allow us to demonstrate with two piercing examples:




      As with so many of her songs, "Ain't Life a Brook" (1980) is thought provoking and heart rending.  This song includes one of the greatest throwaway phrases of the last half century.  However, the rambling melody and accentual dimeter is not something you will sing in the shower.  Or remember at length.

I watch you reading a book
I get to thinking our love's a polished stone
You give me a long drawn look
I know pretty soon you're going to leave our home
And of course I mind
Especially when I'm thinking from my heart
But life don't clickety-clack down a straight line track
It comes together and it comes apart
You say you hope I'm not the kind
To make you feel obliged
To go ticking through your time
With a pained look in your eyes
You give me the furniture, we'll divide the photographs
Go out to dinner one more time
Have ourselves a bottle of wine
And a couple of laughs
And when first you left
I stayed so sad I wouldn't sleep
I know that love's a gift, I thought yours was mine
And something that I could keep
Now I realize that time is not the only compromise
But a bird in the hand could be an all night stand
Between a blazing fire and a pocket of skies
So I hope I'm not the kind
To make you feel obliged
To go ticking through your time
With a pained look in your eyes
I covered the furniture, I framed the photographs
Went out to dinner one more time
Had myself a bottle of wine
and a couple of laughs
And just the other day
I got your letter in the mail
I'm happy for you, its been so long
You've been wanting a cabin and a backwoods trail
And I think that's great
I seem to find myself in school
It's all okay, I just want to say
I'm so relieved we didn't do it cruel
But ain't life a brook
Just when I get to feeling like a polished stone
I give me along drawn look
It's kind of a drag to find yourself alone
And sometimes I mind
Especially when I'm waiting on your heart
But life don't clickety-clack down a straight line track
It comes together and it comes apart
'Cause I know you're not the kind
To make me feel obliged
To go ticking through my time with a pained look
In my eyes
I sold the furniture, I put away the photographs
Went out to dinner one more time
Had myself a bottle of wine
Had a couple of laughs
And wasn't it fine
      Contrast this with John Prine's child-like, tragicomic "Christmas in Prison" (or almost any other Prine song), published in 1973:




      Prine's trademark trinaries underscore the melody, creating an earworm.  His lyrics, while evocative and moving, are not near Ferron's in depth but we, individually and collectively, carry them into the future far more readily and easily than Ferron's work.

It was Christmas in prison
And the food was real good
We had turkey and pistols
Carved out of wood
And I dream of her always
Even when I don't dream
Her name's on my tongue
And her blood's in my stream
Wait awhile eternity
Old mother nature's got nothing on me
Come to me
Run to me
Come to me, now
We're rolling
My sweetheart
We're flowing
By God
She reminds me of a chess game
With someone I admire
Or a picnic in the rain
After a prairie fire
Her heart is as big
As this whole goddamn jail
And she's sweeter than saccharine
At a drug store sale
Wait awhile eternity
Old mother nature's got nothing on me
Come to me
Run to me
Come to me, now
We're rolling
My sweetheart
We're flowing
By God
The search light in the big yard
Swings round with the gun
And spotlights the snowflakes
Like the dust in the sun
It's Christmas in prison
There'll be music tonight
I'll probably get homesick
I love you
Goodnight
Wait awhile eternity
Old mother nature's got nothing on me
Come to me
Run to me
Come to me, now
We're rolling
My sweetheart
We're flowing
By God


          Again, the difference is prosody, yes, but mostly melody.  So what can we do with this?

To be continued.


Monday, July 27, 2020

Poetry in Three Minutes

      This is a quick and dirty introduction to poetry basics.  A slightly more comprehensive approach is "What You Need To Know About Poetry".

      You may want to pause the video in places and review each one a few times.

      By clicking on the titles ("Definition", "Basic Scansion", "Sonics", "Performing") you can read the underlying articles for each topic.

       If you have questions please feel free to post them below.

Learning Poetry - 1. Definition


     The first three minute video establishes the one word definition for poetry, regardless of epoch, culture, language, theme, genre, or form.



Learning Poetry - 2. Basic Scansion

 

      Here, one is introduced to the elements of meter.



 Learning Poetry - 3. Sonics

 

      At the root of poetry is sound.


Learning Poetry - 4. Performing

 

      The whole point of this mode of speech is performance.

 

Learning Poetry - 5:  Free Verse


       Free verse (not to be confused with prose poetry or prose qua poetry) and its niche.


Learning Poetry - 6. Rhyme


     The repetition of sounds in related positions.

 


      We hope you enjoy this series and find it helpful.

Earl Gray, Esquirrel

 

 






Thursday, July 9, 2020

Contexts

Law of Poetry #72
     Even when English language poetry was alive it benefited from context.  Shakespeare used plays not to change the English language, which he certainly accomplished, but to attract and entertain an audience.  Contemporary dramatic poetry isn't "a thing" but there are other ways one can find listeners.  In order of current and potential success these would include:

1. Song Lyrics

2. Humor/Parody

3. Narrational Poetry

4. Embedded Poetry

5. Occasional Poetry

Law of Poetry #171
     If you have social media accounts, ask yourself:  "How often have I Shared [on Facebook] or Retweeted [on Twitter] a stranger's contemporary poem with my [non-poet] friends?"  Other than songs and jokes, that is.

     We asked readers in four different active forums--novice, expert, blog, and social media--to imagine a serious poem (not song) that they might pass on to friends.  No response.  Not only could people not write an interesting poem, they couldn't even imagine one.  This is to say that not only is English language poetry dead, but we can't envision it being alive.  (N.B.:  In non-anglophone demographics people cannot fathom a society where poetry is dead, a country where few can recite a stanza written this century.)

Law of Poetry #141
     Just as it is failed artisans who blame their tools, only failed poets will blame their audience.  It is especially absurd when that audience doesn't exist.  If poetry is to revive, there needs to be well crafted verses of interest.  More than that, though, it needs to overcome the negative stereotype of what Leonard Cohen called "other forms of poetry advertised as poetry":  artless ranters, corazoners, linebreakers, cryptocrappers, et cetera.

     Novelists, playwrights, and journalists do not present their work as "prose".  Similarly, poets need to categorize their work by genre (e.g. comedy, drama, news, political commentary, romance, sports, horror, etc.), not mode of speech (i.e. prose versus poetry).

     In the coming days we hope to address ways to use context to attract--or at least to not alienate--an audience.

What about readership?


   Poetry is a mode of speech, predating the advent of writing by millennia.  People read poems with a view toward quoting, if not performing, them--in their imaginations, at the very least.  Listening and reading were a chicken-and-egg scenario, but in this case hearing came first, anthropologically at the macrocosmic level and chronologically in microcosm.  Reading a poem allowed us to, among other things, examine why it worked so well when we heard it.

    Put simply, if there is no audience, how can their be a readership?  Why would anyone want to study failure?

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Timely Versus Timeless

Earl Gray's 153rd Law
     Most poets keep their art and their politics separate.  We have different blogs for each.  Recently, a critic demanded to know why we pursue pressing issues in prose but not in poetry.  It's a fair question, at least until we consider the difference between those two modes of communication.  One spreads out in two dimensions, going viral as it spreads from one venue to the next.  The other spreads in four dimensions, as it ascends into listener's memory and is carried verbatim into the future.

     Without degrading professional standards we can write a news article in the morning, post it, and see it picked up by social or print media immediately.  It is part of that 24- or 36-hour news cycle.  

     Prose is timely.  You can get up the next morning and start all over.

Earl Gray's 42nd Law.
     To write a poem worthy of the name may take, on average, a month.  Find le mot juste, satisfying demands of sound, sense, cadence and form.  Performing it may require weeks of additional practice and film editing before uploading it to, say, YouTube.  Once presented, it needs to build an audience, one who can quote it on appropriate occasions.  Were poetry alive, this may take another month.  Given current reality, it may take a generation or more before enough listeners can inspire enough other listeners to hear and absorb your verses.  Once they do, you will have a demographic affected by your words, one that might pass them on to future generations.

     In any event, a poem about the current state of public affairs won't have an impact until well after the next election, if ever.  If it does, though, it can cease and go on preventing inequities forever.

     Poetry is timeless, even though its effect might not begin until long after your final sunrise.