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:
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":
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.
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.
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
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
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":
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.
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.
