The Outerview Series: Part XIX - Sung to Death

     We are told that a language disappears every fortnight.  With it, an entire literature, if not an entire culture, dies.  A poesy dies.

     In the history of humankind English is the only language predeceased by its poetry.

     All of us understand the facts:  No iconic poems since that limerick in 1961, English PhDs who can't do simple scansion, and a population that cannot recite a single stanza of contemporary verse that isn't part of a song.  We understand how it was supplanted by song, against which it could not compete.

     Show this video to an old and a young friend:

     Ask the old one if they've heard this [as a] song before.  If they say "No" ask them to sing along.  If they can, watch your younger buddy freak out.

    "How can you sing along to a song you've never heard?"

     Spoken verse didn't die because of academia or inept verse.

     It died because the newest generations cannot imagine, let alone create or appreciate, it. 

The Outerview Series: Part XXIII - Virtualism

       On Quora someone asked:

"How can we define the present era of poetry and literature?"

      In law enforcement, politics, and journalism there is an axiom:  "If you ain't got it on video it didn't happen."

      Poetry isn't dead because people don't write it.  (They don't, but many think they do.)

      Poetry isn't dead because people don't read it.  (They don't, but it's a form of speech, not writing.)

      Poetry isn't dead because people don't hear it.  (They do, but only after it is set to music.)

      Poetry without music is dead because no one sees it performed.  With a thousand TV channels and millions of online outlets, none speak in verse to the public.  About anything, really.

      Poetry academics and technicians are pessimistic about the prospects of verse but, for very different reasons, aren't doing anything to revive it.  Academics are interested in preserving, not reviving, literature.  Technicians, like coaches everywhere, want to work through their students, who can make it more relevant to newer generations.

      Academics disparage social media because it isn't intellectual.  To them, this makes sense:  Content regents can't get past the notion that how profound words are equates to how poetic they are.  The rest of us understand that this is a synecdochical error:  some poetry is profound, other poetry is humorous, informational, emotional, narrational, epic, etc.  As a mode of speech, poetry can be about anything.

      "So how do we revive it?"

      By speaking it.  Not singing it.  Not reading it.  Not reciting it.  Not even performing it.  Speak it either as you would informally to a friend or, more formally, as you would if reporting or commenting on the news.  Use as much poetic technique as possible without it clanging.

      "What is the idea?"

      Of our 240+ "Laws" of Poetry one is crucial here: 

      Feel free to take and use this meme.

       Find interesting material.  Write verse--either blank or imperfectly rhymed.  Make videos, either as performances or slide shows.  Use AI if you must.  Post these works to your blog or socials.  Above all:  Never, ever present it as poetry.  Remove the word from your vocabulary.  See what happens.

 

 

The Outerview Series: Part XXII - Oh, the Humanities

                                                Universities are Killing the Humanities

     Between 2020 and 2023 the number of English PhDs rose almost 14% from 3.2 million to 3.7 million.  Of course, only a few of them became college professors and more than half probably specialized in prose rather than poetry.  Adam Walker of the "Close Reading Poetry" YouTube blog (above) is an ex-academic wondering why English departments are in such decline after cresting in the 1950s.  Insularity is cited as a core issue.  Meanwhile, university presses are shutting down.  The Humanities are being defunded by governments.  Literary museums are being closed.  Books are being written about the declining interest and support for the Arts.  Of course, the arts community is blaming economic interests pressuring politicians.

     In sharp contrast to technicians such as ourselves, Adam Walker is a content regent.  We won't dwell on the irony of such an interpretationalst wondering why academia is failing for now.  We'll come back to this lack of self-awareness later.  To his credit, in the last minute of this lecture he does acknowledge the need for academia to serve the community.

      Suppose you were taking a trip to Italy.  Not one to do things in half measure, you sign up for a long, expensive course in conversational Italian.  After a few classes, you realize that they are teaching nothing but the rise and fall of the Roman empire.  It's interesting, but you aren't learning a word of Italian!

      Similarly, content regents never mention actual poetry or any of its elements in their discourses.  Here is an entire glossary of terms you won't hear from academics, including Mr. Walker.  Instead, they meander on about philosophy, politics, history, psychology, sociology, or even gossip--everything but concision and repetition, the things that make words memorable (and, thus, poetry).  Chances of these people passing a simple test on poetry fundamentals?  Nil.

      Narrowing our focus to poetry, we might not be able to say that academia caused the death of poetry but it did nothing to prevent the demise and certainly adjusted well to the loss.  Colleges have not been the place to learn the elements of verse--not how to write, critique, edit or present it.  You can spend six years and upwards of $150,000, get a PhD, and not know whether "The Red Wheel Barrow" is free verse or metrical.  Even more to the point, there will be precious few job opportunities to help you pay off that debt.  Unless you are the child of wealthy parents, you cannot afford a literary education before, during, or after your studies.  

      Here is the best advice we can render:  If a poetry teacher's first question about a poem involves its meaning you should run away as fast as your legs can carry you, cursing in Italian as you do so.  As for "close reading" of a mode of speech, the less said the better.

The Outerview Series: Part XXI - Artificial Intelligence

 

     Artificial Intelligence ("AI" or "A-I") is, essentially, a glorified web search engine--one that is able to scan the internet and prepare a coherent, if long-winded and nerdy, answer to your query.  The concern some have expressed is whether or not it can replace poets or prose writers.

     "And can it?"

     Not poets, at least.  Not yet.

     "Why not?"

      It's not that it couldn't--quite easily, in fact--but the fact is A-I poetry isn't a priority.  Also, there isn't enough overlap between programmers and prosodists.

     "What is the biggest problem?"

     Scansion.  Compression.  A-I isn't bad at sonics but it tends to be expansive, not concise, with information.  Also, cadence seems a problem.

     "So you're saying A-I can't write poetry as good as humans?"

      The opposite.  It composes poetry as badly as humans.  99% of humans, at least.  Meanwhile, the best computers are rated 1,000 points above the best human chessplayers, such that no human will ever beat the best software again.  This is why there are chess-playing prodigies but not poetry ones.  Chess is calculable, like mathematics.  Language is arbitrary.

     "But if A-I can't write poetry yet what is all the excitement about?"

 

Critique

 

      Newcomers to poetry always want to know how good they are.  How they are developing.  Patience isn't a common trait and neither is modesty;  typical novices grossly overestimate their ability.  Unfortunately, there aren't many people familiar enough with poetry to render useful critique.

      Poetry Rater sites can give a curious verser an assessment of sorts.  On the best one we found the numeric rankings are the same for all poems found online:  8 out 10 for Overall, 7 for Creativity, 9 for Technique, and 8 for Impact.  That includes everything from Shakespearean sonnets down to vanity postings by neophytes on The Pink Palace of Poetitude.  The comments are good for literary technique but useless for poetics.  Still, it will be infinitely better than we'll see on a "showcase" or "vanity" site, though that isn't saying much.

      It helps to input a great poem before or after one of our own, comparing the critiques.

 

Presentation

 

      Knowing what poetry is (i.e. memorable speech), the need to have it performed becomes paramount.  What if we are lousy actors, though?  Or shy?  What if, like me, you have a face for radio and a voice for mime?  What if we write a poem that requires a narrator that isn't similar to us?  Another age, gender, or nationality, perhaps?

     "I am an old woman, named after my mother." - John Prine, "Angel from Montgomery

 

       Sophisticated A-I programs allow you to make whole movies with your home computer.  As the software continues to develop at breakneck speed the action begins to seem less and less cartoonish.  For our purposes here, we'll confine out scope to slide shows with A-I speech.

      You will require two programs on your computer:

1. A slideshow creator to stitch together photos (or tiny videos) and sound (i.e. music, poetry).  This are often included in your operating system; otherwise NCH Suite freeware may suffice.

2. A text-to-speech Artificial Intelligence converter to create the sound files.  Unfortunately, the best of these we've found  is commercial but you may find a freebie that does the job.  Keep testing until you find one with a variety of natural sounding voices.  PRO TIP:  Slow down the speech and, if you need the "performer" to break at the end of enjambed lines cut the sound files up into individual lines and stitch them together with your slideshow creator.

    This albeit slapdash video, with 5 voices, illustrates what you should be able to create on your first day:

     "Tecumseh" (aka "Shooting Star" or "Panther that Crouches in Wait")

You, Canadian? The greatest American? You fought to be neither, but nor were you panther that crouches in wait. You were egret, your feet in the mud as you stood above weeds. 

Both your fathers would leave you to war. Brock would say no more valorous warrior exists. Sure
as apple trees bud, the pleas of a peacemaker can't be imparted while even your traplines have got to be guarded. 

Time is gravity, a shooting star descending. Time is charity; too soon you'll see it ending.  The cities were the bellows of the wind that blew at Prophetstown, across the rivers, over you. Gray wolves surround the egret.  Foxes slink away, their turn tail coats the colour of your blood.

You'd say: "Sing your death song and then die like a hero returning home." 

Yours was the song of that egret, your life like a burning poem.

 

     "Why are the words in paragraphs?"

     That is corata:  metered verse without linebreaks.  The idea is to follow Rule #72:

        "Wait, why aren't there any credits in the video?

    The idea is to present a story, allowing a preamble and the text to explain the context.  For example, this one might be part of a presentation to a historical society.  On social media we might post it with annotation that historians might not need:

    Tecumseh (1768-03-09 to 1813-10-05), whose name translates to "Shooting Star" or "Panther who Crouches in Wait", was an Ohio Shawnee who opposed U.S. incursions into his homeland.  His father died in the 1774 Battle of Point Pleasant when Tecumseh was six.  The only other man he called "Father" was British general Henry Procter, who was to abandon Tecumseh to his fate at the Battle of the Thames.

    His younger, shamanic brother Tenskwatawa disobeyed Tecumseh's orders against confronting U.S. troops, causing the loss of their capitol, Prophetstown.  Upon joining up with the British, Tecumseh's first ally was General Sir Isaac Brock, who was killed in the Battle of Queenston Heights, 1812-10-13.

     In a poetry contest the video might demonstrate the sounds of the accompanying textual submission.  In the near future of the Internet such videos will be expected alongside the words.  Look for poetry contests and webzines, including some associated with magazines, to begin accommodating them.  Get ahead of the competition here! 




 

The Outerview Series: Part XX - The Egoless Experiment

The Egoless Motto

     The Egoless experiment began in 2004 and was open for the better part of a year.  Its purpose was to create a critical environment that would evaluate poems and critiques and, thus, poets and critics.  What did we discover?

"So how did it work?"

     Membership was free but involved a few questions (e.g. "Is Blake's 'Tyger' iambic or trochaic?") to separate neophytes from the experienced.  Novices would begin life on Egolite and work their way up to Egoless. 

     Everything was posted anonymously.  Not with pseudonyms, mind you, but without any identification whatsoever.  

     The site attracted some of the best critics of the time.  Posters would present their text.  Other members would read it and evaluate it numerically, from 1 to 10.  Many would add critiques (again, with no indentification), which would also be judged numerically, from 1 to 10.  Thus, over time, every member would have a poet ranking (i.e. the average rating of their poems) and a critic ranking (i.e. the average rating of their critiques).  Members would see these updated results when they logged in.

     Members with Poet and Critic ratings below 5 out of 10 would find themselves on Egolite.
   
"What if we wanted to follow a poet, critic, or conversation?"

     Members could click on any poem (or critique) and see all of the other poems (or critiques) posted by that contributor without knowing their name, nom de plume, or username.  (There were no usernames.)   What we would call an Original Poster today would be identified as #1 in that thread.  The first responder would be #2, the second would be #3, et cetera.  Each would have their poet ranking (for the Original Poster) or critic rating (for respondents) listed under "Rank".  Thus, clicking on a poem title might reveal something like this:

CO# Rank Poem Title         Evals  Avrg   Crits  Avrg

 #1 7.31 Death of Sam McGee    13  7.26       2  5.83
 #2 6.24
 #3 5.42

The Real Life Death of Sam McGee

He'd died so many deaths by then
    as all could plainly see
in grade school rhymers written when
    he'd dreamt of Tennessee.

Sam fixed the widow's car that night
    (of course, a Model-T)
then trudged into the blizzard's might
    and dreamt of Tennessee.

Across the narrow bridge he walked
    the tenspot would soon be
misspent in hotels as he talked
    and dreamt of Tennessee.

Sam did not hear the coming car
    (that very Model-T)
and never made it to the bar
    to dream of Tennessee. 


     Under this we'd see a spot for evaluating the poem and a larger text box for posting a critique.  Two decades later such a site might accommodate slide shows and video performances.

"How did you find out who the poets and critics are?"

     You didn't.  However, by knowing your own ratings you could see where one stood in relation to the other members.  Only if and when a version of a poem was published (in which case the author would have the Egoless posting deleted) would you discover who wrote it.

     For what it's worth, the site reported on the highest regarded poets from a survey of the other serious critical forums (i.e. Poetry Free-For-All, Eratosphere, Gazebo, and Poets dot org, the latter two of which are now defunct).  Of course, Maz topped the list...and this was before she wrote "Studying Savonarola"!  With the benefit of hindsight, these names should be higher on the list:

A.E. Stallings
Robert J. Maughan
Claudia Grinnell
Michael Cantor
Richard Epstein
Jennifer Reeser 
Frank Matagrano
Andrew Kei Miller
Marek Lugowski
Colin Will
Charles Cornner
Janet Dowd
Kim Hodges

"What about trolls?"

     Not a problem.  Trolls would fail the entrance test miserably, be bozoed, and never climb out of Egolite.

"Bozoed"?

     What we would call a "soft banning" nowadays.  That member would be the only one to see their postings.

"So what happened?  What did people learn from the Egoless experiment?"

     Above all, we learned that knowledgeable critiquers are worth their weight in platinum:

Peter J. Ross
Hannah Craig
Bob Schechter
John Boddie
Harry Rutherford
Rob Evans
Gary Gamble

     We saw how much can be learned from getting and giving serious critique.  We also learned that Earl Gray's 44th Law cannot be ignored:

      Indeed, many of Earl Gray's Laws of Poetry came from the Egoless experience.

      The Egoless approach was not meant to be restricted to poetry.  It can work in any critical environment:  prose, legal, scientific, artistic, business planning--anything that benefits from frank feedback.

The Outerview Series: Part XIX - Karen Solie

       Cryptocrap is defined by what it lacks:  clarity, technique, and performance value.  In short, it is the direct antithesis of poetry.  Only on a good day is it forgettable.  

      As best we can tell, the "aesthetic" seems to be:  

      If you have judged a poetry contest you may have noticed the paucity of the incoherent linebreaking so omnipresent in academic journals.  At some level, these students and their professors have enough self-awareness to know that cryptocrap has no readership or audience.  Not now.  Not ever.

Speaking of "not ever"...

       If you never take anything away from this series, learn this:  Never concede that your words are not memorable--not poetry--by reading them aloud in public.

 Karen Solie 

 
     "So is this 'Karen Solie' the exception to this generalization about cryptocrap?"

      Good question!  

      "And the answer?"

       Sort of.  

      "Well, can she write poems or not?"

       She cannot.

      "So why...?"

       She can write brilliant lines.  One per poem.  

       "So, killer and filler poems?"

        Yes, but minus the filler.

        "How does that work?  Examples?"

Filler and Killer 

       "Hookers" by Marco Morales is an oft-used exemplar:

"Missing you again
I embrace shallow graves
Pale faces, doughlike breasts
help me forget."

       And what question do we ask ourselves when judging poetry?

       "Why will I remember these words long after I forget others?"

        Correct.  So which of these is the killer?

"I embrace shallow graves."

       Of course.  Now concentrate on the other lines.  Are they incidental or do they help the cause?  And if so, how?

       The sounds repeat:  The long "A" sounds of "again", "pale" and "faces" hitting on "embrace" and "graves".  The short "e" sounds in "breasts", "help" and "forget" echoes "em[brace]", the long "O" sounds in "doughlike" and "forget" catching on the unstressed "shallow", the hard "g" sounds of "again", "forget" and "graves" from the key line.

       And the rhythm?

      "All iambs except for acephaly at the start and "help me" at the beginning of the final line."

       See how all that filler turns a brilliant line into a masterful poem?

      "Yes."

       All of that is missing.

       Now look at a typical Karen Solie effort:  "for Erik"


       First, tell us what the killer line is.

an essential knowledge or intuition
that age, like water, like wind, erodes,
in ig|norance | recast | as in|nocence
by all the insipid diocese of wellness

      If you recall anything from this piece a month from now it will be the internal rhyming iambs of this line with its "n", short "i" and short "a" sounds.  Quite pretty, but it needs--among other things--the surrounding lines to give context to the abstractions:  ignorance and innocence.  Talking about the erosion of "essential knowledge or intuition" being ignorance or innocence compounds violations of:

The Barnacles Rule

   Substitute some form of the word "barnacles" to test the need for any particular word.

      For example, the line directly following the killer could be any of the following without being any less obscure:

by all the insipid diocese of wellness
by all the barnacled diocese of wellness
by all the insipid barnacles of wellness
by all the insipid diocese of barnacles

      Many of us will be inspired by a great line.  Poets will backfill the other lines with technique, like a beautiful setting for a precious gem.  Karen will toss it into word salad, her task ending where a poet's begins.  It's like the Densuke Problem in microcosm.  A stunning line can make pedestrian ones seem even more banal by comparison.  Of course, other cryptocrappers won't have such a line in the first place.  As such, Solie is better than any other linebreaker.  By exactly one line per poem.

     "In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king." 

The Outerview Series: Part XVIII - Content Regency

     By now we understand that poetry is memorable speech.  It is a mode of speech, the other being prose.  The difference between prose and poetry is 100% form, 0% substance, and the purpose of that form is to make your words memorable.

     As such, it can be about anything.  It can be profound or simple.  Narrative, dramatic, or lyrical.  It can instruct us...

     "One, two, buckle my shoe..."

     ...remind us...

     "Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November..."

     ...entertain us...

     "There was a young man from Nantucket..."

     ...inform us...

     "We jazz june.  We die soon..."

     ...and everything else we communicate.  Thus, content (e.g. plot, message, meaning, theme, interpretation, emotions, moods, perspectives, etc.) plays no role in distinguishing poetry from prose, let alone distinguishing good from bad verse.  Great and terrible poems can be profound or silly, objective or subjective, passionate or removed, funny or serious.  This is axiomatic, which is why in our first article we established poetry's definition and raison d'être:  Memorable speech.  The concision and repetition (e.g. rhymes, rhythms, sonics, etc.) don't define poetry;  their purpose does.  They are mnemonics used to facilitate memory.

      Let's play a game.  I will mention an iconic poem and its takeaway.  You respond "Wow" if it is a stunning insight and "Duh" if it is painfully obvious.  Ready?

Ozymandias - "Great people/s die."

     "Duh."

High Flight - "Flying is exhilarating."

     "Duh."

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - "Growing old sucks."

     "Duh."

In Flanders Fields - "War is sad."

     "Duh."

The Cremation of Sam McGee - "Tennesseens don't like freezing."

     "Duh."

Sonnets from the Portuguese 43 - People love their lovers.

     "Duh!"

Doggerel and Lineated Prose

      For a second, let's pretend poetry depends on content.  You produce a brilliant idea or emotional circumstance.  You express it in the usual clumsy verse or prose with linebreaks.  Such insights should bring the world to your door, right?

      Here's the problem:  You can't copyright a theme.  A better writer--a poet--can and will  change a few details and express the same idea.  Indeed, this is the very definition of poetry:  the best words in the best order.  Words, not concepts or emotions.  Aside from its definition (i.e. memorable speech), this is the most fundamental and uncontroversial aspect of verse: 

 

       Understanding this axiom will take decades off your development time.

The Status Quo

      As we know, except for song lyrics poetry has died.  Few can recite it and contemporary performances are ignored.  Fewer and fewer remember what it was like when poetry was alive.  Or what it was.  It is an arcane art form.  Even major editors don't know or care about verse.  Dull prose is easier to source so why worry about craft?

     "So why are we here learning it?"

      For the same reasons as our ancestors developed it.

     "Which are...?

      To make our words live rent free in other people's heads.

     "Examples?"

      Sure.  Take advertising, for example.  Ask your grandparents to finish this line:

     "You'll wonder where the yellow went when you--"

      Ganesan Shekar wrote these five words--three trochees--and retired before 21:

     "Things are | sold, not | purchased."

      There are political slogans and speeches.

      There are slam contests.  There are cattle calls where a throwaway phrase might stick in interviewers' minds, landing you the role/job.

      Above all, though, there is still music.  Lyrics are more profitable than ever.

      "Okay, but what if I just want to get my poetry published?"

      For academic or commercial publications?

      "Both."

      Okay.  First, you will need to remove anything that resembles verse from your writing.

      "Can we disguise it, as with a curgina?"

      Yes, but there's no need to bother.  These editors don't read their submissions aloud.  In these circles, poetry is an affectation.  

        For a University Press you need to turn everything you've learned about poetry on its head.  Ignore Law #12...

          ...and embrace Rule #2:

      Write out some open ended Seinfeldian (i.e. about nothing) prose, remove any point of clarity, insert random linebreaks, and add a bunch of letters after your pseudonym.  Remember that the purpose isn't to be memorable;  in fact, the more forgettable the better, since that won't intrude on the scribblings of others.  This being the land of the dreaded poetry reading, never bother to memorize or perform your "poetry".

     "And non-academic outlets?"

      Shaggy dog stories with linebreaks.

Conclusion

      The status quo is dire.  On the plus side, the "competition" is every bit as hopeless.

The Outerview Series: Part XVII - Poetry Exam Answers

      Click here to take the exam before seeing the answers. 

 Questions and Answers to Poetry Exam

1. What is poetry?

   a) Emotive writing.
   b) Profound writing.
   c) Humorous writing.
   d) Memorable speech.

    Memorable speech, as opposed to forgettable prose.  We recite poetry.  Prose?  Not so much.

2.  Is a line more or less rhythmic as it goes along?

     Lines find their rhythm.  Inversions (e.g. a trochee in an iambic line) and extra syllables are rare after the first foot.

3.  Does one scan poems from left to right or from right to left?

     Because metrical lines find their cadence as they go along scanning from right to left is more reliable.  Lines with a lot of missing (acephaly) or extra (anacrusis) syllables at their beginning will backscan easier than they forescan.

4.  Can we replace all the accented syllables in a foot with unaccented ones?  Or all the unaccented syllables in a foot with with accented ones?

     Yes.  A trochaic (DUM-de) or iambic (de-DUM) binary foot can become a pyrrhic (de-de) or spondee (DUM-DUM).  Similarly, a dactyl, amphibrach, or an anapest can become a tribach (de-de-de) or a mollosus (DUM-DUM-DUM, "wine dark sea").  Thus, you can add or remove stresses but not "move" them (e.g. switching an iamb into a trochaic inversion), especially after the first foot.

5.  Hard sounds add pop, kick, and "toot", especially before a vowel rather than at the end of a syllable, but do they raise, lower, or not affect the tension level?

     Harder sounds (e.g. k, p, t, ch, hard g in "got", etc.) raise the level of tension.  Softer sounds (e.g. m, n, sh, l, etc.) lower the excitement.

6.  Hypermetrical syllables are those before (anacrusis) or after (hypercatalectic) the meter.  Do they typically use hard or soft sounds? 

     Extra syllables should be inconspicuous and, therefore, softer sounding.

7.  Is Blake's "Tyger" iambic or is it trochaic?

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 
In the forests of the night; 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears 
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

    "Tyger" has a lot of ambiguous 7-syllable meters.  It is iambic [tetrameter] because it has six perfectly iambic lines and no examples of trochee.

8.  Is "The Red Wheel Barrow" by W.C. Willams metrical or not (e.g. free verse)?

So much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

     A meter is an identifable pattern of quantification of something:  beats, feet, alliterations, tempos, etc.  The Red Wheel Barrow has 2 stresses for the odd numbered lines, one in the even numbered ones.  That is accentual dimeter then monometer or, if you wish, accentual heterometer.  It is also "lexometric" because it has two words, then one.  (Ever wonder WCW broke "wheelbarrow" into two words?)  "Free verse"?  This is arguably the most metrical poem ever written.

9.  Are all song lyrics poetry or does their content matter?

     All songs are poetry, if only because they certainly aren't prose.  They might not be good poetry, though.

"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung." - Voltaire

10.  Does assonance (or consonance or alliteration) apply only to accented syllables?

     Yes.  It follows that, in general, we should avoid repeating sounds in unstressed syllables wherever worried about overassoance, overconsonance, or overalliteration.

11.  Does quantity (i.e. line duration) matter more in spoken verse or songs?

     Music will have regular bar lengths, keeping up with the beat, so line duration matters more in song lyrics.  (We bear in mind that, through melisma, we can extend or "run" syllables while singing.)

12.  Metrical verse usually uses one cadence.  Free verse uses rhythm strings.  Which uses more substitutions?

     The metrist is trying to mix the headbanging tempo up with variations:  extra or removed unstressed syllables or filling the foot with only stressed or unstressed ones, etc.  The free verse is trying to establish one rhythm string, often before transitioning to another.  These snippets may use arrhythmic text between these strings but not within them.

13.  What is terminal dieresis?  What is its effect?

     Terminal dieresis involves ending a stanza with a cadential word, usually with few or any such words before it.  Take this example from DPK's "Beans", which ends on the only iambic word in the stanza:

    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.

14.  Can the same words be both poetry and prose?  If so, how?  If not, why not?

     "God is alive, magic is afoot" was published as prose in Leonard Cohen's second novel "Beautiful Losers".  Buffy Ste. Marie read those words, set them to music, and had a hit song.

      How was it poetry?  Because Buffy sang it?  No.  Chanting a phone book won't turn it into "Songs from the Portuguese".  What made it poetry was the fact that people, beginning with Buffy Ste. Marie, memorized it.  (This leads us to discussions about who creates poetry:  poets or audiences?)

15.  When and why did poetry (other than song lyrics) die?

      Something started the ball rolling in the 1880s (Algernon Swinburne?  Bern copyright laws?  Unclear.)  What we do know is that starting in 1923 radio songs subsumed spoken poetry.  By 1962 poetry fundamentals were no longer taught in primary schools and the last iconic English language poem (a limerick about a man from Nantucket) had been published.

16.  In what meter is Gordon Lightfoots "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"?

      Amphibrachic (i.e. de-DUM-de) tetrameter.

17.  What is unusual about "Tecumseh?

"Tecumseh" by EG
(aka "Shooting Star" or "Panther that Crouches in Wait")

You, Canadian? The greatest
American? You fought to be neither,
but nor were you panther
that crouches in wait. You were egret,
your feet in the mud as you stood
above weeds. Both

your fathers would leave you
to war. Brock would say no more
valorous warrior exists. Sure
as apple trees bud, the pleas
of a peacemaker can't be imparted
while even your traplines
have got to be guarded. Time

is gravity, a shooting star descending. Time
is charity; too soon you'll see it ending.

The cities were the bellows of the wind
that blew at Prophetstown,
across the rivers,
over you. Gray wolves surround the egret.
Foxes slink
away, their turn tail coats the colour of your blood.

You'd say: "Sing your death song and then die
like a hero returning home." Yours was the song
of that egret, your life
like a burning poem.

     It is in 5 meters, including all five binary and trinary cadences, disguised (i.e. curginated) with free verse linebreaks:

1 Anapestic Hexameter
2 Amphibrachic Tetrameter
3 Trochaic Hexameter
4 Iambic Hexameter
5 Dactyllic Pentameter



18. Cryptocrappers abide by Earl Gray's 2nd Law:  "If you can't be profound be vague."  Everyone else goes by Earl's 12th Law, which is: "___ __ __ __________ ___ _______."?

 

19. What is the Egoless Motto?  Hint:  "If you don't think your poetry is competing against the works of others ___'__ ________ _____."

 

20. What is The Elizabeth Alexander Rule?  Hint:  "Poetry's only selling point is that it is _______ ____ ____ ___."

 

     We hope you enjoyed our Poetry Test.

 

The Outerview Series: Part XVI - Poetry Exam

 1. What is poetry?

   a) Emotive writing.
   b) Profound writing.
   c) Humorous writing.
   d) Memorable speech.

2.  Is a line more or less rhythmic as it goes along?

3.  Does one scan poems from left to right or from right to left.

4.  Can we replace all the accented syllables in a foot with unaccented ones?  Or all the unaccented syllables in a foot with with accented ones?

5.  Hard sounds add pop, kick, or "toot", especially before a vowel rather than at the end of a syllable, but do they raise, lower, or not affect the tension level?

6.  Hypermetrical syllables are those before (anacrusis) or after (hypercatalectic) the meter.  Do they typically use hard or soft sounds? 

7.  Is Blake's "Tyger" iambic or is it trochaic?

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 
In the forests of the night; 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears 
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

8.  Is "The Red Wheel Barrow" by W.C. Willams metrical or not (e.g. free verse)?

So much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

9.  Are all song lyrics poetry or does their content matter?

10.  Does assonance (or consonance) apply only to accented syllables?

11.  In English prosody does quantity (i.e. line duration) matter more in spoken verse or songs?

12.  Metrical verse usually uses one cadence.  Free verse uses rhythm strings.  Which uses more substitutions?

13.  What is terminal dieresis?  What is its effect?

14.  Can the same words be both poetry and prose?  If so, how?  If not, why not?

15.  When and why did poetry (other than song lyrics) die?

16.  In what meter is Gordon Lightfoots "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"?

17.  What is unusual about "Tecumseh?

"Tecumseh" by EG
(aka "Shooting Star" or "Panther that Crouches in Wait")

You, Canadian? The greatest
American? You fought to be neither,
but nor were you panther
that crouches in wait. You were egret,
your feet in the mud as you stood
above weeds. Both

your fathers would leave you
to war. Brock would say no more
valorous warrior exists. Sure
as apple trees bud, the pleas
of a peacemaker can't be imparted
while even your traplines
have got to be guarded. Time

is gravity, a shooting star descending. Time
is charity; too soon you'll see it ending.

The cities were the bellows of the wind
that blew at Prophetstown,
across the rivers,
over you. Gray wolves surround the egret.
Foxes slink
away, their turn tail coats the colour of your blood.

You'd say: "Sing your death song and then die
like a hero returning home." Yours was the song
of that egret, your life
like a burning poem.

18. Cryptocrappers abide by Earl Gray's 2nd Law:  "If you can't be profound be vague."  Everyone else goes by Earl's 12th Law, which is:

   "___ __ __ __________ ___ _______."?

19. What is the Egoless Motto?  Hint: 

 "If you don't think your poetry is competing against the works of others

  ___'__ ________ _____."

20. What is The Elizabeth Alexander Rule?  Hint:  

 "Poetry's only selling point is that it is _______ ____ ____ ___."

 

    The answers can be found in this series, most notably here.

 

The Outerview Series: Part XV - Crossword Poetry

      While doing your crossword puzzle you come upon the clue for 13-down:  "a Welsh doggy".  Looking at the grid you see it is five letters long.  Perhaps some of the crossing text has provided another clue:  the first letter is "c" and the fourth is "g".  Voilà!  The answer must be "corgi"!

     Crafting poetry is the same search for the perfect word.  Suppose you are writing a children's poem in iambic tetrameter.  You come to this acephalous line:

Said | the scar|y la|dy there.

     "'Acephalous'?"

      Headless.  Missing an unstressed syllable at the beginning.  We need to replace the flat word, "said", preferably with an iamb.

      Among many alternatives an online thesaurus provides we see:  pronounced, declared, announced, remarked, observed, affirmed, revealed, disclosed, implied, and proposed.  Which of these is best?  And why?

     "The 'why" is sonics.  Once we've nailed the cadence it's always sonics."

      Very good!  So what are we looking for here?

      "A word that has the same sounds in its stressed syllable as those in the rest of the line."

      Excellent!  Assonance and consonance.  So which word is your choice?  Pronounced, declared, announced, remarked, observed, affirmed, revealed, disclosed, implied, or proposed?

      "Declared."

      Precisely!  It repeats the "ar" in "scary", the "r" in "there", and long "a" in "lady".  Your meter might be a little shaky but your ear for sound is superb!

      "Thanks."

      Now let's try another crossword clue.  Your character is standing outside a crematorium, sensing the smoke and ash "falling earthward".  Can we see the problem with that phrasing?

      "Duh, gravity.  On this planet everything falls earthward."

       Exactly.  Completely redundant.  So what is a more dramatic, evisceral, trochaic or spondaic word instead of "earthward" here?

      "'Fleshward.'  Falling fleshward."

      Brilliant.

The Outerview Series: Part XIV - Convenient Poetics

 

 

      "Poets: Really, they're the laziest, stupidest people I know." - Christian Bök, 2009

       Convenient Poetics is an "aesthetic" formed around ignorances.  If we have never learned basic scansion--which most haven't--then meter isn't necessary.  We can just write prose and let our ENTER key take things from there.  Sonics?  Too much effort.  Performance?  Why bother as long a publisher will put it in print?  It's not like anyone is going to want to hear or read this, right?

      When the failure of this approach is pointed out Convenient Poets ("ConPos") shrug and say:

"Poetry is subjective!"

      While this may be true, three goat herders in Outer Mongolia won't form a market large enough to make the effort worthwhile.  Yes, it does matter if people like your work.

       As poetry faded into obscurity an insignificant few keepers of the flame remained in the center.  Without prosody, the rest were left with nothing except Convenient Poetics and, of course, the dreaded Content Regency.

On the Right

       On the monied end of the spectrum are the universities, supported by the public, alumni, and tuitions, and the Foundation, supported by the Ruth Lilly (1915-2009) $200M donation in 2003.  To its credit, the Poetry Foundation has a comprehensive online archive and worked with the National Endowment for the Arts Endowment to give us "Poetry Out Loud!"  Meanwhile, Poetry Magazine and academia created cryptocrap:  artless pseudo-intellectual amphigouri.  Brain farts.  No technique.  No rhythm.  No performance value.  

    "It's too boring to be prose so it must be poetry!"

On the Left

       Performance fans skew younger.  We might see them as slammers, spoken worders or open mikers.  The content is all too "accessible":  Heart farts.  To their credit, these actors often memorize their presentations.  

       Thus, technicians understand that poetry is memorable speech while academics insist that it is forgettable writing.  And the spoken word poets?  By definition, they understand that poetry is speech and they do recognize the value of performance and memory.  They just have to add more mnemonics and find content beyond their own navels.  

Conclusion

        It follows that any hope of creating iconic poems and reviving poetry itself lies in educating spoken verse enthusiasts.

 

The Outerview Series: Part XIII - The Densuke Problem

 

      The black Densuke watermelon is grown only on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.  It is known for its sweetness and rarity.  An early crop might number as few as 65, fetching a price of $6,100 each.

      In gaming theory there is La Macheide:  "The perfection of an endeavor destroys it."  Machines do our job if/because they do so better, faster, and without human casualties.  An ideal mate can spoil us for any future prospects.  In a comedy show who wants to take the mic after Derek Edwards?

      The "Densuke problem" would seem a wonderful one to have.  Suppose you wrote the ultimate contemporary poem, one that towered over lesser products as the Densuke does.  If people were to read it they would immediately want to memorize it, making it the first iconic verse since that 1961 limerick about a man from Nantucket.  It could, conceivably, revive a dead mode of speech.  (For now, we'll ignore song lyrics.)

      So what do you do with this work?

      "Publish it!  In the biggest poetry magazine around!"

      Suppose this publication paid you for the rights to publish it but never did so, effectively killing it.  Would you be surprised?

      "I'd be shocked!  Why would they do that?"

      Suppose they published it.  What would be everyone's first thought?

      "It would be:  'Wow!  This is excellent!'"

      Okay.  What would the public's second thought be?

      "What do you mean?"

      Upon realizing that you've discovered a unicorn, what do you wonder?

      [Pause for thought.]

      "'Are there other unicorns?  A mommy and daddy unicorn...?'"

      And if not?

      "'...and if not, why not?'"

      Exactly!  Why can't more poems be this good?  Or, at least, close?

      "Because poems this good are rare?"

      Precisely.  To grok what is going on we need to understand Gresham's Law:

 "Bad money drives out good."

      Suppose you go to an auction with cash backed up by a gold standard.  Everyone else outbids you with crypto-coin "dollars", inflating prices in the process.  Knowing your money is being grossly undervalued you withdraw immediately.

      Now suppose you've written a generational masterpiece.  Look around at what publishers are putting out these days.  What few readers these enjoy are those trying to discern what type of prose with linebreaks the editor likes (e.g. cryptocrap?  Shaggy dog stories?  Long-winded aphorisms?  Rants?  Heart farts?).  Do you want your work to be associated with this doggeral and lineated prose?  Do you trust the aesthetic judgment of editors cranking this stuff out?  Not surprisingly, the best poets of this century don't bother with print publishing.  Bad poetry drives out good.

      Even when poetry was at its height, canonical poems averaged about one per year [other than the Shakespeare blip].  Since the death of poetry that may be less then one per decade.  There is a paucity of originality and a grotesque disregard for technique.

      Enter you, with your unicorn/Densuke poem.  The editor has to fill pages and your effort is going to make all others look bad by comparison.  Even if this editor were a technician--which none of the major ones are--the instinct might be to not publish it.

      It follows logically that if we want to reanimate this dead mode of speech we'll need to do so by performing it.

 

 

 

The Outerview Series: Part XII - The Meaning of Meaning

      "Every songwriter knows you can sell form without substance.  
       Every prose writer knows you can sell substance without form.  
       You can't sell neither."

      "Poetry isn't about what you say.  It's about how you say it." - Gary Gamble (rec.arts.poems)

      A reporter can produce quality prose in minutes before going on air to present the facts to a waiting population.  Prose is timely.

 

      The poetic elements that we've discussed in this series usually take much longer to fashion refined verse.  Each word must fit with all of the others, like sculpted stones in an ancient edifice.  They may need to stand for ages.

What role does substance have in poetry?

     Prose tends to be about information:  answers and facts.  It may be how many will find your verse (i.e. via web searches).  Poetry tends to be about questions and comparisons (e.g. metaphors, similes, contrasts).

Metaphors and Similes

      A simile is a direct comparison, typically signalled by the word "as" or "like".

      "Like a hurricane" suggests the person or thing being described is tempestuous.

     A metaphor is not just associating two similar things;  it blurs any distinction between them.  The first requirement is that it not be true.

     "You are a rock star."

     If you're saying this to Rod Stewart it's a literal.  If to someone who isn't in the music business it's a metaphor.  The tenor is the thing described:  "You" in this case.  The vehicle is the description--the thing to which the tenor is being compared:  "rock star" in this example.  Your metaphor should be somewhat fresh.  "Rock star" might once have brought up thoughts of hard heavenly bodies but today it is little more than cliché.

     Consider this expression about a condition, trepidation, and alternatives:  escape or combat.

"In terror, flight or fight."

     The different sounds help define the condition, "terror", independent of both actions, "fight" or "flight".  Add some alliteration and the distinction between fear and fight/flight blurs:

"In fear,  there's fight or flight."

      Add rhyme and we mash together all three words...

"In fright, there's fight or flight."

       ...which may focus our attention on fright and flight because they have a consonant between the alliteration of "f" and the rhyme of "-ight".

       Parenthetically, this is but one example of how poetry--even the crudest commercial or political jingles--may have been humankind's original form of propaganda.

Genres and Subjects

       Consider your own posting habits.  How often--or how rarely--do you pass along a poem on social media?

       "Maybe once or twice.  Funny ones, probably."

       Like prose, poetry can be written on any topic and in any genre.  No, poetry doesn't have to be emotional, profound, or anything else.  In fact, the most popular genre is humor.  Personalities and politics are also popular.  The seven most memorable poems of this century were about a crazy 15th Century priest, beans, a warrior who died over 200 years ago, WWII nostalgia, sunflowers, non-necessities, and space junk.  Not a single love poem came close and, of course, cryptocrap was never a consideration.

      "Why not love poems?  Are the best poets today not romantic?"

       Good question.  Let me turn it around, though.  How many love poems written in the last sixty years can you recite?

       "Uh...well...none.  Lots of songs, though!"

        Exactly.  In this genre in particular, spoken verse cannot compete for attention with song lyrics.  It's certainly not an issue of quality...

"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung." - Voltaire

      ...with music getting worse every day. It's just a matter of numbers.  No matter how good your love poem is it will be drowned out by Top 40 hits on the radio.  It follows that if you want anyone to hear your love poems you will need to set them to music.  Or embed them.

       "Embed them?"

       Yes.  Insert them into something else, such as a television series or a movie.

       "How would that work?"

        In the case of "The Paradox of Love", you'd write an entire movie script to serve as prologue to a final farewell poem.

        Now, instead of seeking attention, you will be presenting something that a multi-million dollar film could be riding on.

        "No pressure!"

        Exactly.

        "Okay, so if not lovey dovey stuff, what do we write about?"

         Your listeners.  Their interests, not yours.  Their emotions, desires, curiosities, environments, and strengths.

        "But I don't know their interests."

        Look at social media.  People will spend all day and night telling you what fascinates them.  Write about those things.  And humor.  Nothing is more effective than making people smile or laugh.

        "Okay, but specifically, what works best among the serious stuff?"

         SOABs.  Sympathetic Or Ambiguous Biographies.  Glimpses into the lives of recognized figures.  Actors, politicians, newsmakers, reporters, anyone people will recognize.

         "Why not unsympathetic views?"

          That can work as entertainment--humor--but less antagonistic views can survive both the author and the subject [if only as elegies].

         "Can you give examples?"

          The three greatest poems of this century have been accounts of historical figures:  "Studying Savonarola", "Beans" (about Salvador Allende), and "Tecumseh".  If someone were to film a documentary or feature film on any of those they would find that poem online and ask the author for permission to use it in their production.

          Because fewer people are interested in history than current events, our biographies will focus on our contemporaries.
 
          Cliché is boring.  It won't enter our memory because it can't be distinguished from what is already there.  Cryptocrap is an extreme reaction to triteness that ends up being every bit as dull.  It reads like rot-13 gibberish:

Zvffvat lbh ntnva,
V rzoenpr funyybj tenirf.
Cnyr snprf, qbhtuyvxr oernfgf
uryc zr sbetrg.

          ...and has less than zero performance value.  That is, it actually drives audiences away.

  The truly great poems, lines, and phrases stop us in our tracks not because they are different/original but because they are better than everything else we've heard recently.  "Hookers" by Marco Morales will reside in the memory of anyone who encounters it:

Missing you again,
I embrace shallow graves.
Pale faces, doughlike breasts
help me forget.

     N.B.:  The second line is startling not because you don't know what it means;  it is startling because you do.  It is like an explosion of understanding.

     The frequency and support for these astounding lines is a style issue.  Morales used the "killer and filler" approach with the other lines feeding into "I embrace shallow graves".

     In "Studying Savonarola" Margaret Griffiths adopts the standard approach, building to a climax with the cretic "unconsumed".

Say you die, scorched into ashes, say

you pass from here to there, with your marigold
eyes, the garden darker for lack of one golden flower,
would bees mourn, would crickets keen, drawing long

blue chords on their thighs like cellists?
Say you disperse like petals on the wind,
the bright stem of you still a living stroke

in memory, still green, still spring, still the tint
and the tang of you in my throat, unconsumed.

      DPK attacks relentlessly, each line dripping with ambiguity to excite both halves of her polarized audience, pausing only to consider each euphemism carefully:

    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.

       To be successful, you need to master the techniques and produce stunning lines.  Quality over quantity.  You need to be optimistic, starting with the state of the art.  Yes, poetry is dead and you'll need several miracles to resuscitate it but that just means the competition, as numerous as it is, isn't particularly strong.

       There is a famous joke about Chicago Bears Running Backs Walter Payton and Matt Suhey camping in the Arctic.  A breathless Walter Payton comes into their tent and begins changing from mukluks to sneakers.  

     "What are you doing?" wonders Suhey.

     "There's a polar bear coming!"

      Suhey laughs and points out:  "You can't outrun a polar bear!"

      "I don't need to outrun the bear," Payton retorts.  "I just need to outrun you!"

      Your listeners want to hear "good stories well told" in 21st century language.  You don't need to write better than Shakespeare or Eliot.  You might not need to write better than DPK or Maz, who haven't been seen for more than a decade [and weren't well known then].  

      You just need to outwrite everyone else producing today, virtually none of whom are household names.  To recap, these are the 10 commandments for poetry promotion:

1. No diaries.  Write about everyone and everything except yourself.
2. Speak.  Poetry is a mode of speech, not writing.
3. Forget copyright infringement.  Encourage others to perform your work.
4. Form!  No one has ever been interested in memorizing prose with linebreaks.
5. Network.  Make contact with poets, actors, and producers.
6. Humor.  Make poems out of jokes.
7. Concision.  Less is more.
8. Repeat sounds:  rhyme, assonance, consonance, alliteration, anaphora, etc.
9. Sonics:  Use harsh sounds to create tension, soft sounds to relax.
10. Be humble and helpful.  And optimistic.

 The Outerview Series

The Outerview Series:  Part I - What is poetry?
The Outerview Series:  Part II - Where is poetry?
The Outerview Series:  Part III - What is Rhythm?
The Outerview Series:  Part IV - Scan Poems Backward
The Outerview Series:  Part V - Rhyming is Fun
The Outerview Series:  Part VI - Super Sonics
The Outerview Series:  Part VII - Production
The Outerview Series:  Part VIII - Manufacturing an Audience
The Outerview Series:  Part IX - Crafting Drafts
The Outerview Series:  Part X - Production
The Outerview Series:  Part XI - Attracting and Impressing
The Outerview Series:  Part XII - The Meaning of Meaning