My A.I.-generated picture of "frivolous";
is she holding a plum? (read on)
Does poetry have to have a meaning, or an "essential truth" (ET) somewhere in it for the reader to determine or intuit? Is the poet's message or ET necessarily an integral element of so-called
"good" poetry?
I started to think about that question when considering the nature and theme of some of the poems that my weekly Meetup poetry crafting class members present for feedback and analysis.
Some of those poems seem to be unrelentingly depressing, if not confusing, and I cannot fathom what the poet is trying to tell me. Those poems seem more like bad-news reporting, or how some people will rush to see the horrific results of a car accident. To me, reading some poems, be they by published poets or amateurs, is like reading a police-taken crime report of "just the facts ma'am" -- and those facts are joyless, if not gruesome. They are merely a depiction of life as it is.
I recently asked the initial burning question to my first poetry crafting teacher, Asso. Prof. of English Alyse Knorr who teaches at Regis University in Denver, and who also offers classes in person, or online at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. I benefited enormously from the LWW "Intro to Crafting Poetry" class and one on "Line Breaks" that I took with Alyse. From time to time she is gracious enough to answer a question about poetry to which I cannot find a satisfactory answer.
My question was sparked by reading the following comment on a writers' forum: "....if the conveyance of meaning is not the objective of a poem then it doesn't matter what their (the poet's) viewpoint is."
"Then why write it?" popped to mind.
"Just because one can" seems often to be the sole unsatisfying reason that so many of today's younger contemporary poets write -- and also music composers compose, that is, in the most jangling, a-harmonious, and confusing way.
I know poems like the magnificent and hilarious "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll seem to contain no ET, so perhaps I answered my own question? It's certainly a fun poem to read out loud and all the way through; you may remember that the poem starts like this:
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
However, upon second thought, perhaps Carroll was urging us to lighten up, not take ourselves as poets or people so seriously, to let go, to release the Kracken of our imagination, and to enjoy life? In that sense, the poem does indeed have an ET, and it's a delightful one!
Certainly I've been known to pop off a rather frivolous poem or two like the one below about music and brooms and dancing around my kitchen. I'd say my message is about the same as what I gleaned from Carroll's poem. I wondered if my poem might be considered a tongue-in-cheek dithyram, but Alyse opined that I might be writing and referring to "light verse." The poem following my "broom" poem, and that of B.N., both sarcastic riffs on the original poem "This is Just to Say" by William Carlos William,* might also fall into the light verse category as well.
I'm often short-tempered when I read a depressing poem or wallow in all the negative news out there, the type of news that the kleptocorporate capitalist mainstream media loves to feature and draw attention, and money, to.
I want a poem to offer me some guidance about life
or what something means in the long run, even if it does not offer hope.
I need a distinct point of view.
I'm not opposed to a poet out front "telling" me their message, rather than "showing" me in image and metaphor. Yes, I've been told that the best poems have to do with showing, not telling: "If you...tell the meaning of the poem you kill the epiphany for the reader." Perhaps, but if you go on and on trying too hard to invent clever metaphors and odd personifications, I find that just "too precious" and I get bored.
Some of my typically-lyrical ballade poems and most of my villanelle poems are "telling" type of poems. Without too much ado, I want my reader to know what I think, believe, and have experienced in my long life. What they then make of it, is up to them -- or they can thereafter be motivated to write their own abstruse, chock-full-of metaphors poem, but it won't be mine. I don't care if in a terse, thoughtful poem I "sermonize them into rebellion" as one writer said, since I could be the spark of a new, perfectly great poem!
When I read a poem I want to know what's what about the poet and poem. I want to know pretty early on, who is this person feeling a need to pontificate in poetry? Then I need to have the poem raise a clear bodily feeling or intellectual thought, present a new approach, or lift me up rather than beat me down -- as Presidential-candidate Harris said. It's the same for a piece of music to which I will resonate. In poem or music composition I need a melody to hum even if for only a few bars, and I need to hear recognizable harmonies, not ones that jangle my nerves even more than our political situation in the US already does.
Too, this writer makes sense to me: "The joy of the art of writing rests not in what you limit your work to, but in how you enable your reader to go further with your ideas than you have on the page. How you enable their agency as a participant in your craft." I'm up for doing that for my readers.
I'm at a later stage of life and interest where I'm seeking to sort things out, simplify, and downsize in order to find the critical meaning, key personal values, and essential products I should keep in my life. Same with friends and activities.
I have less patience with beating around the mulberry bush and I cannot tolerate reading long-winded books be they non-fiction or fiction. Poetry is so much harder to craft using as it usually does, few words, but I'll give any poem a go before I'll delve into a book of more than about 150-200 pages -- and there are many looooong books out there.
I'd rather read an essay, a blog, or listen to a podcast while I wash dishes or do other chores. My wonderful teacher, Noa Kageyama of Julliard, publishes a blog each weekend and I avidly read every one. That's because he is a master of precision. He helps me ask myself questions and experiment. He gets his point across quickly with practical, factual, and credibly-researched information regarding quelling performance nerves and improving one's instrumental performance. I know I've improved both, courtesy of Noa's blogs.
So, Alyse graciously shared some of her thoughts about my burning question. She refers to "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and says:
'I very much agree with Keats that 'beauty is truth, truth beauty.' I know there are lots of opinions on that front, but Keats is good enough for me. I think that writers (like Eliot with 'The Love Song of J. Alred Prufrock'* can make beauty out of the heartbreaks and loneliness of the world, and even if his outlook is bleak, the every fact that he's crafted beautiful images and language out of sorrowful realities is, to me, hopeful in itself."
I'm thinking about her comments. However, I suspect that I'm not entirely in agreement. Words and images, and indeed all other elements of poetry, create a pause long enough for me to take a second look and dig deeper to see if I can eventually unearth some ET, but when I don't find one, even if there are clever and perfect rhyming (my favorite element of poetry) and gorgeous images, I eventually get bored or depressed.
I'm more in the place that Oliver Sacks found himself in toward the end of his life, thinking about it "as a time of leisure and freedom, freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together.
Maybe Alyse, who is half my age, has more time to go in life, and thus, a lot more patience with poetry than I do and she can appreciate the fine-tuned turn of the word in and of itself? Rather than words per se, I need to deepen my understanding and revel in sensation and perception as much as I can in both poetry and in music. I don't want to become an expert at any particular element of either, but join all elements together with feeling, so I don't miss out on anything.
One could say I want it all, even at the expense of nothing being "perfect" - and they would be right!
_______
*"Prufrock" is "a dismal poem about an urban man stricken with feelings of isolation and an incapability for decisive action that is said to epitomize [the] frustration and impotence of the modern individual" and "represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment)" (Wikipedia)
***
SEIZED
Sometimes I’m seized
And then so pleased
With a tune divine
Or even sublime,
Or a simple rhyme
That at the time
Tickles my fancy
And then I dancy
Around my kitchen
With the chicken
And the cow
Or maybe the sow.
We move so slow
But then must go
Faster yet until we get
Dizzy then, from the spin
Around the room,
Next with a broom
That we store there,
And hold so tight,
A partner slim,
She’s barely there.
We do not care
Because we delight
As moves take flight
And we take off,
Our hats do doff,
Our hair let down,
And without one frown
We’re free at last
To have a blast!
A NOTE ON THE COUNTER
I have eaten
the Krispy Kremes
that were on
the counter
and which
you were probably
saving
for dessert
Forgive me
they were sinful
so sweet
and so creamy
_______
*With a tweak to the nose of poet William Carlos Williams,
not for his admirable medical practice focused on the poor,
but for his “Imagist” narrative poem about plums in
“This is Just To Say”; my subject is soooo much tastier (LOL)!
This and the following poem will make sense (or nonsense?)
when considering Williams’ original poem. (To be fair to Mr. Williams
you might consider how his poem "Between the Walls" fits for today,
November 6, 2024, the "win" of chump for US President with all
the chaos that that portends. Can we find beauty inbeween?)
THIS IS MINE TO SAY (Courtesy of B.N.)
I have run into
your Tesla
parked on
a Berkeley street
and which
you were probably
proud
of driving
Forgive me
it was exhilarating
so sweet
so purposeful
to smash
fascist
Elon Musk’s
handiwork
###
Comments