Poetry: An Essay

[Brandon]

The following essayoutlines the nature and distinguishing characteristics of poetry. I owe an incalculable amount of my understanding of poetry to Dr. Leonard Peikoff, as per his course "Poems I Like and Why" which is an excellant listen.

However, the following essay adds much in the form of examples and clarification he had the time to only touch on. I hope you enjoy, but please note the work is Copyrighted.

Copyright 2006

Brandon Croppper

Poetry’s Virtue * or * On the Nature of Poetry

A Poem and Essay

By Brandon Cropper

What sanctifies poetry?

What is its virtue?

What brings a good line to life?

What makes a good rhyme ring true?

Music is sugar for the ear;

A poem is sweet in this way;

Rhyme is sugar one hears;

Meter is words’ joyful play.

A poem with no rhyme

Or time in its verse

Sours the ear,

And approaches perverse.

the end

*****

What if I said e e cummings had no value as a poet? Assuming I were not hung from the nearest lamppost on a meat hook, I would add that John Donne was a tremendously valuable poet. Such an evaluation goes against every basic assumption of the modern art culture. It is assumed today that all art is sacred. Art, by modern definition, is anything that anyone says is art. I say this definition is nonsense.

How could I so arrogantly elect myself the final judge and pronounce who is and isn’t a poet? I believe it is justified and here are my reasons.

Poetry’s Musical Nature

Poetry is unique: it is a form of communication, and simultaneously a form of art. It is my contention that the essential characteristic of poetry, which differentiates it from all other written communication, is the quality of music, including rhythm, rhyme and meter. There is no other form of writing which mixes the qualities of music with the qualities of prose. When the properties of music are divorced from writing, then the remainder is no longer poetry by definition.

The question may arise: “Why can’t a set of powerful, memorable lines be called a poem, even if they don’t rhyme?” To this I must say I have written “poems” that didn’t rhyme or have rhythm or meter, but they aren’t a finished product until they have been forged into a poetic form. Sometimes when I am writing down inspirational lines for a possible poem, I get a line or set of lines or phrase that is so powerful and inevitable that I can see no way to change it for the better. The language or cadence may grab my attention, or it may be some more elusive quality, accountable only to my own tastes. But for whatever reason, the lines sometimes don’t want to lend themselves to recasting. When this happens I set those lines aside, sometimes for months or even years before trying again to find a poetic form, a workable rewording. So I regard such “poems” as the beginning notes from which a truly poetic statement may be formed with some effort.

Here is an example of a poem which I liked and was unable to alter at first:

A Human Romance

She was with me but not mine -

Her eyes were sleepy with beauty.

I had her; I did not own her.

I was a captive of my captive -

and she felt she was too.

The skin on her body reminds me of milk

While her delicate voice recalls for me silk.

Her beautiful eyes burn a hole in my sole.

Why did I have her? I still do not know.

I woke on a morning when she was with me;

I sat up to ponder her morning physique.

No make-up and puffy eyes;

a red crease on her cheek.

But her beauty transcended

my scrutiny.

I saw only perfection in her visage.

end

I loved that line “captive of my captive - and she felt she was too.” And I loved the part where she was “sleepy with beauty.” These lines expressed my feelings on the subject so perfectly that I left them unaltered for almost three years. Then one day, reading the poem, I decided it was just too good to leave unfinished, so I sat out to get more rhyme. Here is my revised version, with changed portions in italics:

A Human Romance

I had her; I did not own her,

But this did not make me blue.

I was a captive of my captive -

And she felt she was too.

She was with me but not mine -

Sleepy with beauty, she was supine.

Her skin’s complexion reminds me of milk,

While her delicate voice recalls for me silk.

Her beautiful eyes burn a hole in my sole.

Why did I have her? I still do not know.

I woke on a morning when she was with me;

I sat up to ponder her morning physique.

No make-up, puffy eyes, crease on her cheek.

But her beauty transcended my scrutiny.

I saw only perfection in her visage.

the end

What had seemed inevitable and unchangeable turned out to be good material for an even better version. Here is one more example of a poem which hit home for me, and was hard to change:

Your Softness

(On missing Marta)

You are fading into the past

And I’m scared.

You are going where memories dim

And your face will be clouded by time.

And yet I cannot stop you

Because you do not hear me.

I scream from frustration

But softly, because I know it won’t help.

And besides, softness reminds me of you.

end

I was stalled for over two years on the above. Each time I read it, the language was so potent in reviving the feelings that went into the poem, I couldn’t believe it could be improved. So it remained unchanged until...

Your Softness

(On missing Marta)

You are fading from my mind.

The process frightens me.

You’re withdrawing into the past,

Through time’s shroud soon not to be seen.

You are going where memories dim;

Your face will be clouded by time.

And I cannot travel with you -

For you are no longer mine.

How can I stop you from moving away,

Into shrouded clouds of time?

I scream your name - its all I can say -

Frustration is God’s cruelest crime.

I scream softly - soft for three reasons:

Deep sorrow dampens my voice;

I know you don’t want to hear this;

And I know all this was my choice.

And besides, softness reminds me of you.

The end

What was before a terse nine lines has become, with some effort and pencil grease, a well-structured sixteen line poem with a finishing declaration, left unmatched so as not to detract from the feeling of desperate sorrow in the speaker’s voice. I am very happy with the revisions.

Working and reworking the lines to get a workable rhythm and rhyme means that the poet must comb over every syllable and carefully choose every word, especially if he has a particular word he wants to use in a given place. This leads to the astounding conscientiousness of every syllable in a well-written poem. Changing one word, even one syllable, can wreak havoc on a finished product. Inversely, the poem may be rough in a spot because it has a single extra syllable, or lacks one, or a word the poet wants to use doesn’t fit. But once this is overcome, the result feels like a law of nature: one feels the poem couldn’t have been otherwise. This repeated editing to get the words to fit the poetic form is certainly responsible for the purposeful and inevitable feel of a good poem. A good poem had to be this way. But the task can be daunting. How does one get started?

Getting in the Mode of Poetic Writing

I have found a very useful tool that I often use when writing a poem: I read poetry beforehand. Good poetry, almost anything from before the year 1900, and never “free verse”. Reading poem after poem, all with rhyming, rhythmic qualities, gets one’s brain into a mode of thinking that automatically tries to form sentences and phrases with a rhythmic beat, or rhyme. Its like forming a short-term habit, giving your mind the instruction: think like this. The joy and delight I get from writing a good poem, then reading it over and over, is irreplaceable, and the qualities of music are indispensable for this end.

Prose as such is simply the organization and presentation of ideas, concepts. Poetry is prose plus music. If you have ever read a line in a poem and thought it didn’t quite work, and read it again, shifting the emphasis or stress on a certain syllable or word that made it conform to the rest of the line or stanza, you have experienced the musical quality of poetry. Note the delightful qualities of music in the following classic poem:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know,

His house is in the village though.

He will not see me stopping here,

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer,

To stop without a farmhouse near,

Between the woods and frozen lake,

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake,

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep,

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

-- Robert Frost

Take note of the pattern Frost forces upon your handling of the word ‘promises’. It is not significant in itself, but it demonstrates the delight your mind takes in the musical qualities with which he has infused the poem. This musical quality is like the tongue's delight with sugar, like sex for the sex organs, like a beautiful woman for the eyes - it is pure sensory pleasure, music to the ears.

Grammar

A note of caution to would-be poets: Don’t break grammar to make a line work. Sure, its been done, even by the greatest poets, but it detracts from the quality of the work. Interrupting grammar in order to make a line correctly rhyme is an interruption of the poem, and has the effect of a speed bump or stop in the wrong place. This is not to say that every line needs to be a complete sentence or thought, but the ideas in the lines must match the beat or rhythm, so that one can keep the beat and still get the idea. Pausing at the end of a line for the next line can cause a loss of the thought if the grammar fails to break in the same way as the poem’s rhythm. An example follows, taken from a poem by Emily Dickinson, self-titled “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died”:

I willed my keepsakes, signed away

What portions of me I

Could make assignable, - and then

There interposed a fly.

In this example, the poem’s beat demands a small pause after “I” in the second line, but the grammar demands that “I” be read with “Could make assignable” and will not permit a break. This causes the stanza to read awkwardly. It is not irredeemable death for this to occur in a poem (note that Dickinson is widely published) but popularity does not mean quality or profundity (note that Hitler was elected to office and Picasso’s paintings sell for millions of dollars).

Reading Frost’s “Stopping by Woods” one is not halted for grammar breaks, and there are no half-rhymes like food-good or ran-town. That is what makes it such a classic and pleasurable read. I have heard “Stopping by Woods” derided as “sing-songy” as if the essential musical quality were a detraction, a vice. I believe that the evidence is available for anyone’s ears: good poetry exhibits the qualities of music. The public at large still understand this - just listen to the top 40 some time. This is because the joy of poetry, of rhyming, is a sensory pleasure. One doesn’t need to study some philosopher or attend a lecture on the qualities of good poetry - one can hear it. Note that it is mostly in the universities today that they read e e cummings and James Joyce. This is no coincidence: an appreciation for tempo and melody comes naturally to the human brain. It requires active indoctrination in subjectivism for people to start believing that e e cummings is a real poet even though he has dispensed with poetry.

To say that this musical quality, this one essential that is unique to poetry, is not necessary to make a good poem, is to declare that your definition of poetry is not the same as mine. Rhythm, rhyme and meter make poetry what it is. A poem without these is not a poem, by definition. And a poem with them is a most delightful pleasure for the ears and soul.

The End

Copyright 2006

Brandon Cropper

brandonjesse (at) hotmail (dot) com

[aleph_0]

I'm still not sure why poetry must rhyme. It must be rhythmic, certainly, as that is an integral part of music. But some of the best music in the world doesn't even have words, and some fantastic lyrics have not rhymed. I think good rhymes sound better than none at all, but that doesn't mean that the lack of rhymes invalidates the work as poetry or music.

[Brandon]

I'm still not sure why poetry must rhyme. It must be rhythmic, certainly, as that is an integral part of music. But some of the best music in the world doesn't even have words, and some fantastic lyrics have not rhymed. I think good rhymes sound better than none at all, but that doesn't mean that the lack of rhymes invalidates the work as poetry or music.

Thank you for the reply.

If it doesn't rhyme its called "blank verse" provided it has rhythm or meter. If it has no rhyme, rhythm or meter, its called prose (provided it is sensical).

Under the above statement, the works of e e cummings doesn't fit in any catagorey - and can only be classified as an abberation.

By defintion, a lack of rhyme disqualifies a work as poetry. It may be blank verse (much of Shakespeare, for example) or it may be in archaic language that gives it a "poetic" feel, like Anthem. But poetry, by definition, is that art form whose medium is the sound of concepts.

Music doesn't need to have words at all, and the best music in my opnion (Tchaikovsky, Strauss, DeBussy, and a few more) had no words.

Poetry is words arranged to have musical qualities, modern nihilism notwithstanding.

Brandon

[Adrian Hester]

By defintion, a lack of rhyme disqualifies a work as poetry.

Really now. I always thought the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid were poetry, but I guess not.

Edited June 13, 2006 by Adrian Hester

[Adrian Hester]

A note of caution to would-be poets: Don’t break grammar to make a line work. Sure, its been done, even by the greatest poets, but it detracts from the quality of the work. Interrupting grammar in order to make a line correctly rhyme is an interruption of the poem, and has the effect of a speed bump or stop in the wrong place...

I willed my keepsakes, signed away

What portions of me I

Could make assignable, - and then

There interposed a fly.

In this example, the poem’s beat demands a small pause after “I” in the second line, but the grammar demands that “I” be read with “Could make assignable” and will not permit a break. This causes the stanza to read awkwardly.

Which was probably her intention; it's obvious from the stanza itself. "I...signed away/what portions of me I/ could make assignable..." Her I stands there cut off from what precedes and follows just as death cut her off from the world.

It is not irredeemable death for this to occur in a poem (note that Dickinson is widely published) but popularity does not mean quality or profundity (note that Hitler was elected to office and Picasso’s paintings sell for millions of dollars).

Uh huh. So, since I like Dickinson's poetry quite a lot, that means I would also have voted for Hitler and spent my pension fund on Picasso. If you didn't mean to imply that, then why bother to go on about their respective popularities at all?

The public at large still understand this - just listen to the top 40 some time. This is because the joy of poetry, of rhyming, is a sensory pleasure. One doesn’t need to study some philosopher or attend a lecture on the qualities of good poetry - one can hear it.

Interesting. So in one paragraph you say that Emily Dickinson's being widely published is pretty much tantamount to Hitler being elected, but then you turn right around and say that the popularity of the top 40 discredits the academy. But really, you're quite right: popularity does not mean quality or profundity. Just listen to the top 40 some time! In fact, popularity is irrelevant to the evaluation of a work of art or to the establishment of rational artistic criteria. So why do you bring it up at all? Why do you use it as a snide attack on Emily Dickinson for writing widely published poetry (and yes, it is poetry, and fine poetry at that) that you don't seem to like very much, then turn right around and praise the top 40 for its popularity because it reflects what you like in poetry?

Edited June 13, 2006 by Adrian Hester

[Adrian Hester]

If it doesn't rhyme its called "blank verse" provided it has rhythm or meter. If it has no rhyme, rhythm or meter, its called prose (provided it is sensical).

Prose does indeed have rhythm, and good prose writers pay close attention to the rhythm and flow of their sentences. It's a subtler use of rhythm than in poetry, but it's present if you listen for it.

By defintion, a lack of rhyme disqualifies a work as poetry...But poetry, by definition, is that art form whose medium is the sound of concepts.

"By definition...by definition." By one definition, poetry must rhyme. By the other definition it's art whose medium is the sound of concepts. (Which is nonsense, by the way. Concepts are mental entities and don't have sounds. You mean words, which do have sounds.) You haven't convinced me that your definition of poetry as the art whose medium is the sound of words means that poetry must rhyme.

Poetry is words arranged to have musical qualities, modern nihilism notwithstanding.

And what defining quality of music corresponds to rhyme?

[Brandon]

Which was probably her intention; it's obvious from the stanza itself. "I...signed away/what portions of me I/ could make assignable..." Her I stands there cut off from what precedes and follows just as death cut her off from the world.

Uh huh. So, since I like Dickinson's poetry quite a lot, that means I would also have voted for Hitler and spent my pension fund on Picasso. If you didn't mean to imply that, then why bother to go on about their respective popularities at all?

Interesting. So in one paragraph you say that Emily Dickinson's being widely published is pretty much tantamount to Hitler being elected, but then you turn right around and say that the popularity of Top 40 discredits the academy. But really, you're quite right: popularity does not mean quality or profundity. Just listen to the top 40 some time! In fact, popularity is irrelevant to the evaluation of a work of art or to the establishment of rational artistic criteria. So why do you bring it up at all? Why do you use it as a snide attack on Emily Dickinson for writing widely published poetry (and yes, it is poetry, and fine poetry at that) that you don't seem to like very much, then turn right around and praise the top 40 for its popularity because it reflects what you like in poetry?

I like Dickinson's poetry also. I gave an example of broken grammar that interupted a line, that's all. Interpretting it and saying she probably intended it is fine - maybe I missed something - but I think its a disruption of the thought, like a bump in the wrong place. She may or may not have intended it as some sort of huge metaphor for being cut off from life like the word "I" was cut off in mid-line (which is pretty weak), but it still interupts the grammar and makes the idea hard to get, which was my point.

" So, since I like Dickinson's poetry quite a lot, that means I would also have voted for Hitler and spent my pension fund on Picasso."

That's a non-sequitor if I ever saw one. My point was to counter a defense of Dickinson from the fallacy of appeal to authority, such as this: "She was published, and a lot of people like her. Who are you to say she shouldn't cut the grammar in mid-sentence?"

If you don't agree that it cuts the grammar, stumbles the rhythm, and makes the idea hard to get, fine, we don't agree. I think its self evident - interupting grammar interupts thought.

But I still like some of Dickinson's poetry.

BTW, the point about the top 40 isn't that the songs are of some sort of highly valuable, profound nature. The point is they have rhythm and rhyme.

The point is: when people want to listen to something they will enjoy, they listen to things with rhythm, rhyme and meter. Note that in music and concert halls, 19th-century composers are the favorites. Modern a-tonal stuff isn't popular at all. (Please don't draw a false analogy and say Ayn Rand isn't popular either, so ....)

[Brandon]

Prose does indeed have rhythm, and good prose writers pay close attention to the rhythm and flow of their sentences. It's a subtler use of rhythm than in poetry, but it's present if you listen for it.

"By definition...by definition." By one definition, poetry must rhyme. By the other definition it's art whose medium is the sound of concepts. (Which is nonsense, by the way. Concepts are mental entities and don't have sounds. You mean words, which do have sounds.) You haven't convinced me that your definition of poetry as the art whose medium is the sound of words means that poetry must rhyme.

And what defining quality of music corresponds to rhyme?

It wasn't my definition:

Leonard Peikoff, from "Poems I Like and Why": Poetry is the form of art whose medium is the sound of concepts. Just as its possible to read sheet music if you're an accomplished musician, but its not music until its turned to sound, so poetry is incomplete unless read aloud. Its not even good whispering it, you must proclaim it..."

He adds that poetry virtually can NOT survive translation, since all languages are different, it can only be brought over roughly. The meaning (concepts) can be translated, but the poetry (sound) cannot.

The defining quality of music corresponding to POETRY (not to rhyme) is rhythm and meter, beat if you please. Rhyme is a quality of poetry because of the qualities of music. Blank verse can have rhythm and meter, alliteration and what not, but poetry rhymes. and rememebr this: THE EXCEPTION MAKES THE RULE.

All concepts have sounds, they had to be assigned sounds before becoming a concept. Its called a word. A concept is a mental integration of concretes or abstractions that is held in a temporal form, like a spoken word or a specifc spelling which must be pronounced audibly.

[Adrian Hester]

By the way, I'm not that impressed by your poetry.

I had her; I did not own her,

But this did not make me blue.

I was a captive of my captive -

And she felt she was too.

She was with me but not mine -

Sleepy with beauty, she was supine.

Her skin’s complexion reminds me of milk,

While her delicate voice recalls for me silk.

Her beautiful eyes burn a hole in my sole.

Why did I have her? I still do not know.

I woke on a morning when she was with me;

I sat up to ponder her morning physique.

No make-up, puffy eyes, crease on her cheek.

But her beauty transcended my scrutiny.

I saw only perfection in her visage.

First, you combine very colloquial language bordering on cliches ("make me blue," "burn a hole in my sole [sic]") and quite literary language ("supine," "ponder her morning physique") rather incoherently. There's a vulgarity to some of your images that might well work on the top 40, but not here. (In fact, "hole in my soul" is part of a pop lyric--Aerosmith, I think, and a blues singer before that, though I can't place it right now.) In particular, you write "I had her," whose secondary meaning of sexual conquest undercuts the tone of the whole poem; by the time I reached "Why did I have her? I still do not know," the first thing it conveyed to me was that you picked up some chick in a bar for a one-night stand and you still don't know why.

Second, you violate your own strictures about not abusing grammar to get a rhyme: "While her delicate voice recalls for me silk." Your meter constantly shifts gears in a lurch-lurch-lurch that's very distracting--I mean, come on, if you're going to quote Robert Frost as an exemplar, you should be able to match his flawless use of regular meter underlying a wondrous colloquial rhythm. For example:

I woke on a morning when she was with me;

I sat up to ponder her morning physique.

No make-up, puffy eyes, crease on her cheek.

But her beauty transcended my scrutiny.

- * - - * - - * - * -

- * - - * - - * - - *

- * - * - * * - - *

- - * - - * - - * - -

So which is it, dactylic, iambic, anapestic, or trochaic? All of the above. Is it a trimeter, tetrameter, or pentameter? All of the above. And at the end of the last line, to force a rhyme in a * - - foot with a * - foot, that doesn't work well. (And if instead you read "with me" with the stress on "me," that's even worse.) What is the rhyme scheme of the whole poem? The first quatrain is A-B-C-B, the next three couplets are A-A B-B C-C, and the last quatrain is A-B-B-A.

And frankly, the misspelling at the end of "Her beautiful eyes burn a hole in my sole" reduces it to the ludicrous (though I'd say the trope expressed is already hackneyed enough not to bear repeating yet again): She's staring at the bottom of your foot and her powerful superhero laser eyes are burning a hole in it.

[Brandon]

Yeah, that misspell of soul is pretty silly, sorry about that.

If you read the essay, and noted that Frost forces an unnatural stress in the word "promises" by forcing accent on the last sylable, I think it becomes clear that in a good poem it is possible to read it with the rhythm even if it places unnatural stress. Following the rhythm is fun!

By the way, why does a poem have to have a rhyme scheme or meter that remains the same throughout? One of Rand's favorite poems (The Westerner) fails this test, as do how many other poems and poets, and the fourteen line sonnet, and heaven knows what else!

I'm sorry if your read "have her" as sexual. It is reffering to a relationship, which seems clear from the first: "I was a captive of my captive, and she felt she was too." Any misunderstanding would surely be cleared up by the end of the poem. Its clearly concearning a relationship, not a fling. The girl was so beautiful the speaker couldn't grasp how he could ever be so lucky as to love her and be with her.

Thanks for the comments, though.

Brandon

(Mod's note: Removed quote of entire succeeding post, for "visual economy". - softwareNerd)

Edited June 13, 2006 by softwareNerd

[Adrian Hester]

It wasn't my definition:

Leonard Peikoff, from "Poems I Like and Why": Poetry is the form of art whose medium is the sound of concepts. Just as its possible to read sheet music if you're an accomplished musician, but its not music until its turned to sound, so poetry is incomplete unless read aloud. Its not even good whispering it, you must proclaim it..."

Then perhaps he's just being poetic, but taken literally it's false for just the reason I gave.

The defining quality of music corresponding to POETRY (not to rhyme) is rhythm and meter, beat if you please. Rhyme is a quality of poetry because of the qualities of music. (emphasis mine.)

Non sequitur. What qualities of music cause rhyme to be a quality of poetry?

Blank verse can have rhythm and meter, alliteration and what not, but poetry rhymes. and rememebr this: THE EXCEPTION MAKES THE RULE.

No it doesn't; that's a variation on a hackneyed popular catchphrase that's not even true. If you take "rule" in the descriptive sense, then an exception disproves the rule. If you take "rule" in the prescriptive sense, then exceptions violate the rule; they certainly don't make (or follow) it. If your definition of poetry as necessarily rhyming excludes the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid as poetry from the get-go (which it does since they don't rhyme), then your definition of poetry is useless; if you have to treat blank verse as some sort of exception that makes your rule, then your definition doesn't even do justice to English-language poetry.

For example, this is very fine poetry, even though it doesn't rhyme, a poetic exploration of the nature of the poetic art and the relation between art and life:

That trick is, the artificer melts up wax

With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold

With gold’s alloy, and, duly tempering both,

Effects a manageable mass, then works.

But his work ended, once the thing a ring,

Oh, there’s repristination! Just a spirt

O’ the proper fiery acid o’er its face,

And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;

While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,

The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,

Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:

Prime nature with an added artistry—

No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.

(Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, beginning of Book I)

If your definition of poetry excludes that, then your definition does not do justice to the subject.

All concepts have sounds, they had to be assigned sounds before becoming a concept. Its called a word. A concept is a mental integration of concretes or abstractions that is held in a temporal form, like a spoken word or a specifc spelling which must be pronounced audibly.

Words name concepts, if you will, or are associated with or refer to them; the two are not the same. (Are man and men the same concept or different ones?) "Temporal form"? What does that mean? What would be a "mental integration of concretes or abstractions" that is not held in a temporal form?

[aleph_0]

If it doesn't rhyme its called "blank verse" provided it has rhythm or meter...

By defintion, a lack of rhyme disqualifies a work as poetry. It may be blank verse (much of Shakespeare, for example) or it may be in archaic language that gives it a "poetic" feel, like Anthem. But poetry, by definition, is that art form whose medium is the sound of concepts.

Music doesn't need to have words at all, and the best music in my opnion (Tchaikovsky, Strauss, DeBussy, and a few more) had no words.

Poetry is words arranged to have musical qualities, modern nihilism notwithstanding...

The point is: when people want to listen to something they will enjoy, they listen to things with rhythm, rhyme and meter. Note that in music and concert halls, 19th-century composers are the favorites. Modern a-tonal stuff isn't popular at all. (Please don't draw a false analogy and say Ayn Rand isn't popular either, so ....) ...

It wasn't my definition:

Leonard Peikoff, from "Poems I Like and Why": Poetry is the form of art whose medium is the sound of concepts. Just as its possible to read sheet music if you're an accomplished musician, but its not music until its turned to sound, so poetry is incomplete unless read aloud. Its not even good whispering it, you must proclaim it..."

Why is blank verse not a form of poetry? If music need not rhyme, why need poetry? Does it follow that, because blank verse is not as pleasing as poetry that rhymes, it is not poetry? Did Andy Warhol not make paintings, albeit horrible monstrosities of paintings? What makes Peikoff he who declares the definition of words? Would not common use of language and/or authorities within the field be more appropriate? Why is Ayn Rand not a good counter example? Since she is not popular, does that make her not a novelist? Is melodramatic science fiction not a literary form?

[Adrian Hester]

If you read the essay, and noted that Frost forces an unnatural stress in the word "promises" by forcing accent on the last sylable, I think it becomes clear that in a good poem it is possible to read it with the rhythm even if it places unnatural stress. Following the rhythm is fun!

Actually, it reads better if it's treated as a scud--a secondary stress or unstressed syllable falling where you'd expect a primary stress. It's a common technique that works wonders at avoiding a cloying sing-songy sound. (Nabokov's Notes on Prosody has an excellent discussion of scuds in English and Russian poetry.) In the context of that particular poem, it adds a prosaic note to "promises to keep" that is important to the poem's theme.

By the way, why does a poem have to have a rhyme scheme or meter that remains the same throughout? One of Rand's favorite poems (The Westerner) fails this test, as do how many other poems and poets, and the fourteen line sonnet, and heaven knows what else!

Actually, it's better if a poem doesn't have exactly the same meter throughout; slight variations of the basic meter are common and effective, such as replacing a trochee with an iamb. However, if you mix feet throughout, you end up with something rhythmically much like daily speech, not poetry. If you consider rhyme the distinctive feature of poetry, that might not be so important, but if you consider some sort of codified meter more basic, as I do, then letting your feet fall where they may is no more artistic in poetry than in the dance.

[Adrian Hester]

She may or may not have intended it as some sort of huge metaphor for being cut off from life like the word "I" was cut off in mid-line (which is pretty weak), but it still interupts the grammar and makes the idea hard to get, which was my point.

Who said it was supposed to be "some sort of huge metaphor"? It was a likely explanation of why she would have been attracted enough to the line break to keep it, even if she didn't think about it consciously.

My point was to counter a defense of Dickinson from the fallacy of appeal to authority, such as this: "She was published, and a lot of people like her. Who are you to say she shouldn't cut the grammar in mid-sentence?"

What you wrote does not convey that; you went straight from her being widely published to Hitler and Picasso being popular.

If you don't agree that it cuts the grammar, stumbles the rhythm, and makes the idea hard to get, fine, we don't agree. I think its self evident - interupting grammar interupts thought.

I'd prefer the term "cuts across" the grammar. It introduces a pause that emphasizes "I," certainly, but I don't find that it interrupts thought; if anything, it provokes it, at least if you're reading attentively. Sometimes you might not want to read poetry with such concentration, but I usually do; a musical or poetic wallow in warm sentiment is fine, but you get more out of fine music if you listen attentively to the interplay of themes, and you get more out of poetry if you pay attention to the interplay between rhythm, the sounds of words, and grammar. Rhyme can contribute to that very effectively, but it's the rhythm that's essential for the structuring of a poem that makes it a work of art.

The point is: when people want to listen to something they will enjoy, they listen to things with rhythm, rhyme and meter.

Well, when they're not listening to talk radio, anyway.

Note that in music and concert halls, 19th-century composers are the favorites. Modern a-tonal stuff isn't popular at all. (Please don't draw a false analogy and say Ayn Rand isn't popular either, so ....)

Why? I already said that I don't consider popularity relevant to evaluating the value of a work of art.

Music doesn't need to have words at all, and the best music in my opnion (Tchaikovsky, Strauss, DeBussy, and a few more) had no words.

Curiously enough, much of Richard Strauss's best music does have words: The Four Last Songs, Der Rosenkavalier, Arabella, Die Frau Ohne Schatten...

I'm sorry if your read "have her" as sexual. It is reffering to a relationship, which seems clear from the first: "I was a captive of my captive, and she felt she was too." Any misunderstanding would surely be cleared up by the end of the poem.

But "to have someone" in the sexual sense is very common; you should have noticed the possibility of that reading--and though it might have been "cleared up by the end of the poem," it would still persist throughout the reading like an echo in the ear of the attentive reader, especially with the morning bedroom scenes. The reader might disregard it or entertain it as a second reading, but it would still be there.

[DavidOdden]

By defintion, a lack of rhyme disqualifies a work as poetry.

No, a lack of formal structure disqualifies a work as poetry. Rhythmic structure is probably a necessary feature of poetry (I'll need to look into that more before writing that in stone). Rhyming is a relatively uncommon convention in poetry, though since it prevails in Western Europe since the Middle Ages thanks to Arabic influence, we often think it is essential.

[Actaeon2]

Prose as such is simply the organization and presentation of ideas, concepts. Poetry is prose plus music.

Try reading the following words aloud, courtesy of novelist Kate Chopin (from The Awakening):

     "The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.

     The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace."

See how the rhythm, the sound, and the subject all flow as one through the language, wave upon wave rolling in, then receding, rolling in again, and receding. It's quite lovely, I think.

Not all prose can read like this. It would be too rich. Sometimes a conjunction is just a conjunction. But a good writer knows when to employ tricks like tone, rhythm, and word associations to enliven his prose, and even sometimes to make it fairly sing.

[B. Royce]

Thank you for the reply.

If it doesn't rhyme its called "blank verse" provided it has rhythm or meter. If it has no rhyme, rhythm or meter, its called prose (provided it is sensical).

Under the above statement, the works of e e cummings doesn't fit in any catagorey - and can only be classified as an abberation.

By defintion, a lack of rhyme disqualifies a work as poetry. It may be blank verse (much of Shakespeare, for example) or it may be in archaic language that gives it a "poetic" feel, like Anthem. But poetry, by definition, is that art form whose medium is the sound of concepts.

Music doesn't need to have words at all, and the best music in my opnion (Tchaikovsky, Strauss, DeBussy, and a few more) had no words.

Poetry is words arranged to have musical qualities, modern nihilism notwithstanding.

Brandon

The earliest English poems did not have rhyme. Their main auditory element was alliteration. According to your definition we should now not say that the earliest English poems were poems.

O rain, sweet rain, you're falling fast;

My head and hands are wet.

But oh, my tears, for true love dead,

Shall ne'er be washed away!

Now, I just wrote this. You would say it is not a poem. To me, it has more of poetic worth than any poem you have so far presented on this forum. And I say this as one who primarily writes poems which rhyme.

What you have not proven is why a poem must have rhyme. You can't just cite an authority. I highly esteem Dr. Peikoff, but I don't just take his say-so. Nor would he want me to. So, if you have a logical argument to present in your own words, please do so. And note, no one is attacking you here; we just want reasons.

[Brandon]

" ... the essential characteristic of poetry, which differentiates it from all other written communication, is the quality of music, including rhythm, rhyme and meter. There is no other form of writing which mixes the qualities of music with the qualities of prose. When the properties of music are divorced from writing, then the remainder is no longer poetry by definition."

How much more reason do you need than this?

Any form of communication must have some essential which differentiates it from other forms of communication, some essential which belongs to it alone. If you don't accept this definition, I don't know what to tell you except read up on your epistemology.

If two things shared the same essentials, i.e. were not different in any essential way, they would be examples of the same phenomena. Definition by essentials is the only possible method of objective definition.

The essential of poetry is the primacy of the sound of concepts.

The above passage from Kate Chopin is not poetry, no matter how beautiful, and I am NOT saying things that aren't poetry are worthless. I'm saying things that don't have rhythm, rhyme and or meter are NOT poetry, because they lack poetry's defining characteristic. They may be beautiful, profound, whatever, but they are defined by their distinguishing characteristics, and the distinguishing characteristic of poetry is rhyme, rhythm and meter.

Its a matter of definiitons here. I don't see why all the confusion.

By the way, early English poetry came long after the poets of Greece, so perhaps we could call it a stylistic regresion, but this much is true: Dr. Peikoff mentions the idea that pronunciation in the the Anglo languages has shifted in such a way that early poetry actually did rhyme when it was written, but I haven't investigated for myself so I'm not certain of that.

Whatever examples one can find in historical writing, it can't change the fact the definitions have to be done on the basis of essentials. The original question was "what is the essential of poetry."

No matter how many examlpes you can find of fancy language that doesn't rhyme, it still can't destroy the fact that poetry has defining characteristics.

But a few issues of non-clarity have come to light in this forum , which is exactly why I posted the essay. It will help me greatly in the re-writing of the essay and greatly improve it, so thanks again everyone.

-Brandon

[Actaeon2]

The above passage from Kate Chopin is not poetry, no matter how beautiful, and I am NOT saying things that aren't poetry are worthless. I'm saying things that don't have rhythm, rhyme and or meter are NOT poetry, because they lack poetry's defining characteristic. They may be beautiful, profound, whatever, but they are defined by their distinguishing characteristics, and the distinguishing characteristic of poetry is rhyme, rhythm and meter.

Perhaps you should read my post more carefully. I do not claim that Kate Chopin is writing poetry. I claim that she's writing prose. Notice that I quote your words at the beginning of my post: "Prose as such is simply the organization and presentation of ideas, concepts. Poetry is prose plus music." That's what I'm responding to.

It is wrong to claim that because musicality of language is a defining feature of poetry, then prose can't have it. It's off limits. That's not how reality works.

The essential of poetry is the primacy of the sound of concepts.

[...]

Any form of communication must have some essential which differentiates it from other forms of communication, some essential which belongs to it alone.

And so I think we get to the root of the matter. You write, "...some essential that belongs to it alone." Rarely do concepts work so neatly as that.

Most concepts don't exist as absolutes, certainly not in the Platonic sense of being a pure essence. Concepts bring order to a very untidy universe. They are purely human devices, invented to help us divide things into useful units. For example, there's a red color and there's a green color, but there's also a thousand shades of color in between, and all of them share attributes of reds and greens in some measure.

Sometimes the way we divide concepts is by matters of degree, not by kind. For example, a lake must be larger and have more water in it than a pond, and a pond more than a puddle.

So, too, poetry may be the arch example of musicality in language, but only by measure. It doesn't have sole rights to that characteristic. Good prose may have some elements of musicality to, at least in some measure. Thus, my example of Kate Chopin.

[Adrian Hester]

" ... the essential characteristic of poetry, which differentiates it from all other written communication, is the quality of music, including rhythm, rhyme and meter. There is no other form of writing which mixes the qualities of music with the qualities of prose. When the properties of music are divorced from writing, then the remainder is no longer poetry by definition."

How much more reason do you need than this?

Actually having a reason in the first place would be nice: "the essential characteristic of poetry...is the quality of music, including rhythm, rhyme and meter." As I've asked before, what quality of music is rhyme? Music per se does not rhyme. Rhyme is a term that is completely inapplicable to music. If you want to say that rhyme is a musical quality of poetry in some metaphorical or poetic sense, fine, but it is not a quality of music in any concrete sense.

The essential of poetry is the primacy of the sound of concepts.

And how does the necessity to rhyme in order to be true poetry follow from that?

By the way, early English poetry came long after the poets of Greece, so perhaps we could call it a stylistic regresion...

What regression? Greek poetry didn't rhyme either! Try the beginning of the Odyssey, for example:

andra moi ennepe, mousa, polutropon, hos mala polla

planchthê, epei Troiês hieron ptoliethron epersen:

pollôn d' anthrôpôn iden astea kai noon egnô,

polla d' ho g' en pontôi pathen algea hon kata thumon,

arnumenos hên te psuchên kai noston hetairôn.

all' oud' hôs hetarous errusato, hiemenos per:

autôn gar spheterêisin atasthaliêisin olonto,

nêpioi, hoi kata bous Huperionos Êelioio

êsthion: autar ho toisin apheileto nostimon êmar.

tôn hamothen ge, thea, thugater Dios, eipe kai hêmin.

There's one couplet that rhymes and another that almost rhymes (omega and omicron were distinct vowels both in quality and quantity; omega was probably close to the sound of "awe" in American English and omicron seems to have been more closed, as in "boat" without the final w sound), but that's it. The poetry was organized metrically, as anybody knows full well who's had to count feet in Latin and Greek poetry, and relied much more on alliteration and other associations of sound within a line than across line boundaries. Or try this famous poem by Catullus (Carmina 7, "Let us live and love"):

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,

rumoresque senum severiorum

omnes unius aestimemus assis.

soles occidere et redire possunt:

nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,

nox est perpetua una dormienda.

da mi basia mille, deinde centum,

dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,

deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum,

dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,

conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,

aut ne quis malus invidere possit,

cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Very little rhyming there, and what there is is mostly due to Catullus repeating "centum" as he tells Lesbia how many hundreds and thousands of kisses they will use to confuse the rumors of grave old men. Instead of rhyming, you get such things as a heavy repetition of w (letter v) and m sounds evoking kissing--obvious once you see it but very effective.

...but this much is true: Dr. Peikoff mentions the idea that pronunciation in the the Anglo languages has shifted in such a way that early poetry actually did rhyme when it was written, but I haven't investigated for myself so I'm not certain of that.

Well, he's wrong. It's known quite well how Old English was pronounced, and rhyming was not common in Old English poetry. It was used intermittently in Beowulf, for example, and then seemingly by accident. Old English poetry was organized in two-part lines, each part with two stressed syllables and an unset number of unstressed syllables, and at least one stressed syllable in each half had to alliterate. For example, beginning of part 11 of Beowulf, lines 710-19:

Ða com of more / under misthleoþum

Grendel gongan, / godes yrre bær;

mynte se manscaða / manna cynnes

sumne besyrwan / in sele þam hean.

Wod under wolcnum / to þæs þe he winreced,

goldsele gumena, / gearwost wisse,

fættum fahne. / Ne wæs þæt forma sið

þæt he Hroþgares / ham gesohte;

næfre he on aldordagum / ær ne siþðan

heardran hæle, / healðegnas fand.

I'll spare you a phonetic transcription, though I could provide one if I needed to, because it should be clear from the spelling (which is quite regular, though some of the double vowel sequences are non-intuitive) that there's no rhyme there, though there's a near rhyme in the last couplet. Or check out another famous poem, "The Wanderer":

http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/librar...texts/a3.6.html

No matter how many examlpes you can find of fancy language that doesn't rhyme, it still can't destroy the fact that poetry has defining characteristics.

And you haven't convinced me that rhyme is one of those defining characteristics. Brass tacks here: Are the Iliad and the Odyssey poetry or not?

Edited June 14, 2006 by Adrian Hester

[thejohngaltline]

What of a poem written in another language than your own? For instance, here are a few lines composed in Afrikaans:

Ek is 'n boom,

Ek is nie 'n oom.

This translates to: I am a tree/I am not an uncle. Now, this rhymes in the original Afrikaans, but not in English. Is it a poem (albeit a very poor one) then, in Afrikaans but not in English? If rhyme is the determining factor in poetry, this should be the case, no?

[DavidOdden]

Well, he's wrong. It's known quite well how Old English was pronounced, and rhyming was not common in Old English poetry.

I would be very surprised if he said such a thing. It is true that some non-rhyming non Old English poetry no longer rhymes because of sound shifts, and I can't accept the implication that Peikoff is ignorant of the difference between Middle English and Old English.

[Adrian Hester]

Now, this rhymes in the original Afrikaans, but not in English. Is it a poem (albeit a very poor one) then, in Afrikaans but not in English? If rhyme is the determining factor in poetry, this should be the case, no?

Well, he's already addressed this point; I take it he'd say that it's a poem in Afrikaans and only a translation of a poem in English:

"He adds that poetry virtually can NOT survive translation, since all languages are different, it can only be brought over roughly. The meaning (concepts) can be translated, but the poetry (sound) cannot." (Post #8)

I would be very surprised if he said such a thing. It is true that some non-rhyming non Old English poetry no longer rhymes because of sound shifts, and I can't accept the implication that Peikoff is ignorant of the difference between Middle English and Old English.

Hmm, yeah. A transcript of what exactly he said would be helpful; Brandon's summary is too vague.

Edited June 14, 2006 by Adrian Hester

[Brandon]

And you haven't convinced me that rhyme is one of those defining characteristics. Brass tacks here: Are the Iliad and the Odyssey poetry or not?

No, they are epics. To maintain rhyme across hundreds of lines would be onnerous, as Peikoff pointed out. Poetry is usually short, though shortness is not an essential, its just an accidental fact resulting from the difficulty of the task inherent in rhyme and meter.

Certainly the Illiad and Odyssey have meter.

Holy Cow!

I AM NOT ATTACKING NON-RHYMING PROSE.

My essay primarily points out the invalididty of free-verse and shows that poetic-sounding lines or phrases can be re-written to rhyme without losing value. Indeed it adds value if done artisticly.

I AM NOT ATTACKING NON-RHYMING PROSE.

My essay discards the notion of stream-of-consciousness poetry, showing how original notes can be made into a true poem. Not every sentence that comes from a pen is sacred, that's the point.

I AM NOT ATTACKING NON-RHYMING PROSE.

-Brandon

[DavidOdden]

I AM NOT ATTACKING NON-RHYMING PROSE.

But you are failing to grasp the fact that there is non-rhyming poetry. That is, you don't properly grasp the distinction between prose and poetry. For example you are mistaken in believing that "epic" is orthogonal to the distinction between prose and poetry. The Iliad and The Odyssey are epic, and they are poetry. Your point would come across more effectively if you would simply come to grips with your mistake, in insisting that poetry must rhyme when that claim is plainly false.

The question may arise: “Why can’t a set of powerful, memorable lines be called a poem, even if they don’t rhyme?”