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Curtis Gale Weeks · #40 06-28-2004, 01:19 PM

I’ve been thinking that maybe we ought to use examples from published poetry to put these abstract ideas we’ve been trading into focus.

On the subject of “verse-turns”

The concept struck home with me when I began to look closely at E.St.V.Millay’s sonnets. I suppose I’d always been aware of the turns without putting a name to them; but I’ve always considered Millay’s sonnets to be on par with Shakespeare’s, and I wanted to understand what I liked so much about the developmental processes she used. Shakespeare is so often held up as an example, I felt little inclination, at the time, to delve into the processes he used. Millay, on the other hand, is an interesting example because she used an idiom that was, even at that time, a bit idiosyncratic for being archaic. I’d always wondered 1) why she wrote in that idiom, and 2) what she used to transcend the limitations of using such an idiom. A problem with analyzing exactly the verse-turns evolves from the fact that, from one line to the next, the turns are in many ways different because the things being said in each line are on different subjects, each with different developments, so a demarcation of exactly how the argument has turned from line to line is often quite poem-specific & lines-specific. I could not apply “A Rule” to every linebreak she used, but I found a general tendency which made them fit together: the Verse-Turn.

Because the turns can from one level be said to be unique to each set of lines and to each poem, an explanation of how the argument of a poem turns would require a lengthy analysis of the whole poem. As a shortcut for pointing at Millay’s verse-turns—indeed, at the turns used by many past masters of metrical poetry—I’d suggest taking a heavy, blank sheet of white paper, covering all but the first line of a poem, and reading that line & “guessing” where that line is leading, where the poem is leading, before moving the sheet down to reveal the next line; follow the process for each line. One problem with this process is the very fact that so many of the poems from the canon (define “canon” how you will), are so well known to us, we already know where the lines are heading: The arguments are already engraved into our memories, so the guesswork is removed; it is not blind. Another problem arises in our consideration of poems which are entirely new to us: none of us is psychic, so most poems—all but the very worst—are likely to introduce elements we could not have foreseen. Between these two extremes, however, we have a cognitive faculty able to predict and distinguish tendencies in the argument, from the lines, and thence judge the manner in which the lines strain against each other or develop each other to form a larger argument. That is, beyond the lines judged singly, a larger shape is taking place in the coordination of lines as a poem develops; so when we move that sheet of paper down (in our exercise), we are not just judging where the bottommost revealed line is heading, but we’re judging where all the revealed lines are heading, together.

In critiques, I have used the phrase, “train of thought,” when discussing lines/-breaks. The verse-turns, rather than merely setting up opposing ideas/images into neatly aligned pairs to be carefully weighed and balanced, would be the way that the thought (our thought) has been trained through a combination of stopping-points and “steerings” to follow a specific path through a poem, though we may not know at the get-go—or even at any given stopping-point or steering—where the train will stop.

To use an example which might be unknown to many participants of this thread, I’ll turn to a short poem by a poet I rarely read, for a simulation of the paper exercise. This is a poem from an anthology of poems—and, I hope that though it’s from an anthology, the poem isn’t already engraved in memories—that has some interesting verse-turns: Jack Gilbert’s “To See if Something Comes Next.” I have some doubt that everyone will experience the lines & turns in exactly the same way I experience them, but I’ll steam ahead with brief explanations of how I experience those things, in the hopes that I might draw a better focus on how I believe good verse-turns work.

<dir>To See if Something Comes Next

There is nothing there at the top of the valley.</dir>

Here, we’re given a setting with a combination of a fairly abstract notion, “nothing,” and a phrase that points to a concrete reality, “top of the valley.” We might expect that the poet will go on to tell us, via the same type of direct statement, how the top of the valley contains nothing. Taking the line at its face-value, we might be picturing a barren wasteland—think, Mordor—and a forthcoming extension of such an image by images of barrenness, emptiness, bleakness, as the communication develops the significance of such barrenness: Our understanding has been trained onto this barren valley-top.

<dir> There is nothing there at the top of the valley.
Sky and morning, silence and the dry smell</dir>

But now we know that it’s not absolute nothingness. The juxtaposition of the two lines creates the question, “What is the nothingness?” because images of sky, morning, silence, and the dry smell have filled in the picture of the valley-top with richer colors and smells than we would have imagined by the end of L1. We might even expect (as I expected) that the dry smell is some dead foliage—now that we know the nothingness is not absolute, we begin to picture a more likely valley-top and begin to wonder what barrenness the poet intends. Our understanding has been trained not only onto the real valley-top, but on the paradox created between these fuller descriptions and the poet’s assertion of a present nothingness.

<dir> There is nothing there at the top of the valley.
Sky and morning, silence and the dry smell
of heavy sunlight on the stone everywhere.</dir>

No, there is no foliage, fallen or otherwise. These are the hard elements on the valley-top. This might be like Mordor, after all, where life doesn’t grow.

<dir> There is nothing there at the top of the valley.
Sky and morning, silence and the dry smell
of heavy sunlight on the stone everywhere.
Goats occasionally and the sound of roosters </dir>

But there is life, goats and roosters. Though the hard realities of the valley-top are becoming clearer, we still don’t know the barrenness the poet intended from the first line. Even this life is thin: goats occasionally, and only the sound of roosters. That sound, however, must be coming from somewhere, so we might imagine that this valley-top is not quite so isolated as previously imagined.

<dir> There is nothing there at the top of the valley.
Sky and morning, silence and the dry smell
of heavy sunlight on the stone everywhere.
Goats occasionally and the sound of roosters
in the bright heat where he lives with the dead </dir>

Now we have a human presence, to go with the goats and roosters, but also death. The barrenness might not be an actual barrenness—the valley-top might not be nearly barren, after all—but the nothingness from L1 might be relative to this man’s experience of the valley-top. Thus far, the descriptions of valley-top are distant-seeming, fairly abstract, as if the things which fill the valley-top do not bear greatly on that “nothing” previously mentioned. These things, in fact, might be that “dead” with which he lives, though they are suggestive of life; even in this line, he is living in “bright heat,” which is not normally associated with death—but for him, and for the length of this line only (not considering the previous lines), the location might seem like hell, and the dead are the many co-occupants.

<dir> There is nothing there at the top of the valley.
Sky and morning, silence and the dry smell
of heavy sunlight on the stone everywhere.
Goats occasionally and the sound of roosters
in the bright heat where he lives with the dead
woman and purity. Trying to see if something </dir>

No, no, he has only two partners on the valley-top: a dead woman, and purity. Finally, we are given a fairly clear picture of the nothing on the valley-top.

The final phrase of this last line is a bit ambiguous: does it refer to him, or to those goats and the roosters? Probably, to him. He has the dead woman and purity, but the previous lines have, in one strong thread, shown that L1’s “nothing” is anything but pure. There is a corresponding paradox in this last line, since “[dead] woman and purity” is one absolute assertion which we might easily combine into a harmonious reality, but yet he’s searching, Trying to see if something..., so we may doubt that purity. This “something” should point at the intended thrust of L1’s “nothing.” We expect, though, (I expect) that the nothingness turns on the fact of the absence of this woman.

<dir> There is nothing there at the top of the valley.
Sky and morning, silence and the dry smell
of heavy sunlight on the stone everywhere.
Goats occasionally and the sound of roosters
in the bright heat where he lives with the dead
woman and purity. Trying to see if something
comes next. Wondering whether he has stalled.</dir>

Well, no, now we may have a different idea of the nothingness mentioned early in the poem: not the valley-top, not the lack of the woman, not even the lack (or presence?) of some abstract purity, but a sustainable action, motivation. The nothingness isn’t so dependent on the presence or absence of things, but on the flow of time. The “something” from the previous line is not present now; hence, nothingness, now.

Again, the final phrase twists the preceding “[if something /] comes next.” He’s wondering about his future actions/reactions-to-something-of-which-he’s-not-certain. The present lack of this something causes him to question his capacity to move, or to live (active verb; not “to be alive.”)

<dir> There is nothing there at the top of the valley.
Sky and morning, silence and the dry smell
of heavy sunlight on the stone everywhere.
Goats occasionally and the sound of roosters
in the bright heat where he lives with the dead
woman and purity. Trying to see if something
comes next. Wondering whether he has stalled.
Maybe, he thinks, it is like the Noh: Whenever </dir>

This turn is quite extraordinary. We have gone from an assumption that the “nothing” is related to a lack of activity, but this line uses a description of activity, “he thinks,” to continue the poem—perhaps harking back to the “trying to see” which was a description of activity. We are beginning to realize that this man is not fully self-aware; we are given a behind-the-scenes overview which he doesn’t share. (He wonders if he's stalled, but he's currently active: thinking, wondering, trying to see.) Plus, we have leapt from a consideration of the things on the valley-top — sunlight, goats, etc., and the man and “dead woman” — to a thing entirely unassociated with any valley-top: the Noh. At the same time, we are shown by this leap that his mind is far from the valley-top. (It is on the Noh, for the duration of this line.)

We also have the subtle, “Noh: Whenever,” which is suggestive of “no-when/not-ever.” But we don’t know where this is going.

<dir> There is nothing there at the top of the valley.
Sky and morning, silence and the dry smell
of heavy sunlight on the stone everywhere.
Goats occasionally and the sound of roosters
in the bright heat where he lives with the dead
woman and purity. Trying to see if something
comes next. Wondering whether he has stalled.
Maybe, he thinks, it is like the Noh: Whenever
the script says dances, whatever the actor does next</dir>

The introduction of the Noh, by addressing a script and actor, returns the focus onto the man’s understanding that his relationship to the aforementioned valley-top is quite distant from his comprehensions. The reality of that location is now a stage, a pseudo-environment. The man is aware of his being an “actor;” and the mention of a scripting of action is a subtle acknowledgement that he's aware of the something / comes next & whether he has stalled dialectic. He is waiting for something in a present nothingness, and he knows it. He also suspects that whatever he does next will be significant, since it may (but may not?) rely on what the script “says.” He has a choice to make?

<dir> There is nothing there at the top of the valley.
Sky and morning, silence and the dry smell
of heavy sunlight on the stone everywhere.
Goats occasionally and the sound of roosters
in the bright heat where he lives with the dead
woman and purity. Trying to see if something
comes next. Wondering whether he has stalled.
Maybe, he thinks, it is like the Noh: Whenever
the script says dances, whatever the actor does next
is a dance. If he stands still, he is dancing.</dir>

No, no, he’s not about to make an active choice to do something, he’s beginning to wonder if he can’t help but be active. The present nothingness is something, maybe: though he feels powerless, lacking motivation, he’s nonetheless dancing—even if he is only following a script he didn’t intend/write.

This line’s combination of “stand[ing] still” and “dancing” mirrors the rest of the poem: the fuller described valley-top w/ the earlier mentioned “nothing”; the [memory of the] dead woman w/ a [present] purity.

By the end of the poem, I have a sense that the case isn’t hopeless, that though the man seems simultaneously aware of a nothingness and a somethingness without fully reconciling them, he’s moving toward a Zen acceptance of the unsolicited script:

<dir>To See if Something Comes Next

There is nothing there at the top of the valley.
Sky and morning, silence and the dry smell
of heavy sunlight on the stone everywhere.
Goats occasionally and the sound of roosters
in the bright heat where he lives with the dead
woman and purity. Trying to see if something
comes next. Wondering whether he has stalled.
Maybe, he thinks, it is like the Noh: Whenever
the script says dances, whatever the actor does next
is a dance. If he stands still, he is dancing.</dir>

[This message has been edited by Curtis Gale Weeks (edited June 30, 2004).]