[Tracy Estes]

I am aware of the encyclopedic knowledge that lives on this thread-->so here's my question:

I have encountered a few poems lately that run in the same style that Joyce Carol Oates employs in the poem The Stone Well from the collections of poems entitled <u>Tenderness</u>.

It (the poem) was first published in Virginia Quarterly Review. The second strophe begins with "This is the well..." The next sixteen lines begin the same way.

I know there is a term for this style of poetry. Some have mistakenly (I think) called it a type of list poem.

Would it not be more along the lines of "folk" poetry/ or "oral" poetry?

Thank you for indulging my curiosity.

[Tim Murphy]

Tracy, you've stumped me, but I think I'd call it a litany. Let's see what wiser heads have to say.

[A. E. Stallings]

Well, I'm not sure about the form of the poem, but the rhetorical device you describe (repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of a line or stanza) is called "anaphora." It can certainly be an element of folk poetry, and also, I think, has Psalmic resonance.

[Janet Kenny]

Tracy,
I don't know the poem. Would it be "parallelism"?
I would like to read it. Is it on line anywhere?

Janet

[Carol Taylor]

Is nursery rhyme The House That Jack Built an example?

This is the house that Jack built.
This is the malt
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the rat
that ate the malt
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the cat
that killed the rat
that ate the malt
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the dog
that worried the cat
that killed the rat
that ate the malt
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the cow
with the crumpled horn
that tossed the dog
that worried the cat
that killed the rat
that ate the malt
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the maiden all forlorn
that milked the cow with the crumpled horn
that tossed the dog
that worried the cat
that killed the rat
that ate the malt
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the man all tattered and torn
that kissed the maiden all forlorn
that milked the cow with the crumpled horn
that tossed the dog
that worried the cat
that killed the rat
that ate the malt
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the priest all shaven and shorn
that married the man all tattered and torn
that kissed the maiden all forlorn
that milked the cow with the crumpled horn
that tossed the dog
that worried the cat
that killed the rat
that ate the malt
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the cock that crowed in the morn
that waked the priest all shaven and shorn
that married the man all tattered and torn
that kissed the maiden all forlorn
that milked the cow with the crumpled horn
that tossed the dog
that worried the cat
that killed the rat
that ate the malt
that lay in the house that Jack built.

This is the farmer sowing his corn
that kept the cock that crowed in the morn
that waked the priest all shaven and shorn
that married the man all tattered and torn
that kissed the maiden all forlorn
that milked the cow with the crumpled horn
that tossed the dog
that worried the cat
that killed the rat
that ate the malt
that lay in the house that Jack built.

[Janet Kenny]

Or this hymn ascribed to Saint Patrick?

I arise to-day
Through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptations of vices,
From every one who shall wish me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone and in a multitude.

translation from Kuno Meyer ed.


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited March 22, 2004).]

[Tracy Estes]

http://www.virginia.edu/vqr/viewmedia.php/prmMID/7748

Janet here's that link. I feel I need to clarify that the poems that I've seen since do not all run like this one.

I would like to show you one of the other poems that I encountered (on another board) but I feel obligated to get the author's permission first.

Thank you for all the responses so far.

------------------
It's a dog-eat-dog world and I'm wearing Milk Bone underwear.

[Hugh Clary]

>I know there is a term for this style of poetry.

Boring?

[nyctom]

Alicia's right--it's anaphora. And yes, you see it all over the place in the Psalms (particularly in the King James edition). And Whitman uses it frequently in his innumerable catalogs. I like it when it is used well, such as in Whitman's "Song of Myself." Two examples (sorry for any wacky lineation--I am cutting and pasting off the web):

7
Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I
know it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd
babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all
good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal
and fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and
female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be
slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers
and the mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.
Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot
be shaken away.


This is a more clearcut use of anaphora. The repeated "For me..." gives the passage a recurring verbal motif as well as a way of building and sustaining forward momentum.

But you don't have to necessarily use the same repeated phrase to get a similar effect. You can use the same sentence structure in a similar "anaphoric" way:


15
The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,
The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane
whistles its wild ascending lisp,
The married and unmarried children ride home to their
Thanksgiving dinner,
The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong
arm,
The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon
are ready,
The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,
The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar,
The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the
big wheel,
The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe
and looks at the oats and rye,
The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case,
(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his
mother's bed-room; )
The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his
case,
He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the
manuscript;
The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table,
What is removed drops horribly in a pail;
The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard
nods by the bar-room stove,
The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his
beat, the gate-keeper marks who pass,
The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him,
though I do not know him; )
The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the
race,
The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some
lean on their rifles, some sit on logs,
Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position,
levels his piece;
The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or
levee,
As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views
them from his saddle,
The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their
partners, the dancers bow to each other,
The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to
the musical rain,
The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the
Huron,
The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering
moccasins and bead-bags for sale,
The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut
eyes bent sideways,
As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is
thrown for the shore-going passengers,
The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister
winds it off in a ball, and stops now and then for the
knots,
The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week
ago borne her first child,
The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine
or in the factory or mill,
The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the
reporter's lead flies swiftly over the note-book, the
sign-painter is lettering with blue and gold,
The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts
at his desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread,
The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers
follow him,
The child is baptized, the convert is making his first
professions,
The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the
white sails sparkle!)
The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would
stray,
The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser
higgling about the odd cent; )
And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.


That is probably one of the most famous catalogs in American poetry. And as large as it is, there is an anaphoric treatment of each line's syntactical structure which binds the passage into a single refrain culminating in the final two lines: article/noun/modifying phrase. Pretty cool.

Hope you find that helpful.

Tom




[This message has been edited by nyctom (edited March 22, 2004).]

[Robt_Ward]

What Alicia and Tom said: it's anaphora and it's more properly a general, rhetorical device than strictly a poetic one. In other words, it is often used in speeches and such, it isn't restricted to poetry. It's a way of hammering a point home, not to put too fine a point on it

(robt)