[nyctom]

The following is from a preface to a prosody manual, written by one of our more well-known contemporary poets. I was rather surprised to read this statement, particularly in a prosody manual:

Metrical poetry belongs to a certain era--a few centuries--and with every passing year that contained time grows more distant, its methods more estranged from our own. The reader of modern poetry feels at ease with the cadences of conversation. To read Chaucer's poems, now, requires a diligent and even extraordinary effort; it requires, indeed, a specialized knowledge of the language and the versification of Chaucer's time. The same thing, in our age, is happening in metrical poetry.

Who do you think wrote this and what do you think of what the poet says?

nyctom

[Richard Wakefield]

I have no idea who wrote it, but I think it's pretty much wrong. First, our pleasure in metrical, rhymed language seems to rise in our first experience with language. Listen to little kids play with words, listen to slightly older kids reciting and making up rhymes and jingles, and listen to big kids and grownups quoting song lyrics or reciting dirty limericks. When my students are amazed that I can recite poetry from memory, I ask them what their favorite songs are and then challenge them to recite the lyrics -- and they know lots of them.
While I don't have any grudge against free verse, I doubt that it appeals to any wider an audience than formal verse does, and maybe a rather smaller one.
This leaves aside the issue of diction. Formal verse that uses archaic or obscure terms will of course be tougher to connect with -- but so will free verse.
One way in which the passage has some weight, though, is in our difficulty in giving ourselves over to the slower pace of most metrical poetry. A poem often creates its own space outside of time, and we're usually in too much of a hurry to go there, too afraid we'll miss something on TV, perhaps, or miss an important call our cell phones.
Richard

[nyctom]

It's Mary Oliver. From the introduction to <u>Rules for the Dance</u>, her prosody manual. Needless to say Richard, I was rather shocked to read it. An odd way to introduce the subject, wouldn't you say?

[Richard Wakefield]

Yes, it is an odd way of getting started. Maybe she sees it as fair warning that formal verse is an acquired taste. Romantic notions about spontaneous intoxication with beautiful poetry notwithstanding, we need a little help and patience to connect with it. That idea doesn't bother me because some of my greatest pleasures are acquired tastes, e.g., coffee, tobacco, whiskey... Strange that I can't think of any that aren't harmful. Oh! Yes I can: Shakespeare.
RPW

[A. E. Stallings]

Unfortunately, I recognize the quote. Aack! Metrical poetry belongs to a few centuries? (Mind you, though, you might be able to make the claim stick for rimed poetry, at least in the West...some people do confuse the two.) Where does that put poor old Homer? Isn't dactylic hexameter metrical? And of course it is rather free verse that belongs to a certain era, though one that continues (and will continue).

But WHY does a free verse poet write a prosody? That's the bizarre part. I mean, I like much of Mary Oliver. I'd be happy to read, say, a manual on birds by her. But a prosody? Are these lucrative or something? They are certainly fashionable, for some reason (Steele, Pinsky, and others). Personally, I find the proliferation of prosodies ever-so-slightly depressing--reflecting, as it does, that so many are now learning from manuals what was once learned by heart--by poetry, that is.

Curioser and curioser.

[Tim Murphy]

I think it was Haas who round-upped for Poetry reviews of Oliver, Pinsky, and Steele--all prosodies. And asked, if your car was broken-down, to whom would you go? An amateur or an expert. He concluded, "Buy the Steele." Wilbur and Hecht have both told me how much THEY learned from Tim's book. My only concern is that it is so advanced--so scholarly--that it might be too high a threshold for neophytes to leap. But armed with it and an intro such as Paul Fussell's still-indispensable Poetic Meter And Poetic Form, one can leap pretty high.

[A. E. Stallings]

I think, though may be mistaken, that the round-up was by Robert Shaw. It was an excellent review. And I think that is where I read the Oliver quotation. I should mention that I have not read the Pinsky or Oliver. The Steele book is superb. Of course, it is not a manual. As Tim points out, it is rather a work of scholarship, an excellent reference book. I'd tend to agree with Tim that beginners should almost be cautioned about it (in terms of a how-to book, anyway), as it could easily confuse or intimidate someone just starting out. You don't need, for instance, to be thinking about four (which strikes me as arbitrary anyway) kinds of stress when you are WRITING a line, though it might be interesting in an analysis of how a line works. To be honest, I think even thinking in terms of feet (I am now writing a trochee, iamb, minor ionic, whatever), artificial to the composition process, though not to its opposite, analysis.

Anyway, I am not against prosodies. But the fact that we have come to such a state that Mary Oliver is writing one.. (though she believes metrical poetry is obsolete--a thing of the past!) Oh dear.

[nyctom]

I will vouch that the Steele was way too complex for me when I read it. The best advice I got was from here: when starting out, forget about the technical terms and trust your ear. Go read and beat the meter out, clap it or tap or a pencil. Walk and recite. Memorize (ok--well I am still not so good at that one but that is really me being lazy. It is still good advice--it gets that swing, as Clive here likes to call it, into your bloodstream). So I tossed the prosody manuals away and concentrated on reading--both to myself and out loud--the poems.

Now that I have at least a glimmer of how basic meter actually sounds, I have gone back to the prosody manuals, partly out of curiousity (well do they make any sense now?) and partly to see if I can learn more. Most of them are pretty interchangeable, though I liked Alfred Corn's "The Poem's Heartbeat" and Babette Deutsch's "Poetry Handbook." The Deutsch is a good handy reference guide. Turco's "Book of Forms" is like a great cookbook. But Pinsky was useless to me and Oliver's books were just strange. I finally bought a copy of Steele (ok--got it as a present--it was better than another sweater) and I dip into it a bit. I still don't think it is the right book for beginners--the Deutsch or Corn books are more immediately helpful--but you can't beat Steele for thoroughness. I just took John Ciardi and Miller Williams' "How Does a Poem Mean?" out of the library, and it is very interesting. Great selection of poems too. Worth checking out.