Robt.,

I agree somewhat with your statements. I'm currently tending toward the idea that FV and metrical verse spring from the same source(s).

__________

For instance, if the idea of "meters" springs from the way our language is communicated on an audible level, and natural stresses (forgetting "beats" for now) are the point at which sound and sense most strongly interact (emphasis of certain syllables over others to demark the words), then would it be any wonder that an attempt to structure poetry at the root source of our language & its communication of meanings might create, for certain lengths of the communication, sound patterns normally associated here (at Erato) with meters?

E.g., we don't pronounce "emphasis" as m FASS s, and any time we use an article with the word, we're bound to create—for the length of "article-noun"—a structure that seems to resemble two iambs: the EM | pha SIS. This "article-noun" in combination with other such strings might create, even in a FV poem, a metrical line (defined in the normal way we define such a line.)

The primary difference between FV and metrical verse, though, seems to be the fact that such metricality might "spring up" in FV during the normal FV patterning of meanings, whereas in a metrical poem the metricality is intended from the start and the poet must find meanings to fit the metrical pattern he's chosen beforehand.

__________

As for using the same terminology to describe both FV & Met, I agree that human faculties for distinction are going to be the same regardless of what is being distinguished; so Sure, perhaps. There's a long leap from that point to saying that the Non-Met and the Met boards ought to be combined into a single board. There's also the question of whether enough terms exist, already, to fully describe what occurs in a poem—in both, FV or metrical poem. Even the terms we already possess might be insufficient for describing a different object; to use an example from earlier in the thread, we might pat ourselves on the back for deducing that a baseball is un-orange, but if we stop there, we may never understand what a baseball is.

I certainly don't advocate a "combined" board. I just don't see any condescension or implied inferiority in saying that poems can be loosely divided into "metrical" and "non-metrical". Clive watkins explained this far better than I can. I think that poeople who worry about what we CALL the danged board are sort of wasting their time.

I mean, we could call them "Jenny" and "Ginny" and "Calvin" and "Archibald" — does anyone care, really? And in the end, we'd have to establish parameters of differentiation, witht he language we have to hand. In other words, "Jenny" is where we post poetry that is written within the constraints of the metrical tradition, and jenny is for poems outside the constraints of that tradition. Why is this an insult? Or a problem? So much for naming boards, which isn't what this thread is about anyway, sorry.

And as you point out, metrics just "are"; if you deal in small enough units you can't avoid them. You have to work really, really hard to write a poem without a single, recognizable iamb or trochee in it somewhere. Or a paragraph, for that matter.

Heck, I donno what I'm saying. Me, I just like poems. Bring 'em on. I like metrical poems best of all. Bring 'em on.

(robt)

A thought on combining boards:

Objections to doing that would seem to be less prosodic, and more pragmatic (too few readers both inclined and qualified to speak competently to both disciplines) and perhaps political (not in the sense of liberal/conservative . . . just poetry politics).

Curtis, didn't mean to ignore your lengthy post above. I just have not had time to adequately read & digest.

--CS

Robt.,

"Non-metrical" is too broad and might explain why some critics will say of a FV poem, "This is too metrical. It doesn't belong here," or "This is so metrical, you might as well make it entirely metrical and post it on the other board," when a FV poem has two or three lines—out of six, say—that are "metrical" by the standards we use to distinguish metricality.

I.e., "non-metrical" applies to what, exactly? The whole poem? A series of lines in the poem? Isolated lines in a poem? Does the smaller guideline, which suggests "unmetered rhymed verse," apply to the whole form or also to the smaller forms in a poem, to stretches of lines?




[This message has been edited by Curtis Gale Weeks (edited June 23, 2004).]

I thought this was the 'lineation in FV' thread, not the 'what shall we call the forums' thread.

I'm so confused *grin*

What about 'random metrics'? Roll the dice to determine the length of each line.

I think that's akin to what some people do, anyway... http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/wink.gif

I'VE GOT IT!!! Dee just gave me the answer!

We'll call it 'The Red Wagon Forum', since everybody seems to use The Red Wagon as comparative proof their submission is a bona fida poem!

Dee, you're a genius. You gonna moderate it?

JGH -- I think that actually might be an improvement!

Could make for an interesting experiment, either FV or het-met.

(There's about a one in six chance that I'm being serious.)

--CS

I would like to return to the topic of free verse lineation.

Those having remarks specifically directed to that topic are welcome to share them.

Regards,

Fred

Fred-

I wanted to say thanks for starting this very interesting thread...and thanks also to those who have contributed to it so far. I've enjoyed it immensely.

In your original post, you mentioned assembling a "lineation toolkit"...and to me, that was a great challenge. What exactly would one put in this toolkit..say if one was preparing it as a gift for a young poet? Perhaps, that could be a goal as this thread progresses?

*****

I would like to suggest that FV lineation and metric/formal lineation really have quite a lot in common. In developing the toolkit, I think it's important to focus on the similarities, especially in the interest of everyone here getting along (God forbid).

Certainly, metric/formal lineation is bounded in terms of measure, but FV lineation is, ultimately, measured too...although "informally" and perhaps, rather unconsciously. The "patterning force" at work in the shaping of a poem is the same, no matter if one is writing FV or metric/formal. As Erato's own Paul Lake states in his review "Disorderly Orders" (CPR Archives), "verse doesn't want to be free". The ghost of meter is often invoked whether we like it or not. I think that's evident in what others have already alluded to in this thread (and elsewhere).

So, is there a "tool" for measuring the FV line? The metric/formal poet generally has specific numbers and/or a template which can be used to fine-tune each line. But really, it's more than that...it's the sound patterning. Since FV is built of the same kind of stuff (i.e. words, syntax, language, yaddayadda), its tool (or perhaps, tools) must be similar. Okay, so the metric/formal poet has the solid, stick-type measure in his (or her) kit, while the FV poet has a 100' tape measure which can be regulated with the thumb. All in all, the units are pretty much the same. Perhaps the only real difference is the tool being used? Yeah, interesting analogy, but how does one learn to use the tape measure? Sounds like a topic for an Erato-Depot weekend short course.

Generally, it seems like an issue of fine-tuning...and in fact, Mr. Lake calls it "the continuous fine-tuning of feedback" in his review noted above (and my apologies to him if I abuse, or otherwise quote out of context...it is truly a superb article). So the measure of FV lineation involves the fine-tuning of feedback...patterning emerges, and the poet adjusts the tape, shortening or lengthening each line, and readjusting each again as subsequent lines are tuned.

I have to quote an entire paragraph from Paul's review which I think speaks to this...it's referring to metric/formal verse, but I think it's scope ultimately includes FV as well:

"Like other nonlinear, dynamic systems, a formal poem is rule-governed, holistic, sensitive to initial conditions, recursive, and self-similar at different scales. It uses feedback to organize itself in a top-down, bottom-up fashion as the poet tinkers, letting rhythms form as imagination interacts with verbal patterns sounding in the ear. Small-scale elements like phonemes help determine larger aspects of the poem such as words, lines, and so on. These scaled similarities are arranged in a hierarchy of levels that reflect and influence one another, from the level of phoneme, word, metrical foot, metaphor, symbol, syntax, stanza, up to logic, theme, overall form, and the ethics and metaphysics implied by the poem's meaning. Offsetting the self-similarity of alliterative patterns and metrical feet are the 'broken symmetries' of metrical substitutions and, in some poems, the varying consonants of assonance and rhyme. The poem's final shape is drawn into being partly by a 'strange attractor,' which tradition calls sonnet, blank-verse monologue, rhyming quatrain. Finally, metrical poetry possesses another characteristic of self-organizing systems: flow."

(Again, thanks to Paul Lake for this wonderfully interesting review, and its counterpart "The Shape of Poetry" which are available in Contemporary Poetry Review's Archives)

Well, I'm not sure I've contributed very practically to the discussion at hand, but maybe I've at least inspired a few others to drop a tool in Fred's kit.

Stay tuned for previews of tomorrow's Erato-Depot short course on "procuring a good hammer to deal with nasty linebreaks".

Thanks for the inspiration Fred.



[This message has been edited by JM Baalke (edited June 23, 2004).]

JM,

I will have more to say about this later, as now I need to jet to my store and get the workday started.

But the "free verse lineation toolkit" can, I think, fairly be divided into three groupings -- loosely, the sonic, the visual and the cognitive. Or, put differently: how it sounds; how it looks; and what it means.

Fred

[This message has been edited by Fred Longworth (edited June 24, 2004).]