[Tim Murphy]

Multum in Parvo

Robt and Terese and I, among our other stalwarts, have recently posted trimeters at TDE. I propose to host a workshop on the short line, examining examples from the canon, and liberally illustrating my arguments from my own examples of dimeter and trimeter. Tim Steele, one of our first Lariats, has forcefully argued the centrality of pentameter in English. And he once confided to me that trimeter is useful for “conveying a certain nervous energy.” Never was Tim more wrong. “Easter 1916” conveys more than a certain nervous energy. More like FUCKING MAJESTY! As does “Neither Out Far Nor In Deep:”

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull.
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull.

The land may vary more;
But whatever the truth may be—
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?

Wasn’t it Trilling who thought Frost’s little masterpiece the most perfect lyric in English? It is inexpressively grave, and I readily employ trimeter for grave subjects:

The Pallbearers

At the prairie cemetary
where the river meets the road
and Murphys come to bury
love in the loam we’ve sowed
my brother lets me carry
the light end of the load.

And for silly subjects:

Dakota Greeting

Frosted sign in a frozen ditch:
“Stranger, welcome to Oakes,
home to hundreds of friendly folks
and one mean son-of-a-bitch.”

Most of you have read Case Notes, which uses trimeter for scary, confessional purposes, and my Last Will and Testament, which manipulates trimeter to the point where it is admissable as a pour-over will in probate court. My point is that I think any meter can be used to express anything. (Exception: Beaton’s bumptious anapests in service of high elegy, which David Anthony and I persuaded him to rewrite as iambics.) It’s just a matter of catching the tune and going with it. A merit of trimeter and dimeter is that you CAN’T flunk Golias’ razor when you employ our shortest lines. And you MUST become an expert rhymer if your rhymes are to fall every 4 to 6 syllables, instead of every 10. I have adjured many beginners at the Sphere to devote themselves to the pentameter until they have it mastered. A conspicuous example of someone profiting from this advice is Macarthur (Andrew) who is now writing fluently in the five banger. But for the next month or so, let’s have some fun with short lines. I shall open Open Mics for dimeter and trimeter. At the beginning of each thread, I shall post some of my own little poems. And I’m happy to workshop both measures over here rather than at the Deep End. Welcome to the Workshop From Hell.

Moore, who is fluent in trimeter and knows Winters and Cunningham cold, could be very helpful in this exercise. yr lariat, Tim

[Janet Kenny]

Tim
I take it that the one poem every eight days elsewhere will not be affected by posts here?
Janet

[Janet Kenny]

Tim,
Here's my first fling. I'll be back with contrasted rhyme endings later,
Janet
Vicarious

The eye of Proust is keen
for details that evoke
the essence of a scene.

Dickens with a stroke
sketches in the group
with misery and smoke.

Austen will not stoop
to passion in the skin
but stays within the loop.

Boccaccio laughs at sin,
particularly vice
that leaves us with a grin.

Flaubert isn’t nice
about hypocrisy,
but hellishly precise.

Shakespeare feels quite free
to sympathise with flaws
that drive humanity.

Dante judges whores,
adulterers and cheats,
whose morals he deplores.

Rushdie gaily beats
the drum for open speech
then hastily retreats.

Writers offer each
of us a chance to live
while staying out of reach.

May all of them forgive
the less inquisitive.

(for Robert. I was just Danteing along and along and along


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

[Robt_Ward]

I don't know exactly what you want, Tim, but this may as well be moved here since it's specificaaly an exercise in taut form on the trimeter skeleton, and since it's drawing little technical comment (save from Wakefield) in the Deep End. Feel free to delete it 'tillater or move it elsehwere as suits you.

Refusal

Home is not where I dream.
Nor can sorrow screen
my heart (or yours) from light —
nor light invade the dream

Of shadows that decline
the word "alive." A line
is crossed when you extend
your hand, and I decline.

(robt)

[Robt_Ward]

Janet,

Trimeter terza rima, eh? That's certainly setting yourself hurdles. I'm not up-to-speed on t/r, but I have a suspicion something different is supposed to happen in the last stanza? I'll read up on it...

(robt)

[Janet Kenny]

Fixed Robert,
J.

[Robt_Ward]

Much mo' bettah

(robt)

[Janet Kenny]

Edited out my second poem. Overkill. I will return. I tried alternating feminine /masculine rhyme but the poem is a bauble.
Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited May 23, 2004).]

[wendy v]

Well, Tim, as you know, I'm most at home with the little meters as well, so I'll jump in. Neat idea, this.

Your own short lines are bound up tight and stocky as all get out, often seeming to wind up for the knockout punch at the close, whereas I use the same meters to try and achieve a very different effect: an airy sort of atmosphere and lots of trailing off room. And sometimes pithy or wiseacre humor just begs for the short line. There is indeed great freedom in di and tri and lots of neat ways to regulate pace, which I hope you'll talk a little about. You mention rhyme, which is something else I hope you'll talk about. In your Pallbearers I notice you've an even mix of nouns/verbs in the rhyme positions. Well, it's a good idea to get a healthy mix in any meter, but in di/tri it seems especially so, otherwise, what you get is the unmistakable sound of straining. Or clinking, which is even worse. Humor is an exception, I'm sure. My own dimeter and trimeter pieces rarely follow a strict rhyme scheme, and are generally peppered with slants. Over on the DE, irregular rhyme (not to mentions mixing slants with true) in IP or tet is practically verboten, but I don't recall ever being flagged for committing these same crimes in my short lines. I often wonder if it's the ear that's forgiving in those poems, or my readership !

It's also my experience that long poems in di or tri are practically impossible to pull off, and not just because they're too...well, leggy on the page. I've one, but I've never been satisfied with it. Have you successful examples of any ?

I'd be interested in hearing your experiences with reciting these short-lined poems for an audience. Do you pause at the end of your lines, or is it context/enjambment dependent ? I occasionally do readings, and find myself reciting more slowly/expressively when I do my itty bitty poems. I'm not sure if that's a virtue of the short line or just a sign of my comfort within them. I know it's said that IP allows the most 'natural' breaks for breaths/pauses in the language, but I'm at all sure I believe it. Of course I'm a slow talker, and tend to be spare in my conversation.
Well, most of the time.

Can't help post the obvious RF below. I'll stop in again and put up JVC's Contemporaries it if hasn't appeared already. For Open Mic, too.

ps to Janet: sweet finish on Vicarious !

and Robt: you mean you haven't a Robt Ward Waltz?


```````````

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.



[This message has been edited by wendy v (edited May 23, 2004).]

[Clive Watkins]

Dear Tim

This looks likely to be an interesting and useful exercise.

A couple of points….

You say that it is a “merit of trimeter and dimeter is that you CAN’T flunk Golias’ razor when you employ our shortest lines”. As far as trimeter is concerned, I think you can. Indeed, you might well want to. A much more important controlling issue is the length and complexity of the sentence. In my view, metre is very much a secondary issue – which is one reason why the Razor can be useful in discussing prose. The real issue is always the nature of the fit between sentence and metre. Many different kinds of expressive fit are possible. I am wary of prescription.

As to the wonderful Frost poem you cite, its subject and diction are certainly grave, but I am with Tim Steele insofar as my ear catches a certain nervous insistence here. It is notable that all the lines are end-stopped. It is the combination of this rhythmic-syntactical feature with the short lines which gives the poem its characteristic timbre. As for“Easter 1916”, Yeats allows himself much freedom in the metre: indeed, I would describe the metre of this fine poem as accentual trimeter rather than accentual-syllabic. This, too, has its effect on its tone, which for me is a kind of haunted, driven quality.

No doubt these are, to some extent, subjective matters. I merely register my own sense.

Good luck with this project.

Kind regards

Clive


[This message has been edited by Clive Watkins (edited May 23, 2004).]