[peter richards]

Avec.

[Jerry Glenn Hartwig]

Jason

Does it matter?

Our own beloved forum permits the author to determine if his work is metrical or not. All of my non-met postings are basically iambic lines of unequal length - which meets the definition of het-met.

I tend to view all poetry as metrical - but often the meter is not well-used. That is the important issue. Most 'free verse' poets do not understand meter (imo), nor how it relates to rhythm. That's why (one reason, again in my opinion) there're so many terrible FV poems out there.

Now if you want to debate the distinction between metrical and formal, that's easier.

If one person calls a poem metrical, and another insists it isn't, what difference does that make to the poem? The argument is nothing but wasted breath

- or server space *wink*




[This message has been edited by Jerry Glenn Hartwig (edited June 13, 2006).]

[Maryann Corbett]

Jerry, I think it matters here because the poet wants to make a determination that other poets will agree with. Because we analyze meter carefully, it's the first thing we'll criticize on the met boards.

When Bob Bolick posted a nonmet piece in Deep End by accident, the mistake was clear very soon. When it's not an accident--if, for example, I decide on purpose to write something that's extremely bumpy and put it on a met board--I'd better prepare myself to hear criticism. If I know very well that the meter's bumpy and wish that commenters would focus on other things, posting at nonmet is a big temptation.

I was reading in the collected works of Merrill last night and finding some pieces that made me smile, thinking how their meter might be carved around here.

Maryann

[Jerry Glenn Hartwig]

MaryAnn

Here's part of an answer I PM'd to Jason in explanation:


I think you're asking the wrong question - metrical or non-met. Is it formal (following a set form) or not, is more important.

Everything has meter. Does it follow a set pattern of stresses (with very few exceptions); then it's 'metrical'. When a writer puts in, for example, too many anapestic substitutions, the pattern begins to loose it's weave, then it's 'poor metrical writing'. Please don't call it 'loose'. Call it sloppy.


If you maintain a metrical expectation and form, post it on metrical. If you don't, post it on non-met. When someone says 'this is too loose', what they're saying is, 'This is poor metrical writing'. Either tighten it up, or you might as well post it on non-met. Of course, someone there will tell you to tighten it up and put it on metrical *grin*.

The choice is yours.

Hope this helps.

[Michael Cantor]

There are a great many highly accomplished formal poets who write outstanding poetry in loose metrics - my Powow colleague, Deborah Warren, is one of them; Wendy Vedelok is another good example - and it's not a big deal. When the poem is good enough, nobody cares about labels.

I think the problem is specific to the Sphere. We have Boards labelled "Met" and "Non-Met" (Which I agree with), we tend to be hyper-sensitive to meter and the mechanics of meter because (a) this is a workshop, (b) there are a great many metrical poets involved in this workshop, (c) some metrical poets appear to find intense scansion intensely erotic, and (d) few of us consistently post loose metrics, let alone poems that are so good that they blast right past any discussion of metrics.

Suggestion, Maryann (or anyone): if you have a poem with relatively loose metrics, and you want it on Met or the Deep End, mention the metrics up front - tell the critters what you are doing, and your own concerns. This will steer comments in the right direction, and eliminate a certain amount of anapestical squabbling. (I normally don't think it's a good idea to explain in advance what you're trying to do in a poem, but it might make sense in this case, where the concern is purely technique, not meaning.)

Michael

[Clay Stockton]

Jerry: Peace, buddy, but I think that when you say "everything has meter," you're confusing meter and rhythm.

Everything has the latter. The former is very specific, and not many things have it. That's because meter has to do with counting. (Just like dancing and music do.) Of course, you can count the stresses in anything, but the number ceases to be meaningful once it's divorced from line. That's because meter means "X number of beats per line."

Except when it doesn't. Some poems, like the Donaghy above, or Larkin's "Cut Grass" (the subject of a long discussion some months back on the Larkin About thread), have an ambiguous or perhaps a shifting number of beats per line. Nonetheless, they bear such a strong resemblance to regular metrical verse that it makes more sense to classify them as metrical than as not. I agree with Janet that at a certain point analysis doesn't help much. And I agree with Cantor and with Miles Davis that ultimately there are two kinds of music: good and bad. But I still thought it might help the discussion to get some terms clarified. Meter is a way to describe rhythm. All speech has rhythm. Not all speech has meter.

Last thought: I personally wouldn't go so far as to say that every time someone at the Sphere "says 'this is too loose', what they're saying is, 'This is poor metrical writing'." Sometimes what they're saying is, this poem has too many substitutions for my taste. Sometimes what they're saying is, any substitution is too much for my taste. Sometimes they're saying, only 20% of the feet in an iambic poem may be substituted, and I have scanned your poem, and you have substituted a whopping 31% of the feet, and this fact reflects very poorly on your hopes for ever truly understanding poetry. Sometimes they're saying, you made light of my point on General Talk and I think you're an asshole. We say a lot of things around here. Some of them are bullshit.

--CS

[Carol Taylor]

I think the question of whether a difficult-to-classify poem should be posted in met or non-met is a red herring. The better question might be whether meter helped it or hurt it.

The only reason for posting a poem here is to find out how other poets think it works and to see if they perceive any problems that keep it from being as good as it could be. If you aren't prepared to entertain negative critique about it, metrical or otherwise, submit it or file it or put it in your blog, but don't workshop it. That doesn't mean you have to change the poem because somebody else would have written it differently, but the assumption here is you want to know what other practitioners of the same craft think about your work. Otherwise we may get the idea you're showcasing your stuff and using us as a captive audience.

As to poems being good enough to have their flaws overlooked, why should a good poem's flaws be overlooked any more than a mediocre one's? Nits bother me more in good poems than in bad ones, which are usually a waste of time and critiquing effort. Even so, I'm aware that what looks like a significant flaw to me may look like a stroke of genius to someone else. The poet is ultimately responsible for his own choices. But my opinion is all I have, and this is a workshop; if you don't want to know, don't ask. When you've listened, consider the source and make up your own mind.

Flawed poems are published all the time. You can't pick up a magazine or collection without seeing them, and I often wind up being disappointed. Publishers aren't the final judges of what will be considered good poetry by posterity. The short life span of so many poetry journals suggests that they aren't always prophets in their own day, even among the converted.

In our rush to publish do we dodge the issue of whether we would rather be remembered, if we are remembered at all, for poems that are as good as we can make them, or if we simply want to collect credits?

Carol

[Jason Kerr]

Post withdrawn.

[This message has been edited by Jason Kerr (edited June 14, 2006).]

[Michael Cantor]

Jason -

I suggest you focus your intensity on writing and improving your poetry - on developing more arresting use of language, on involving the reader in the secrets of your poems - rather than on describing what you intend to accomplish with your poetry. If you accomplish it, explanations will not be necessary.

You know what I think the best writers do? They write the best poems that they can. They focus on craft, not theory. They get out of the locker room. They write and they write and they write, and they listen to the voice inside of them that tells them when a stress feels good, and when a line is strained; and the more they write - and the less they consciously think about theory - the better it gets. They worry more about what and how they write, and less about how to describe it, and they rarely lie awake at night searching for the "true" description of an iamb.

Let me describe a little exercise to you. I made a list of those poets I consider the most talented fifteen or twenty regular contributors to the Sphere. (I won't give you the entire list, because then I'd piss off other friends and associates, but it includes Maz and Wendy and Oliver and Kevin, and Tim and Rose and Jim and John and Jan and so on and so forth.) The identities are not important. What I believe is important is that I can't recall when one of those individuals - and this goes back about four years - has ever spent as much time talking about theory and labels and their own particular take on them, and what they want to do with their own poetry, and how they want to post - and so forth and so on - as you have on this thread. As a matter of fact, some of our very best Sphere writers almost never participate in discussions of scansion. To paraphrase an old joke about the Russian man and woman - strangers - who found themselves sharing an overnight compartment on a train: Enough of this love talk - let's write!

[Jason Kerr]

I have withdrawn the initial topic of this thread, and all but one of my posts. I would be happy to see it stay open for any further examples you would wish to share.

After reviewing the forum rules I noticed the following:

we do not wish to have lengthy discussions as to what should go where

I assumed this applied only to the critical forums. My apologies for the gross misunderstanding. Thank you to those who shared, whether for comment or complaint. Both were helpful.

Sincerely,
Jason

[This message has been edited by Jason Kerr (edited June 14, 2006).]