[Maryann Corbett]

I don't want to cut off discussion, but here's what Snodgrass writes about this poem, in the introduction to the "Metrics & Music" section of the book:

"A student once observed that Roethke's 'My Papa's Waltz' has a 'waltzing rhythm.' This is suggested both by the poem's subject and by the iambic meter that usually produces a triple (3/4 or 3/8) rhythm. Roethke's skillful variations of stress as well as his slanted rhymes (dizzy/easy, pans/countenance) give his waltz a slightly tipsy feeling. My first de/composition changes the emotional coloring of the interplay between father and son, though it maintains the rhythm; the second keeps, when possible, the original's chief nouns and verbs but drives out any suggestion of rhythmic movement."

Having read that last sentence, I understand why that second rewrite sounds so very inept. If the goal is to keep most of the words but to mess up the meter, the easiest way is to overstuff the lines with little, needless words:

You beat time on THE TOP OF my head...
Then waltzed me STRAIGHT off to MY OWN bed...

And the next easiest way is to subtract or switch the position of stresses:

With [a] one palm's caked [hard by] dirt....

For me, full end rhyme paired with failed meter always evokes Ogden Nash, and that's part of the reason that this second rewrite feels like comedy to me, an effect Susan mentions above.

[Susan McLean]

Maryann, thanks for the tip about Majmudar's blog on repetition in poetry. I enjoyed it.

Susan

[Lance Levens]

Excellent comments and an insightful analysis by Maryann. With everyone's permission I think I'll wait a few days before I post another.
It's such an encouragement to see the participation. I just wish more of the newbies would join in.

[Ed Shacklee]

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I’m liking these bare ruined choirs that are being discussed here. Snodgrass must have been a wonderful teacher.

One of the things I’m taking away from these threads is how eccentricities of voice – due to time, place, personality and other factors – are essential elements of a poet’s music.

I wonder how much of any poem can be attributed to craft. For example, the slant rhymes and the metrical variation do give ‘My Papa’s Waltz’ a tipsy, waltzing feel, but I doubt it was plotted out that way in advance; my guess is it was a bit of luck that sprang from the glimmer of an idea or an inspired phrase or two, and was honed by sweat and skill. ‘Ruining’ a poem this way is very illuminating in that it tells you some of the reasons why it works: if you started from scratch with the ruined poems, though, you could see what is wrong with these alternate versions, but that wouldn’t allow you to create “My Papa’s Waltz” – which, by the way, is pinned to the corkboard in a friend’s office: as close to immortality as a poet could wish for. All the same, it’s probably a useful ear-sharpening exercise, to prepare for the day when lightning may strike you from out of the blue, like it did Herrick and Roethke on multiple occasions.

But maybe advocates of a plain style of poetry (and people who write mush-mouthed modern versions of the Bible) would gain as much or more from comparing these ruined poems with the successful originals.

Best,

Ed



[PS - originally mis-posted in the Ruining a Great Poem thread. Apologies.]

[Lance Levens]

Ed,

I agree that the dizzy rhymes and such were probably not blue-printed out
beforehand--although, I believe Shelly did write out some rhymes ahead--nonetheless, just the idea that there is a craft is a revelation to many who write poetry--even here on the sphere. I believe the romantic infection razed our intellectual landscape and we still haven't found a cure.

[John Whitworth]

Not only Shelley but I too (gasp) line up the rhymes ahead of the sense. And, more importantly, Dryden said that the rhyme had often helped him to the sense. In fact that is, I think, my FAVOURITE quotation from a poet about writing poetry.

[Gail White]

I remember once hearing John Ciardi (I think it was) analyze Emily Dickinson's poem "A narrow fellow in the grass." You remember, she says that she never encounters a snake
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the bone.

Anyway, Ciardi said that if you assigned your freshman writing class to write a poem about an encounter with a snake, they would use phrases like
Without a sudden shudder
And a quiver in the spine.

Genius is so elusive.

[Lance Levens]

John

That's astounding. Here are Dryden and Shelly-and Whitworth--telling us
how crucial rhyme is to thought. Hope some are listening.

Gail

Zero at the bone. Some kind of genius
touchstone.

[Ed Shacklee]

Originally Posted by Gail White

I remember once hearing John Ciardi (I think it was) analyze Emily Dickinson's poem "A narrow fellow in the grass." You remember, she says that she never encounters a snake
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the bone.

Anyway, Ciardi said that if you assigned your freshman writing class to write a poem about an encounter with a snake, they would use phrases like
Without a sudden shudder
And a quiver in the spine.

Genius is so elusive.

Genius or not, if you were in a freshman writing class and wrote

Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the bone

I wonder what sort of grade you would get, assuming you didn't have Ciardi or someone equally astute as your teacher. Me, I think a little shudder or two is advisable in such a class.


Ed