Another confidence (game) of line

[larryhammer]

I've been thinking about poetic form and presentation, and how the one affects the other. Specifically, a little-discussed subtlety of stanzas: indentation, and its effect on flow. Some examples to work with -- the openings of three narrative poems on similar themes:

Imagine, if you will, two gods on earth,
pretending that they’re mortal men to test
whether, within the realm of death and birth,
the laws of hospitality for guests
were honored in the heart or were repressed.
Sounds odd, I know—I’d understand if you
decide this is a fable. Yet, it’s true.

A rhyming rumble in the gym. At stake:
   The Cheerleading Championship of all Greece.
Pieria Academy had come to take
   The challengers on their home court down a piece.
   Not Atalanta’s balls, not Golden Fleece,
Not wife-swapping in Troy would beat this brawl.
’Twas almost bigger than school basketball.

The boar came out of nowhere, so they knew
By this and other signs—its angry eyes,
The damage targeted to rooting through
The just-ripe crops, but most of all its size—
From whom it came. But no one could surmise
   The reason—what had someone done amiss
   To rate the wrath of Lady Artemis?

Same rhyme royal stanzas (ababbcc), but each movement is different. Part of this is tone and syntax and rhythm, yes, but also how the stanza structure is used. In the first poem ("Hospitality"), for example, the narrative runs smoothly as possible ever onward to the end; in aid of this, I used no indenting or other tricks that point up the form. In contrast, the second ("Girl-Fight on Helicon") is textured with wordplay, soundplay, jokes, and puns, consciously working with rhymes and line beaks for effects; indents highlight the artificiality, and help focus attention inward within the stanza instead of onward to the next. The third ("Myrmidons in Calydon") is midway between: a flowing narrative, but with a narrator fond of using the final couplet for epigrammatic observations; the indents emphasize and assist this.

Indentation may not be as important as line breaks or rhymes or even how meter is handled, but they contribute. As demonstration, if you indent any of these in the style of the other two, it flows differently. Try it and see. It's very odd.

(Not that I was thinking of flow when I indented the myrmidon poems or "Girl-Fight" as I did -- I was looking at the rhymes. "Hospitality," yes, because it wanted to keep things moving along until the reader trips over the hidden stinger.) (In hindsight, I'm not sure I made the best decisions with "Girl-Fight" -- its texture is fun on the page, but it's hard to read aloud all the way through. I loaded up every rift with ore, as Keats put it, and this got in the way of the story. Live and learn.)

Layout influences meaning, just as all rhythms influence meaning in poetry. It's a tool to be used, or at least not worked against. All of which is a long way of saying pay attention to all details of your craft, including presentation. Know what the tools in your writer's kit do, and how to sharpen them. The more it's clear you know what you're doing, the more authority you project to your readers. And convincing the reader is the biggest challenge of the game.

ObLinky: Examples of far too many poetic forms.

---L.

Comments

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Ah, poetic forms. To me, a set structure is like scaffolding: it's much easier to work within one than it is to write free verse which has to stand alone. Haven't written any decent poetry for ages... maybe I should revive my one-time project to select random forms and write a poem in each one!

[larryhammer]

For me, it's more that it's easier to write well in a form: matching the structure forces me to not take the first words that come to mind but look beyond that.

I don't know if it's available Down Under, but you may be interested in John Hollander's Rhyme's Reason, a book of self-describing examples of forms -- also going beyond that to figures and other mechanics as well. The discussion of different styles of handling blank verse (done in blank verse) is particularly illuminating. But the whole book is wonderful.

---L.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Such an interesting (and overlooked) topic. I sometimes think the overuse of indents and multiple levels of indents in recent poetry is done almost arbitrarily. (Or if it has a powerful meaning, that meaning is apparent only to the author--the reader must guess.) I was thinking about this yesterday when I posted a Hikmet poem that has some odd deep indents.

But aside from fads and fashions, some poets are thinking not only about air-breaks (sound-breaks, breathing spaces), but also about the visual effect: visual spaces. Some poems flicker down the page as if they were written by butterflies. This is, I imagine, much influenced by the Concrete poetry of the early 20th c.

The sort of breaks you are discussing in your own stanzas are more nuanced: the forceful declamation from line 1 to line 7 vs. the mulling voice, frex. Here, the indents act rather like facial expressions, or emoticons even, signaling a change (as you say) in tone of voice, or even in speed of expression.

It's the old battle of form v. content, isn't it? Or, as Valéry puts it: The "profound hesitation between sound and sense" that is the heart of poetry.

That Keats letter... that made my day. And I have been enjoying your poems a great deal for some time now.

[larryhammer]

Indentation and white space in free verse is well-studied -- see for ex Hartman's essay on free-verse prosody -- possibly because it's one of free verse's few formal resources, aside from the line breaks themselves. (Though I do wonder what some poets are up to, both layout and breaks.) There's so much else to look at in metered and rhymed verse, that I think it's overlooked there.

It's always about form versus/plus content. If the form isn't against+with, then the content should be in prose. (And now I'm thinking about what happens when each stanza is indented differently, ad hoc, as serves the moment. Except, usually, once I've settled on the indents, I write to them. Hmm.)

Keats's letters are worth reading in full, or even just in selection. Even when he's wrong, he's interestingly wrong, and he's often right. Though I still haven't decided whether I believe in negative capability. And this letter to Shelley, a neopro advising the Hot Now Thing of his time -- woofs!

---L.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

All true. Free verse does use line breaks and indents as a kind of substitute for prosody... interesting thought, that. I hadn't thought of it that way, because I am a visual artist, and I am more attuned to the visual effect than to the way that indents may "count" as syllables (or absent syllables, perhaps).

The indentation pattern is almost the visual/typographic equivalent of that singsong voice free verse poets use when reciting--the one where sentences end on an up-note, to indicate the absence of a period (or a tentative state of mind, or both). Archie the Cockaroach was a master of this kind of recitation.

But more structured poems, whether rhymed or blank, also make that conscious decision about line breaks and indents. I was reading Aiken's "Letter from Li Po" yesterday, and thinking that each of the 11 sections could sure use a few line breaks, just to rest the eye from the density of the arguments. I think Aiken was probably imitating Homer, more or less. But then, I often wish Homer would toss in a few extra line breaks. ;-)

I *love* the idea of a poem with a strict formal structure and regular rhyme scheme, but using variant indentation approaches. I would want to see it done to a purpose...different voices, or a change in perspective or tone. Teh closest I can think of to a similar effect is in multipart pomes like Elytis's "Axion Esti," which has interwoven units--each kind of unit adheres to a formal structure, but each structure is sharply different from the others. (And I am told that in Greek the structures are much stricter than is visible in a translation.) There are definitely multiple voices in the poem, though not necessarily different personages. The overlay of voices (Poet, God, God-in-the-Poet, Someone Else, Hellas Herself, and so on) is recapitulated in the overlay of styles. Which is breathtaking.

I have read some of Keats's letters, but not the whole corpus. As you say, the gentle advice to Shelley from a barely-published boy of--what, 23?--is astonishing. The more so as he is clearly right in this instance--and the more courageous of the two.

[larryhammer]

And then there's E.E. Cummings's sonnets -- rigorous in line and rhyme, but variously laid out. He plays more with line groupings (and punctuation) than indents, but same thing.

---L.

[larryhammer]

Most of my blank verse, at least the tales, I use verse paragraphs -- with the first line indented a bit a la prose, and a blank line between. It helps with reading a lot, I think, but then, I'm writing a lot lighter than Aiken.

---L.

form versus content

[(Anonymous)]

>It's always about form versus/plus content. If the form isn't against+with,
>then the content should be in prose.

I may be misunderstanding: are you saying that some content can't be written about in poetry?

marymary
http://www.pantoum.org

Re: form versus content

[larryhammer]

More, that some content as written is prose, and no playing with the line breaks can change this fact. The language itself needs to be revised to make it poetry.

---L.

Re: form versus content

[(Anonymous)]

What would you speculate is the characteristic that keeps the content from being verse? Rhythm? Perhaps some combination of characteristics rather than one single.

This is an issue I struggle with, I keep being frustrated by folks who think poetry can only say one thing (and that being the thing currently said the most).

Also, I have been trying to decide, for myself, what makes poetry different from prose in today's literary scene, where they are prose poems and "poetic" prose vignettes. For me, it has to be the line, but I'm still trying to articulate exactly what it is the line does (or rather, what effect the line has).

marymary
http://www.pantoum.org

Re: form versus content

[larryhammer]

A few incoherent thoughts before I stumble off to bed; more in the morning, I hope.

To the idea that "poetry can only say one thing" I say Feh! -- there is no subject or theme or tone unavailable to poetry. It's a form, not a genre. There are subjects poetry is less suited for than prose is (technical writing comes to mind -- but see someone's description of the algorithm for the DVD descrambling code in haiku stanzas) but that's different from can.

---L.

Re: form versus content

[larryhammer]

As the coffee soaks in -- drip, drip, drip. Ahhh.

The thing about genres is that their borders are fuzzy. Which doesn't make the concept invalid -- just less useful the further from the middle of the genre you get. A sharp dividing line between poetic prose and prose poetry is as elusive (but not illusive) as one between science fiction and fantasy. And that's without considering works that partake of more than one genre (it's a dessert topping and a floor wax! ... so to speak).

So in answer to your first question, it's many things. All art is, for lack of a better word, multivalent, and mutliple characteristics make it one thing/genre/type/form or another.

---L, imnsho.

FYI (southwest poetry antho call for submissions)

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Desert Paintings: Poetry of the American Southwest
   The Project: This will be a generous gathering of contemporary work on the historical, geographical, political, and cultural knowledge of the region, primarily West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Southern California. This anthology will examine the fluid and complex ways cultural identity is defined, defended, challenged, suppressed, and enriched in the Southwest. These poems will also explore ways later generations, particularly Native American and Chicano deal with issues of biculturalism or hybridity.  Other poetry topics might include: sense of place, connection, belonging; struggle with different definitions of spirituality; trust and betrayal; ongoing negotiation of identity; oral tradition vs. textualization; botany, wildlife, and weather in the region; the American West; settlers, displacement, and civilization and cultural hero/trickster stories.
   Feel free to challenge the thematic and stylistic limits of these
guidelines, and in doing so, help us best represent the range, depth, and veracity of America's plural voice(s).
   To contribute: Before May 15th (submission deadline), please send up to 5
poems (12 pages max) along with a brief (3 line) bio and SASE to:
Poetry Editors
Department PM
547 Issaqueena Trail
Clemson, SC 29631
   Payment: Payment will be in contributor copies.
   Permissions: Please ensure that you retain rights for any previously
published work you submit; new work is always welcome.
   Publication: This book is scheduled for publication in Fall 2006 by the
University of Arizona Press.

Re: FYI (southwest poetry antho call for submissions)

[larryhammer]

Huh. Hadn't heard of this -- thanks for the tip.

Unfortunately, all I use the Southwest for is imagery in personal lyrics. I suppose that might count, actually.

---L.