Poetry Lover By Jessa R. Sexton

Transcription

1 Poetry Lover By Jessa R. Sexton I was first published in my elementary school s literary magazine for a rather repetitive poem I wrote about lightning in the 4th grade. (When lightning flashes through the sky / oh, it s something beautiful to the eye.) The joy of poetry has held my heart ever since. Writing it, reading it: I cannot get enough of it. I find myself tapping out my thoughts as starts of a sonnet. (Ten syllables a line: I still use my fingers to count.) I doodle E. E. Cummings s words on myself in henna. I love poetry. You do too? Let s start a club! We can sip tea and read our favorite poems together; which poet do you like best? Who challenges you the most? You don t? It s okay. I guess. As I ve spent the last eight years trying to win over students (and sometimes other English teachers) to my avid ardor, I ve wondered what the barrier is. My answers, though rough in starting, to why people are intimidated and sometimes turned off by poetry stem from three elements: mechanics, misdirection, and misconception. Mechanics Why don t you like this poem? I can t understand what he s saying. He s speaking Old English. (I assure you, he is not. Old English was an entirely different language.) Why doesn t he talk plainly? Part of what makes us associate a poem as a poem is in the mechanics: rhyme, rhythm, form, line length. Though we sometimes get caught up in thinking only the first is of importance (If I rhyme all the time I m a poet, and I know it.), the other areas of poetry are a two- sided sword with shape and flow, following or breaking rules with purpose and intent on one side and near- utter confusion on the other. Why write a sonnet? Why follow that form? Why a Villanelle? The sonnet is the first poem form (after the Haiku, of course), that I started playing around with and my initial intentions were simply to see if I could. Sometimes the artist has to push herself: am I creative enough to practice within parameters? Can I communicate under guided qualifications? 1

2 My most recent favorite form is the aforementioned Villanelle. After researching this type for my book With Your Fresh Thoughts, I was reading Do Not Go Gentle by Dylan Thomas, and I saw for the first time that it. Was. A. Villanelle. In all my trying to explain about the connection between form and function, all the while the perfect marriage of the two had been right in front of me. The Villianelle is a challenge, because you have to worry about rhyming and syllable counting and repetition of refrains. Each line has ten syllables and follows this rhyming and refrain pattern: Refrain 1 (A) Line 2 (B) Refrain 2 (A) Line 4 (A) Line 5 (B) Refrain 1 (A) Line 7 (A) Line 8 (B) Refrain 2 (A) Line 10 (A) Line 11 (B) Refrain 1 (A) Line 13 (A) Line 14 (B) Refrain 2 (A) Line 16 (A) Line 17 (B) Refrain 1 (A) Refrain 2 (A) So why is Do Not Go Gentle the perfect candidate for this form? The first and second refrain Do not go gentle into that good night, Rage, rage against the dying of the light (Thomas ll 1, 3) have to be repeated continuously throughout the poem. The lines are the power, the brunt behind the words of a son telling his father, there on the sad height of death not to simply let go, 2

3 but to curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray (ll. 16, 17), anything other than just slipping away into nothingness. The repetition reflects the pain of loss, the begging nature of the sorrowful son. Though I ve been a long- time poetry- lover, I m not saying I understand every line I ever read; that I immediately recognize a poem form; or that I could, as a party trick, spit out memorized lines or interpret on the spot (though wouldn t you be impressed and inviting me over more often?). I m saying that I appreciate the efforts of the talented poet in using mechanics, in playing around with them, in challenging himself. I m saying that you can love a poem and even come up with valid interpretations without understanding every word and meaning. I m also saying that you shouldn t be afraid of poetry because it doesn t seem to be in plain language. Maybe it is. Misdirection Which brings me to my next point: misdirection. We have been taught maybe by those teachers who hated poetry as well, or maybe by elite poetry snobs who want to feel smarter than we are by withholding ideas and laughing at our ignorance that poetry is always hard, always weaving around meaning, always making the simple more complex. We ve also been handed a sheet of paper with words on it and asked the horrifying questions: 1. What does it mean? and 2. How does it make you feel? (Answers = 1. I don t know, and therefore 2. dumb.) Step one in overcoming this misdirection is to listen. Half the time when a student doesn t understand a poem, I will read it out loud, and at least partial clarity appears. (Well, why did they write it in so confusing a way in the first place? That question is answered some in self- expression in the form of using mechanics as discussed above. Why does Van Gogh s Starry Night not look 100% accurate to the night sky I see when I look out my window? Style, for one thing. A poet is allowed that as well.) The second step is to learn how to read the poem on your own. Have you heard of enjambment? This is when lines aren t clean- cut, when periods don t sit at the end of each line. Rather, sentences spill over on to the next line. See the sonnet below: 3

4 My Exodus So now, go. I don t care what you think your weaknesses are; I am your strength. You say you can t do it; you re right: I can. Make way for a movement of faith. I don t send for perfect people because there are none. Nor do I call only the confident: pray your confidence comes from me every day. Quiet the counterfeiter I deplore. He says you re inept for my intent as if that matters. Because the Promised Land isn t reached by your mere achievements. No. I m here with you: if I give you a path and a purpose, I ll give you a map and a means. You said, Here am I, so now, go! Exodus 3 Isaiah 6:8 This is an Italian form of a sonnet I wrote playing with enjambment. If you try to read this poem by pausing at the end of each line, it will make no sense. Read to the punctuation. My Exodus So now, go. I don t care what you think your weaknesses are; I am your strength. You say you can t do it; you re right: I can. Make way for a movement of faith. I don t send for perfect people because there are none. Nor do I call only the confident: Pray your confidence comes from me every day. Quiet the counterfeiter I deplore. He says you re inept for my intent as if that matters. Because the Promised Land isn t reached by your mere achievements. No. I m here with you: if I give you a path and a purpose, I ll give you a map and a means. You said, Here am I, so now, go! Exodus 3 Isaiah 6:8 4

5 But that s not a sonnet anymore. The words are all the same, but the form is lost. Don t let the form fool you. The sonnet, in sonnet form, says exactly what the second un- sonneted poem says and is read the same way but the second version has lost something. There is a beauty in brokenness: of lines, of ideas. The speaker in this poem is pointing out the truth of human imperfection. The broken and uneven nature of the enjambed sonnet speaks of that imperfection. (Again form and function.) Misconception Finally, we reach the issue of misconception and its many layers. First look back at my language in the previous paragraph: the speaker. Who wrote this sonnet? Why I did! Who is the speaker, though? Don t say, Jessa. Maybe not. We have the misconception that a poet feels everything his created speaker expresses. Of course the life experiences with the exhilarating joys and present pains are inspiration for any artist, but the I of a poem doesn t always convey the exact intentions of the poet. Just as an actor playing a role, I can be anyone I want to be as I write. In fact, I often love taking on the role of a character in literature, studying her by writing from her point of view. Your Rosalyn Last night I saw your Rosalyn standing just far enough away behind the crowd that even in my silent demanding I couldn t speak her name to you out loud. I know your love is strong and true and bold, but I still feel her memory is clear that maybe someday when I am quite old you ll wish for her instead of me right here. Cause how did it come quickly so to pass, the time between your miser y for her and then the time you saw beneath my mask? (And felt my heart would be your lovesick cure?) I thought I felt sure of your devotion, but seeing her put these thoughts in motion. Who am I? Trick question. I am the poet, Jessa. Who is the I of the poem? Juliet, a character I have, on more than one occasion, made the speaker of my poetry. Another misconception about poetry is that you don t like poetry. Have you seriously read every poem and every poet? If so, and if you still haven t found anything worth quoting or scrawling on 5

6 your arm in henna, then I will allow you that. But I seriously doubt you have accomplished such an undertaking. Please be open to new experiences with poetry. I am currently undertaking research on brokenness and beauty in two of my favorite poets Gerard Manley Hopkins and E. E. Cummings who, at first, couldn t be more different from each other in life or writings. (The extreme difference between the two I would label as my favorite probably speaks volumes about my personality.) Hopkins somehow incorporates every kind of poetic mechanic I know, and he creates beauty. Cummings somehow bends or breaks every kind of poetic (and often grammatical in general) mechanic I know, and he creates beauty. The first is known for his striking originality, intellectual depth, and perceptive vision (Hopkins cover), and the latter for his vivacious linguistic acrobatics (Cummings cover). Note how they both handle same topic of Spring in their poems below: Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins NOTHING is so beautiful as spring When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing; The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling. What is all this juice and all this joy? A strain of the earth s sweet being in the beginning In Eden garden. Have, get, before it cloy, Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning, Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy, Most, O maid s child, thy choice and worthy the winning. 6

7 [in Just- ] by E. E. Cummings in Just- spring when the world is mud- luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee and eddieandbill come running from marbles and piracies and it's spring when the world is puddle- wonderful the queer old balloonman whistles far and wee and bettyandisbel come dancing from hop- scotch and jump- rope and it's spring and the goat- footed balloonman far and wee whistles Different approaches: vastly different styles yet both make my mouth full with the oration, and both stretch me as a reader, interpreter, and writer. 7

8 The End No, the Beginning It seems fitting to leave you with a(n arguably sub- par) poem I wrote in a college poetry class (in a world ago before I began testing the waters of form and played mostly with language and thought) that considers the long- held bond I have had with poetry: it s a love affair, really sometimes torrid and sometimes less involved but I don t ever plan on calling it off. You are a poem Making me feel every turn of emotion causing me to read and reread. I question myself every time I experience you: a taste familiar every time I indulge you. Our intercourse is a reminder of my intense need to know to be known. Your warmth in my hand, when we unite you see, neither of us is anything without the other. References Cummings, E. E. [in Just- ]. Selected Poems. Ed. Richard S. Kennedy. New York: Liveright, Print. Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Spring. Selected Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Ed. Bob Blaisdell. Mineola, NY: Dover Thrift, Print. Thomas, Dylan. "Do Not Go Gentle." 100 Best- Loved Poems. Ed. Philip Smith. Mineola: Dover Publications, Print. 8