of rhythms
potentialities
unenfleshed and ripening
tattering on weak
iambs to dream
mortality
and pungent smells
of
swollen ripeness
pressed
in black arc-lines
against a thousand
stained sheets
STRINGING BUTTONS
Stringing buttons—hunched on the worn pine floor,
Its planks velvet smooth from half-century
Of hands scrubbing, polishing—musty air
Warm with subtle gossip, whispered words we
Youngsters ignored.... We strung buttons on hanks
Of time-grayed cotton-thread and squabbled for
Favorites: foil-backed glass; glossy jet, ink-
Black-deep; mock turquoise; hand-cut bone, smooth, clear—
While hour on hour grandmothers stitched staid quilts,
Wove intricate lines with white cotton strands
Through patterns pieced from scraps—old aprons, shirts
Sunday dresses faded and worn breath-thin;
Our cotton threads coiled in the button box—
We never cared that none had end-thread knots.
VULTURE
Or perhaps vulture
(as my son avers
although he reclined
half-sleeping when
the black shadow
rose, soused
as if to clutch
with careful claw
my small Ford,
and disappeared
above the tunnel’s
mouth)—flash
of red-on-black
glint of hooked
beak but mostly
bulk and blackly
ominous shade
whispers death
and rises as I pass
into darkness
Discussion questions:
1. What principles govern lineation in each poem? How effective are those principles in light of the final poem?
2. In which poem does the poet more fully seem to control where and/or when lines begin and end?
3. Is the chosen form appropriate for each poem?
Line length intensifies poetic effects in many ways. Compare the following passages:
Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even especially, the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts.
Just to say thank you to the one who laid a pair of pruning shears open on my driveway yesterday; I shall use them on the roses and save my four new tires.
Is there anything particularly “poetic” about either (excepting for the moment the homage to William Carlos Williams implicit in the second)? Which of the two sounds less like poetry, more like prose?
When the lines break into meaningful sub-units—poetic “lines”—the impact of each becomes more apparent. Even a prose passage can attain to something like poetic emphasis:
FREEDOM OF THE MIND
requires
not only,
or not even especially,
the absence
of legal constraints
but
the presence
of alternative thoughts.
— “quoted” from Allan Bloom,
The Closing of the American Mind
JUST TO SAY
thank you
to
the one
who laid a pair
of pruning
shears
open on
my driveway
yesterday;
I shall use
them
on the roses
and save
my four
new tires.
Discussion: Which seems more effective as poetry? How else could the original passages be divided to create “poetry”?
EMOTION AND INTELLECT IN POETRY
For a few pages, I would like to re-don my professorial cap (you know, the square one with the tassel) and posit two poles from which poetry may start: emotion and intellect. There are, of course, many other ways to discuss poetics, but these two seem at the moment most relevant. But before the discussion, two assertions:
Neither approach is right.
Neither approach is wrong.
Most poetry would in fact fit nicely on a continuum between extremes, and it is perhaps impossible to write a piece that emanates exclusively from one or the other. But for the purposes of discussion, let’s begin there.
Poetry of Emotion draws most strongly,
