A Short Essay on Syllabics by Elizabeth Daryush: Part 2

A Short Essay on Syllabics: Part 2

Continuing with the short essay that Daryush wrote about a syllabic approach to English language poetry, in the next paragraph Daryush focuses on lineation.  Daryush writes,

“First, . . . the line-ending, the highest point of emphasis and tension, being no longer led up to by steps of regular stress, must be established and maintained by other means.”

In metrical verse there are three means for indicating a line break: 1) the metrical beat, 2) grammar, and 3) rhyme.  Daryush points out that in a syllabic approach we cannot rely on ‘steps of regular stress’ to indicate a line break.  Therefore, the other two must carry the weight and be relied upon to tell us that there is a line break.

Here I would like to point out that the meaning of a line break is that there is a caesura, a pause, in the flow of words.  Often it is where one would take a brief breath before continuing.  It is this caesura which gives the reader/listener a sense of the shape of the poem. 

This is also why, I think, in traditional English poetry a line begins with a capital letter.  The capital letter functions in the way that a bar line in music functions.  Technically music does not need bar lines and there are forms of notation that do not use them.  When I briefly studied Japanese music I discovered that their traditional notational systems do not use them.  But the bar line assists the musician by letting the musician know where the beat will fall, it is an explicit assist.  Similarly, the beginning capital letter of a line of poetry reminds the reader that this is the beginning of a poetic unit; in the case of syllabics it signals the reader that this is the beginning of a group of syllables.  It is simply helpful and considerate of the reader to offer this kind of assistance.

Returning to the essay, Daryush continues,

“The first few lines of a syllabic poem should when possible be complete sentences or phrases.”

The reason for this is that when grammatical structure and syllable count are coordinated the reader/listener is assisted in accessing the shape of the poem.  When the two are divergent, it is difficult for the reader or listener to perceive a shape with any clarity.  The effect of this is that the work drifts into ordinary speech, the essay, the diary, etc.; and the poetic effect is simply lost.

Daryush seems, as mentioned in part 1, to have in mind syllabic poetry where all the lines are the same length.  And her observation about grammar and line would apply strongly to that kind of poetry; say the syllabic sonnet.  Daryush, as far as I know, never wrote in forms that use a very short line.  I define a very short line as four syllables or less.  A remarkable number of popular syllabic forms use very short lines, including the lanterne, the tetractys, the fibonacci, and the cinquain.  How would Daryush’s advice function for a very short line?

Personally, I have taken the approach of writing a list, usually of nouns, when writing very short lines.  I believe this is consistent with the overall advice given by Daryush, though she does not mention it.  Each item on a list has its own integrity, a wholeness; but when combined with the other items creates an overall collage of meaning.  I found this especially helpful with the opening lines of the fibonacci (1-1-2-3 . . .).  I have, in general, found it unsatisfying when a sentence is chopped up and distributed among very short lines.  It feels forced and the specific shape of the form feels lost.  There are exceptions.  Dabydeen’s approach to the tetractys often takes a sentence and chops it up.  But Dabydeen is careful to distribute the sentence so that it falls into clear grammatical units or phrases, so that one can still feel the sense of the shape of the tetractys.  However, when, for example, a prepositional phrase is split among lines, this undermines the shape of the specific form and it is difficult for the listener/reader to comprehend what form the poem is in.  I have often observed this kind of writing in short syllabic forms and in general I think poets attracted to these forms might consider adhering more closely to Daryush's advice in this matter.  

“Rhyme is almost indispensable . . . “

Rhyme is the most powerful marker for communicating a line break in the English language.  I think that Daryush makes an excellent point here.  Personally, it was my study of Emily Dickinson that opened my understanding to the power and scope of rhyme.  For the syllabic poet rhyme is an indispensable tool.  A consistent use of rhyme will communicate to the reader/listener that shape of a poem.  In addition, rhyme is pleasing to the ear, people enjoy its presence, and it gives the poem a musical feeling.  Finally, rhyme makes the poem more memorable.

I wish I had read Darrush’s essay years ago.  Perhaps the long route I took to some of these same conclusions would have been shortened.  On the other hand, it is pleasing to discover that similar conclusions are reached regarding lineation when pursued independently.  My own journey started out in free verse and it was a slow process to a syllabic approach.  And that slow process was a gradual discovery that in order to write syllabic poetry it was necessary to put aside the norms of today’s free verse lineation. 

Modern free verse typically ignores grammar in a process that is referred to as radical enjambment.  This means that there is no coordination between grammatical structure and line breaks.  This is not an inherent quality of free verse.  For example, Whitman almost always breaks a line at a grammatical unit.  But it is a very widespread usage among today’s free verse poets.  I find it puzzling; it strikes me as fickle and arbitrary.  In addition, it seems to be thumbing its nose at the reader, refusing to offer even minimal assistance in the communication of meaning.  I’m not sure why radical enjambment is so widespread or how it started.  But I have become convinced that in order to write effective syllabic verse such an approach needs to be put aside.

This short little essay by Daryush reveals a very thoughtful poet who must have spent a lot of time pondering the subtleties of English language prosody.  It is filled with insight and tips which syllabic poets can apply to their own work.  It is my hope that Daryush’s poetry will be reprinted and that syllabic poets will find in her work both fine poetry and a rich resource for their own efforts.

Elizabeth Daryush on Syllabics: Part 1

A Short Essay on Syllabics by Elizabeth Darush

I have had a fondness for the poetry of Elizabeth Daryush for a long time.  However, my reading of her poetry has been from anthologies and the occasional poem I found on the web.  My interest in Daryush was first stimulated by coming across some of her syllabic sonnets.  I found them very attractive.  So, now and then, I would do a web search for her poems and was never disappointed with what I found.

Most of the poetry of Daryush is currently available only in used editions.  Recently I decided to buy her Collected Poems which was published in 1976.  It is a surprisingly slim volume; only 198 pages.  But that has its advantages as the collection gives the reader a good overview of her poetry.  I will have more to say about the poems in a future post, but what I want to highlight here is a short ‘Note on Syllabic Metres’, written by Daryush, found on pages 24 and 25.  I found it to be insightful and one of the clearest presentations of syllabics in an English language context that I have run across.  Here it is:

Note On Syllabic Metres

Some of the poems here re-printed are written on a syllabic system, and I should like to comment on what seems to be a wide-spread misunderstanding and under-estimate of what the principle implies: a strict syllable-count, although of course essential, is, in my view, merely the lifeless shell of its more vital requirements.

Accepting that not only a work of art but every aspect of its medium is intrinsically a contrived relation between the known and the uncomprehended, the fixed and the unpredictable, recalling, too, that in accentual verse, as in barred music, the fixed element is that of time, and the unfixed that of number (of syllables or notes) we can assess what part should be played by these factors in a truly syllabic system.  Here the position is reversed: the fixed element is no longer time but number; the integrity of line and syllable is challenged by the stress-demands of sense or syntax.  The aim of the artist will be so to balance these incommensurables as to reflect his own predicament of thought or feeling, thereby enhancing his consciousness of an imagined relation with the unattainable.  The rules for achieving this are by their very nature unwritten ones, but a few guide-lines can be laid down.

In general, meaning should make the greatest possible use of time-variety without losing sight of the number-pattern.  First, therefore, the line-ending, the highest point of emphasis and tension, being no longer led up to by steps of regular stress, must be established and maintained by other means.  The first few lines of a syllabic poem should when possible be complete sentences or phrases.  Rhyme is almost indispensable, but since it can be unaccented need be neither over-obvious nor monotonous.  The integrity of the syllable must be ensured by the avoidance of all dubious elisions.  Stress-variations are more effective in fairly short lines, and more easily obtained from those with an odd syllable-count, since here there is a choice of two equally accessible stress-counts.  Full advantage should of course be taken of the release from stress-restrictions, with their often unavoidable distortions of the natural speech-rhythm.  Inversions should now be used only for meaningful emphasis.

With these main principles in mind, the writer replaces the usual regular stress-waves by such other currents and cross-currents, such expectations and disappointments, as may further his purpose.  He may, for instance, introduce the same irregularities into the corresponding lines of a lyric’s every stanza; or he may repeat, often with great effect, in the last line of a poem, some startling upheaval in the first; or, again, he may use a similar break in a previously established pattern to express some violent change of mood or thought.  These and many similar devices will with practice become the instinctively chosen instruments of the poet whose ear is attuned to their possibilities.

Without them, there will be no poem.

E. D.

**

Here are some comments on the essay:

“. . . a strict syllable-count, although of course essential, is, in my view, merely the lifeless shell of its more vital requirements.”

I understand this to mean that Daryush is pointing out that a method of poetic construction does not guarantee attractive, or profound, results.  There is a dialectical dance between the learned constructive elements and the unpredictable elements; both of them are combined in a poem.  This is true for all artistic, or craft, methods: they do not guarantee beauty, insight, or depth.

“ . . . in accentual verse, as in barred music, the fixed element is that of time, and the unfixed that of number (of syllables or notes) we can assess what part should be played by these factors in a truly syllabic system.  Here the position is reversed: the fixed element is no longer time but number; the integrity of line and syllable is challenged by the stress-demands of sense or syntax.”

This is insightful and a useful analog to music.  Daryush is suggesting that accentual verse resembles the regular meter of music.  In a song that is in 4-4 time, the number of notes in a bar of four beats will vary: one bar might contain four notes, the next six notes, the next ten notes, etc.  But each bar will contain four beats.

Similarly, in metrical verse, each line will contain the same number of beats, but the number of syllables can vary.  For example, a poem written with four beats per line might have eight syllables if each beat consists of an iamb, or a combination of iambs and trochees.  If, however, one of the beats contains an anapest, the line will have nine syllables.  If one of the beats is a strong, single-syllable word, the line will contain seven syllables.  Even though the syllable count may vary, the four beats remains constant, just like in a song written in 4-4 time.

Daryush points out that syllabic verse reverses what is constant in a line.  In syllabic verse the number of syllables is constant, or determined, but the number of beats in the line can vary.  Musically, this resembles a melody in which the meter changes.  For example, a melody might have two measures of 4-4 time, followed by a measure of 3-4 time, then conclude with a measure of 6-4 time.  However, each measure would have the same number of notes.  For example, each measure could have three notes as follows: the two measures of 4-4 time would be quarter note, quarter note, half note; the measure of 3-4 time would be three quarter notes; and the 6-4 measure would be three half notes. 

Music like this is not very common.  But a few composers have, and do use, this kind of procedure now and then; Stravinsky and Prokofiev are two examples.  I am not aware of popular songs that use this procedure, but there might be some.  Musically you do hear this kind of flow, sometimes, in improvisational passages, where the musician is left to riff on a theme.

It should be pointed out that this analysis by Daryush only applies to syllabic forms that have lines that all share the same count.  Her analysis would apply to my quatrain poems, the ones were the syllable count is the same for all four lines.  But her analysis does not apply as well to those syllabic forms where the line count varies.  In my reading of Daryush’s poetry, I have come across few poems with varied syllable count.  As far as I know she did not write any cinquain or syllabic haiku; both of these forms vary the syllable count and the application of Daryush’s perspective here is more complicated.

Take, for example, the cinquain; a five-line form with a syllable count of 2-4-6-8-2.  It would be possible to compose a syllabic cinquain in which the first three lines all had the same number of beats.  You could do this by varying the metrics: line 1 would have two strong single syllables (something like ‘Stop!  Look!’), line two could be two iambs, and line three could be two anapests.  In this way you would have a steady rhythm moving from line to line, but it would apply to a varying syllabic count.  This is a possibility that syllabic verse can nourish or account for, one that would not be available to a cinquain understood as a metrical form with a gradually ascending number of beats (1 beat, 2 beats, 3 beats, 4 beats, 1 beat).

I have seen examples in the haiku of Hackett and Wright where the three lines all share the same number of beats, three beats, but I don’t know if this is conscious or simply a result of intuitive skill.  But again, there are examples found in a syllabic form, where the line count varies, in which the beats remain constant but the syllable count changes.

In spite of these limitations, I find the analysis Daryush offers to be useful and insightful.  It directly applies to syllabic forms in which the count of syllables is the same for each line.  This would mean forms like some syllabic quatrain forms (but not the Englyn Unodl Union, one of my favorite quatrain forms from Wales) and the syllabic sonnet.  Her analysis also applies to sequences of any syllabic form; and here I think the analysis is worth pondering.

When I read a syllabic form I prefer reading a group of them, rather than a single example.  My experience has been that there is a rhythm generated by the count that begins to emerge when reading a sequence of cinquain, or tetractys, or syllabic haiku, or syllabic tanka.  It is a kind of pulse that is unique to each syllabic form.

Yet there is also variety to the pulse; it isn’t always a simple repetition.  And Daryush’s analysis explains why that variation occurs.  If you read a sequence of cinquain, the syllabic count will be the same as you read one after the other, but the number of beats will change as one moves from one cinquain to another.  What I mean is, if you take line 3 of a cinquain, you will always have six syllables in the line.  One cinquain might have three beats (say 3 iambs), and the next cinquain might have two beats (say 2 anapests), and other variations are possible.  Thus when reading a sequence of cinquain (or syllabic haiku, syllabic tanka, or etc.) there is a constant in the number of syllables, but variation in the number of beats as one moves from poem to poem in the sequence. 

The effect of this, to my mind, mimics certain natural experiences.  I am thinking of watching the flow of a river as one example, where certain pulses in the stream reappear but with intriguing variations.  A sequence of syllabic verse offers the listener this opportunity to experience a kind of contrapuntal effect, where variation is experienced above the constant of the syllabic count.  I think this is a pleasing aspect of short syllabic forms when they are spoken aloud to an audience in sequence.  I first experienced this by reading such sequences myself in collections such as the old ‘Amaze’ journal devoted to the cinquain.  I also found it one of the more pleasing features of the haiku of Wright and Hackett.  And, of course, syllabic tanka also has this effect.  It was syllabic tanka, in translation, that really opened up this aspect of syllabic verse to me.  I think that is one reason why the classic anthologies of Japanese tanka have proven so durable.

More to follow in Part 2.

Street Poet

Street Poet

A few weeks ago I was taking my lunch break.  I decided to walk over to Whole Foods to get something from their hot food bar.  Whole Foods is about three blocks from where I work.  As I was walking I spotted a young man standing in front of a store.  As I passed he asked me, “Do you like poetry?”  I responded, “I’m totally poetry.”  He said, “Would you like to hear one of my poems?”  “Sure,” I replied.  This sounded good.

He then asked me what topic I would like for my poem?  I hesitated, and he jumped in with a list: nature, work, politics, religion . . .  I said, “God.  I want a poem about God.  I’m a Quaker.”  I added the ‘Quaker’ bit to let him know where I’m coming from.  On the spot he recited:

the strongest force

i can think of is love

and I believe that it’s not

from a heaven above

it resides in each

& all of our hearts

i’m saying that god’s

not separate or apart.

mispelt god

is good within us all

add an ‘o’ to god

& deities fall

seein something beautiful’s

like lookin into a mirror

cause within you is a love

that’s radiantly pure

i once learned, now believe,

that evil has momentum

please embrace all you can

our good that i mention

you can help somebody out

create some righteous art

knowin god’s within

not distant or apart.

Tim Hale

Not bad, not bad at all. 

It turns out Tim is a street poet who has been on his own for some years now.  I’m not sure, but I think he’s in his 30’s.  He handed me a chapbook of his poems with the poem he recited in it.  And I gave him some money in return.

I love running into street poets, but it’s been a long time since I encountered one.  The last time I had a real encounter that included interaction, conversation, and some poems, was Julia Vinograd in Berkeley.  Love her work.  In some ways, Tim and Julia are cut from the same cloth.  Living on the fringes, unconnected with any poetry establishment, lacking MFA credentials or other tokens that get you published in the right journals or invitations to the right conferences.

Tim and Julia have very different styles.  Julia composes free verse, but with a deft touch to her lineation and a distinctive voice that is unmistakable.  Tim writes metrical verse; it appears to me from reading his chapbook that his poetry is strongly influenced by popular song; always a good sign. 

At another level, though, Tim and Julia are birds of a feather.  They both write from their encounters with life and express a point of view which is largely absent from more established poets. 

Here’s one more of Tim Hale’s poems:

The Kinship of Homeless

I slept between boats

Made money off poems

That summer in Seattle

I never was alone

I hung with the homeless

Took care of each other

I was closer to them

Than I am my own brother.

We dumpstered some steaks

Some forty-plus dollars

And fed them to dogs

Who roamed without collars

We gathered and shared

Meals every night

Round fires we’d rambled

‘till dawn brought us light.

There were dreamers and lovers

Addicts and thieves

We share with each other

Our deepest beliefs

About pain from the past

How life had been tainted

Or how life’s just a canvas

Waiting to be painted.

We talked of possibilities

That never really end

How the heart that’s broke the most

Would eventually mend

While some work for power

For gain and for gold

Our possessions were little

But rich was our soul.

Know moments our choices

‘tween love and ‘tween fear

If you open yourself

There’s family near

We weren’t each other’s siblings

Father or mother

Though all of us were family

In Seattle that summer.

I just went over to youtube and found a number of posts about Tim.  If you are interested you can take a look.

So there is poetry everywhere, and good poetry too. 

Rhymes with Pillow by Sandy Eastoak: A Review

Rhymes with Pillow by Sandy Eastoak

A Review

I attended a reading on Thursday, February 6^th.  It was one of the ongoing series of talks that the store I work at holds every Thursday.  This event was the premier reading for a new book by poet and artist, Sandy Eastoak.  The book is called Rhymes with Pillow and I think it will be of particular interest to readers of this blog.

Rhymes is a collection of poems all on the subject of Willow Trees.  That is to say that each poem has as its topic the Willow.  In addition, each poem is in a form, meaning that all but a few of the poems are formal verse.  And among those formal verse poems a significant number are in some type of syllabic form.

In other words, Rhymes is a tour de force of poetic form.  Among the forms are Sestina, Villanelle, Triolet, and Sonnet.  Among the syllabic forms you will find Cinquain, Etheree, Lanterne, Quinzaine, and Tetractys.  Eastoak’s Haiku are non-syllabic in construction.

The book sparkles.  The book also reveals how different forms, simply by the nature of the form, draw the poet into certain types of expression.  I have, at times, noted that some free verse poets are what I think of as ‘form deaf’.  I mean by this that they are unable to comprehend, or to perceive, that form itself is a conveyer of meaning.  During the reading Eastoak talked a little about her relationship to the formal structures and how the forms themselves lead her to certain understandings and observations about Willows.  She said that writing in a particular form was like putting a pipe in the ground and having pure spring water gush forth as a result.  I really liked that image.  And it is also what I have found with formal structures.  Looked at in this way, formal structures are not hindrances; rather formal structures are tools that allow us to access sources that nourish our creativity.  They are both tools that we can use and sources of wisdom that guide us in the craft of shaping words into significant forms.

The idea of writing in numerous forms all on the same topic is an excellent way to clarify the way that a formal structure will, in itself, open us up to certain kinds of understandings.  The beauty of the Willow is reflected upon from numerous formal perspectives in this collection and, as a teaching device, this collection has great merit.

The poems themselves are well-crafted, engaging, and have a wide range of emotional content.  The audience was clearly charmed by the poetry and the careful craftsmanship displayed in the numerous forms.  The book is an effective demonstration of the efficacy of poetic form.  It is also a treat to read; highly recommended.

Rhymes with Pillow

Sandy Eastoak

ISBN: 9781495227110

$20.00

Spring Morning Sun: A Review of the Haiku of Tom Tico

Spring Morning Sun: A Review of the Haiku of Tom Tico

Tom Tico has been writing Haiku since the 60’s.  His work appears in a number of anthologies, e.g. Cor van den Heuvel’s “The Haiku Anthology”, and Bruce Ross’s “Haiku Moment”, and the “San Francisco Haiku Anthology”.  He has also been widely published in various Haiku journals.

His only book that I am aware of is Spring Morning Sun, which was published in 1998.  I recently purchased a copy and found myself enjoying his Haiku and his view of the world he expresses through his Haiku.

One of the things that intrigues me about Haiku is that in spite of its brevity, the specific personality of the Haiku poet comes through.  Intellectually, one would think that with all the restrictions placed on the form, including its briefness, the season word, lineation requirements, etc., that the form would generate a kind of impersonal, almost abstract, type of poetry.  But that doesn’t happen.  Buson and Issa, to contrast some classic examples, have very different personalities and these personalities are evident in their Haiku.

Partly this is due to the life experiences of the poet.  These experiences shape our perceptions, what we tend to focus on.  Tom Tico’s life comes through in his Haiku.  He writes in the ‘Introduction’, “From 1985 through 1995 I spent over seven years in a state of homelessness, sleeping in a redwood forest in Golden Gate Park.”  This experience shapes his Haiku in significant ways.  For example:

At the soup kitchen,

a faded reproduction

of The Last Supper

This is one of my favorite of Tico’s Haiku.  I worked for a few years as a janitor for a homeless shelter.  I was not homeless myself, but because of my job I became acquainted with such a life; not in the abstract, but through personal contact.  This Haiku is deeply expressive in many dimensions of the situation the homeless often face.  The reference to the last supper has many echoes, including the injunction of Jesus that his disciples care for the poor.  The allusion to the famous painting is rewarding on many levels.

Allusion is present in a number of Tico’s Haiku.  Here is another example of a biblical allusion:

In the color and taste

of the pomegranate seeds:

the Old Testament

I found this intriguing; it might be referring to the antiquity of pomegranates, or it might be referring to a specific biblical passage, or simply that the author made this association.  I like the way the concrete taste is linked to the allusive context.

Tico’s approach is primarily syllabic, but not rigidly so.  That is to say Tico’s Haiku range widely in terms of their count while at the same time the center is the standard 5-7-5.  I take it that Tico feels free to deviate from the count if the Haiku demands it.  Interestingly, as many of his Haiku are long count as are short count.  This is a signal to me that Tico is not a minimalist. 

In terms of structure, again Tico seems comfortable with a variety of structural approaches.  But most of his Haiku are single sentence Haiku:

After the earthquake

the shaking continues

in my girlfriend’s voice

Notice the lineation here is clear in the sense that each line is a grammatical phrase.  The structure of the Haiku is a movement from a general, wide angle, observation to a specific; how his girlfriend is reacting.  It is, I think, a fine example of this kind of narrowing focus.

The seasonal element is used intermittently.  Here is a good example of a seasonal Haiku:

Beside the tenement

a box of broken glass

filled with autumn sun

Each line shifts the focus a little.  Line 1 is a general focus, then line 2 brings a specific object into sharp relief, the concluding line 3 moves to a broad seasonal context.  There is a unity among the elements; the tenement, the broken glass, and autumn all have an essential, underlying, similarity of tone.  This ties all the elements of the Haiku together, giving the variety an overall unity.  Notice how the ‘earthquake’ Haiku moved from the general to the specific, while his Haiku moves from the specific to the general.  Both are done elegantly.

A few of Tico’s Haiku engage in what I call ‘time shift’, which is my favorite type of Haiku.  Here’s an example:

The old carving tree . . .

a new pair of initials

and the first young leaves

I enjoyed the way Tico plays with the sense of time in this Haiku, weaving together the old and the new.  There is an expansive sense of time in this Haiku which I found satisfying.

Here is one I particularly liked:

Etched in the sidewalk,

the peace symbol encompasses

a few fallen leaves

A thoughtful contemplation on the relationship between human affairs and the seasons.

Many of Tico’s Haiku are personal.  For example:

In my sleeping bag

in a fetal position;

this cold autumn night

In Tico’s Haiku the world of nature and the human world, and how they intersect appears to be a major focus.  In classical Haiku esthetics from Japan, though, what counts as nature is carefully selected.  Haiku about homelessness, earthquakes,  plagues,  etc., are discouraged.  But how we view nature changes with our life circumstances.  For someone who is homeless autumn is primarily about getting cold and trying to cope with falling temperatures.  For someone who has their own home autumn is primarily about the brilliance of the autumn foliage.  Both views are true.  This is what Tico, through his life experience, understands and communicates elegantly to the reader:

After homelessness . . .

how different the rain looks

from a cozy room

**

Spring Morning Sun

Haiku by Tom Tico

ISBN: 9781575027111

Price varies; available as a used book from Amazon

Me and Marianne Moore

Me and Marianne Moore

A consciously syllabic approach to English language poetry means having an odd relationship to one’s contemporaries.  The resources for a syllabic approach are few.  Most overviews of English poetry that I have read give a brief nod to a syllabic approach, but then quickly move on to other matters.  Invariably in these brief discussions Marianne Moore is brought up as a significant poet whose approach was syllabic.

Oddly, Moore has had very little impact on me; I would say that the impact or influence has been non-existent.  And I have been a little puzzled about that.  This post explores my own feelings about the place Moore has in English syllabics.

I like Moore’s poetry; it’s humor, its objectivity, the way she will focus on the ordinary such as her poem on pigeons or the one on nectarines or ‘to a steamroller’.  But Moore never inspired me to actually write poetry syllabically.  And that has been my overall impression.  I mean that Moore’s poetry does not lead others to adopt a syllabic approach.

Why is that so?  My view is that although Moore often organized her poetry into syllabic stanzas, her poems nevertheless sound like free verse.  I mean that the sound of her poetry, that what a listener hears, is indistinguishable from the sound, the sonic contours, of free verse.  Critics have noted this.  In the Wikipedia article on Syllabic Verse the author notes:

Syllabic poetry can also take a stanzaic form, as in Marianne Moore's poem "No Swan So Fine", in which the corresponding lines of each stanza have the same number of syllables. This poem comprises 2 stanzas, each with lines of 7, 8, 6, 8, 8, 5, and 9 syllables respectively. The indented lines rhyme. As in accentual-syllabic verse, there is some flexibility in how one counts syllables. For example, syllables with y- or w-glides may count as one or two syllables depending on the poet's preference. Moore counts "Dahlias" (a y-glide) as 2 syllables, and "flowers" (a w-glide) as 1.

"No water so still as the
          dead fountains of Versailles." No swan,
with swart blind look askance
and gondoliering legs, so fine
          as the chintz china one with fawn-
brown eyes and toothed gold
collar on to show whose bird it was.

Lodged in the Louis Fifteenth
          Candelabrum-tree of cockscomb-
tinted buttons, dahlias,
sea urchins, and everlastings,
          it perches on the branching foam
of polished sculptured
flowers — at ease and tall. The king is dead.

Because these lines are longer, irregular, and frequently enjambed ("as the / dead fountains"), it is quite clear that the symmetry of syllables is not meant to be audible. Moore's use of end-rhyme is telling. Only 2 lines in each stanza are rhymed: these are emphasized for the reader by indentation, but hidden from the listener by radical enjambment ("fawn- / brown" and "coxcomb- / tinted").

(The full article can be found here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabic_verse )


I believe it is the very frequent use of enjambment, run-on lines, that undermines Moore’s syllabic project.  I mean that because the lineation is not audible, because it is only something observable on paper, and then only if the reader makes a conscious effort to count, the heard result is simply that we are hearing a free verse poem. 

I find it instructive that none of Moore’s stanzaic poems have generated a following.  I mean that other poets have not seen the syllabic stanzas as inspiring enough to formally copy and write their own poems in a similar shape.  Poets have not chosen to mimic Moore’s stanzas.  In contrast, Adelaide Crapsey’s Cinquain has been mimicked and copied and given rise to a lot of poetry; there is a sizable body now of Cinquain that follow the Crapsey pattern of 2-4-6-8-2 syllables. 

Crapsey’s Cinquain, in contrast with Moore’s syllabic stanzas, have clearer lineation.  Here are two examples:

Amaze

I know

Not these my hands

And yet I think there was

A woman like me once had hands

Like these.

November Night

Listen . .

With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees

And fall.

In both of these examples the lineation is clear; each phrase occupies a line.  I believe this is why Crapsey’s Cinquain has inspired others.  There is a match between the form on the paper and what the listener hears.  There are times when Crapsey used run-ons in some of her Cinquain; but the enjambment is not as radical as in Moore.  And these run-ons were often mitigated by rhyme and meter so that other factors than grammatical phrasing assisted the reader/listener in feeling the shape of the Cinquain.  In Moore’s poetry, that is usually not the case.

In other words, I do not feel that Moore’s poetry inspires others to compose syllabic poetry.  Moore’s example did not inspire me.  For me it was the poetry of Richard Wright that clearly revealed the potential for syllabic verse.  Like Crapsey’s Cinquain, Wright’s Haiku inspire others to compose using a similar approach.  Like Crapsey’s Cinquain, Wright’s Haiku uses lineation that is clear, where there is a match between grammatical phrasing and syllabic shape.  Enjambment is rare.

Because a syllabic approach to English language poetry is new, there is a paucity of examples for a syllabic poet to draw on.  I mean this in comparison to the two other great traditions of English language poetry.  The metrical poet can draw on the vast majority of English language poetry as a resource and teacher.  The free verse poet has many models to learn from.  The poet who chooses a syllabic approach has far fewer resources. 

For this reason, I think, the syllabic poet, writing in English, has to learn to apply poetic techniques learned from non-syllabic contexts to syllabic poetry.  I’ll give two examples from my own journey.  The first, which I have previously posted about, is Emily Dickinson.  Dickinson is a metrical poet; but I learned from Dickinson many important techniques that can be applied to syllabic poetry.  In particular, I learned how efficacious rhyming is for clarifying lineation and was able to apply that to my own syllabic approach.

From the free verse tradition, I have been strongly influenced by Jane Reichhold; a well-known Haiku and Tanka poet.  I learned from Reichhold ways of tersely shaping a line without the line becoming anorexic; clarity of lineation is one of Reichhold’s great strengths and she showed me, continues to show me, how clear lineation is done in a free verse context.  It was Reichhold’s influence which opened for me how to shape the very short lines which begin a significant number of syllabic forms.  I am referring here to lines shorter than four syllables which are found in the Cinquain, Lanterne, Tetractys, and Fibonacci.  Reichhold’s example was pivotal for my own approach to these very short lines.

Drawing on these two poets, neither of whom uses a syllabic approach to poetry, has given me tools for the shaping of specifically syllabic forms.  But, oddly, Moore’s poetry has not offered me such tools.  In some ways I find this disappointing.  On the other hand, I can appreciate Moore as a free verse poet who effectively used syllabic stanzas to organize her free verse.  It’s just that I haven’t found her approach nourishing to my own explorations.

A Luminous Presence

A Luminous Presence

I only discovered Edith Shiffert recently.  Since finding her I have enjoyed spending time with her poetry.  She writes in two styles.  The first is in free verse and it appears to me to be an approach to free verse that has much in common with Kenneth Rexroth.  Shiffert’s second approach to poetry is syllabic.  Her syllabic poetry is focused primarily on syllabic haiku; though there is also a single, and superb, example of a syllabic Hyakuin Renga (100 Verse Renga).  It is intriguing to me that when Shiffert decided to compose Haiku she adopted the traditional 5-7-5 syllabics rather than the free verse approach to lineation.  But perhaps this is not so surprising after all.  I have noticed that free verse poets who turn to Haiku tend to distinguish their Haiku from their other poetic efforts by adopting the traditional syllabic structure; think of Haydn Caruth as a good example. 

Here is one of Shiffert’s Haiku that I have come to really love:

I feel my spirit

glowing in a dark forest

like the last red leaves

(The Light Comes Slowly, by Edith Shiffert, page 92, the ‘December’ Chapter)

This is a richly textured Haiku using multiple layers of metaphor and simile.  The Haiku begins with an opening sentence: ‘I feel my spirit’, which could have a period at the end of it as it is a simple statement.  This is then followed in line 2 by the metaphor, ‘glowing in a dark forest’.  Line 2 is then followed by a simile, ‘like the last red leaves’.  Line 1 states the experience which is followed in Lines 2 and 3 by images that help the reader to comprehend what it means to ‘feel my spirit’.

This Haiku is completely an interior experience.  Its focus is inward.   When we talk about our interior lives, our emotions, our tendencies, and our spiritual experiences, we almost always rely on the tools of metaphor, simile, analogy, etc., to communicate to others those experiences.  This is because we are unable to point to the interior object in the way we can point to objects in nature or objects that are human made.  If someone doesn’t understand what I mean by ‘chair’ I can point to one to explain what I mean, or I can draw one.  But if someone doesn’t understand what I mean by ‘love’, I can’t point to my inner state.  Instead I have to illustrate this by making an analogy, metaphor, or tell a story which, hopefully will elicit the same interior reaction in the hearer and thereby bridge the gap that has appeared between us.  This strategy doesn’t always work, but no one has found a better one and it is the approach we naturally rely on.

I have found Buddhist psychology helpful in placing this kind of Haiku within the tradition of Haiku in general.  In traditional Buddhist psychology there are six senses: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind (small ‘m’ mind).  The idea here is that mind perceives interior objects in the same way that the eye perceives forms and colors, in the way that the ear hears sounds.  That is why we can say “I feel angry”, or “I am happy for you”; because we have the capacity to perceive mental states in the same way that we perceive rocks and clouds, in the same way that we hear birds and passing cars, in the same way that we smell incense and toast, etc.  (For those who may know a little about basic Buddhist categories of analysis, the six senses and their realms of experience fall under the aggregate (skandha/khanda) of ‘perception’, not under the category of ‘feeling’.  The feeling aggregate has to do with attraction, repulsion, or neither-attraction-nor-repulsion.)

In other words traditional Buddhist psychology lays a foundation for experiencing internal states on an equal footing with our experiences of the external world of forms, colors, sounds, and other sensations.  If this view is adopted, then interior states, as much as exterior objects, become material for Haiku.  In this way it is possible to incorporate into our Haiku our emotional responses and feelings in our encounters with nature because such interior states are part of the landscape, as much so as mountains and streams.

Shiffert’s Haiku takes a step farther into the interior of our lives.  This Haiku is entirely interior; there is no exterior occasion to which the Haiku refers.  In other words, this Haiku is not about our emotional responses to an exterior appearance; rather it is about the interior realm as such: It is an exploration of our interior lives.

Let’s look at this Haiku line by line.

Line 1 is ‘I feel my spirit’.  This announces the topic of the Haiku, the spirit.  Shiffert notes that she ‘feels’ her spirit, that is to say the presence of the spirit is known through feeling.  This makes the experience a heart-centered experience.   Recognizing the presence of spirit is a matter of feeling, not of analysis.  It is also a personal experience, hence the use of the first person pronoun ‘I’.  Yet this personalization of her experience makes it more accessible to all of us.  That is one of the paradoxes about the interior; that we most clearly communicate our interior experiences to others when we personalize them, rather than talking about them in terms of abstractions and generalities.  Imagine if Line 1 had read, ‘The presence of spirit’, or ‘One feels the spirit’, or ‘Know spirit by feeling’.  It is the first person pronoun which allows us to also enter into Shiffert’s experience and compare it to our own.

Notice how the absence of a pronoun in the first and third rewrites I offered is actually more oppressive; they take on the tone of an argument or an adopted position/view.  The second rewrite uses the abstract pronoun ‘One’; and again such usage makes Line 1 argumentative, like I am telling people how they should experience the presence of spirit.  It is the use of the first person pronoun which keeps this Haiku humble and because of that humility gives the overall Haiku a tone of discovery rather than argument.  And because the tone is one of discovery, the Haiku is an invitation for us to also enter into this interior realm.

Line 2, ‘glowing in a dark forest’ is a metaphor that explains to us what Shiffert means by feeling the presence of her spirit.  The presence of the spirit resembles something glowing in a dark forest.  I found this description just right.  When I turn to the interior at times, fairly often, what I perceive is a tangled darkness; very much like a dark forest.  Yet if I persist, over time, the presence of the spirit is felt.  How is it felt?  It resembles a glowing, interior light, understanding that light is also a metaphor.  This experience of the inner light is found in many traditions.  I suspect it is universal in the sense that it transcends culture; not in the sense that everyone has had this experience, but in the sense that everyone has access to the experience.  I am reading this Haiku through my own Quaker Faith and Practice where the experience of the inner light is foundational for the whole tradition.  I even brought this Haiku to the attention of my Meeting as I thought it so well depicted what many Quakers have described as their relationship to the inner light.

Line 3, ‘like the last red leaves’, is a simile that suggests to the reader what Shiffert understands by ‘glowing in a dark forest’.  The interior glow of the spirit resembles the experience we have of seeing the last read leaves of late autumn/early winter.  Line 3 gives this Haiku the traditional seasonal reference of Haiku.  I find it revealing that Shiffert places this Haiku in the ‘December’ Chapter (the collection of Haiku is structured with twelve chapters, one for each month of the year).  This further places the Haiku in a seasonal context.

I picture Line 3 as early December.  I am walking through the woods.  The leaves have all fallen.  I am walking on a winding path that goes around large bounders that are here and there on the forest floor.  I come around a boulder and there in a clearing stands a maple tree with red leaves; the last tree in the forest that still has its leaves.  The red leaves glow, their presence is beautiful. 

And this leads to another aspect of Line 3: the function of beauty.  Just as the last red leaves are beautiful and attractive, so also the glow of the spirit, the inner light, is attractive.  That is why, even though at times we feel like we are lost in a dark forest when we turn within, even so we persist in the interior quest.  We persist because the presence of the spirit is inherently attractive.

Without explicitly saying so, Shiffert is pointing to the intimate connection between beauty and the transcendent which is the presence of the spirit in the individual.  If we follow beauty to its source, which lies within, there we find the spirit glowing.

This is a masterfully constructed Haiku.  Each Line draws us deeper into the interior of our own lives, and offers us, in a sense, a roadmap to that experience of spirit which Shiffert opens with.  All the traditional elements of Haiku are present: the syllabic count, the seasonal reference, the clarity of lineation.  At the same time, this Haiku is fresh and new in its subject matter.

This is a Haiku to savor and contemplate.