Artifact and representation in poems (1.31.20)

My friends at Wednesdays@One know that a poem, to me, is an artifact first and last, with language as its medium.  But poetry is made of words strung together into more or less coherent thoughts and those words have definitions, connotations, shared usages . . . in other words, meanings.  And when fashioned into grammar, poems are representational in the way that much painting and sculpture are representational.

What we write daily as poets is so thoroughly rooted in a representational view--anchored in what we think of as the "real" and the physical--that we hardly notice what we're up to.  Which is that we make verbal artifacts--art, in other words.

We only come to sense this art production characteristic when we write/read something offbeat or non-grammatical or indeed nonsensical.  Or out of "our ordinary."  That's when the artifactual nature of poetry becomes more or less evident to us and the words float to the very surface of our reading consciousness, freed of their references and referents.  And when we begin to experience the poem.  Example:

To employ her

construction ball

Morning fed on the

light blue wood

of the mouth

                      cannot understand

feels deeply)

This is the opening stanza (or should we call it a paragraph?) of John Ashbery's famously opaque poem, "Europe" (The Tennis Court Oath, 1957).  It introduces one of those poems that put a stake into the ground of Western poetry, marking a departure from the High Modernism of W.H. Auden with its rhetorical rigor and declamatory voice.  The first five lines make a statement that is grammatically coherent, at least, though hardly accessible to your logical mind.  In what way does morning "employ" a "construction ball"?  And shouldn't that reference be "wrecking ball"?  And since when does morning have gender?  And how or what does morning "feed on"?  If it is the "light blue wood of the mouth," well then, what is that?  As the sixth line acknowledges, I cannot understand.  I am not meant to for, along with the seventh line, I am supposed to feel deeply inside this opening set of images, creatively chaotic as they may be.  Morning doesn't wreck things, it builds them with light, renewed activity, the pleasures of starting out anew.  So, morning in Europe, beginning again.  

Here is where these first lines of Ashbery's poem always deliver me, correctly or not: it is morning, I am eating my breakfast and watching the world come alive outside my kitchen window; she, whoever she has ever been to me, sits across the table from me; the table is made of wood painted a light blue; the colors are so "there" that I taste them in my mouth.  This is not an "understanding" but a "feeling."  Who knows what these lines "really" refer to, in Ashbery's experience or even in my own?  They are more about what is evoked in each reading (yours, mine, mine ten years ago compared to mine just now) than what can be historically excavated from their mine of imagery.

Another more recent example:

For William

March and obsessing 

the starch of middays walk

Fetal bone length

rummaging for teeth

To shed the conversation

that draws texas

Mothering the flux

the bend of anywhere's miscarriage

With thought of third drink

and a late december under my hip

I wanted you

latitude bellied against smooth

Intent over seamed

crease to mouth

A little sam

in the itch of it all

And I in a september dress

staining the reel

This lyric by Stefani Iryne appeared in New American Writing, Vol. 20 (2002).  It fulfills certain conventions (i.e., expectations) for poems, such as the couplet form, a "positioning" title, lineation, movement toward a finality of sorts.  It deploys figurative language (metaphors, appositive constructions, colloquialisms), sustains a middle-to-high register of voice.  It is "about" something: William or the speaker's relationship to William.  It is "occasional," that is, "for" William.  

But the poem blocks my conventional reading not just from couplet to couplet, but line to line and, in most cases, phrase to phrase.  Iryne fits together or juxtaposes grammatical elements that either make little or no grammatical sense to me or that convention doesn't prepare me for.  The poem proceeds but hardly flows down its own ladder of language.  Every rung is a different shape, size, width, stiffness, surface, yet different in the same way: every couplet is declarative, positive.  When I read this poem, I am intensely aware that I am reading a poem, that is, an artifact of language, even while it gestures toward the conventionally representational: a lyric for William from "me," the speaker.

I come away from this poem not knowing William or the speaker, at least not autobiographically and historically.  Not even knowing the "real" nature of their relationship (married, friends, mentor-mentee?).  Knowledge of these "facts" is beside the point, which is the experience of the richness of the utterance itself, its ringing in my imagination, its openness.  I read this poem as an evocative artifact.

Yet convention plays a role in this sensing of a poem's artifactual nature.  Walt Whitman's poems shocked his first audiences with their long, muscular lines, lack of strict meter, directness of voice, overabundance of alliteration and so on.  But today we wouldn't classify Whitman's poetry as ungrammatical or meaningless or, finally, unpoetic.  His poems marked a departure, some say radical, from the poetic conventions of the day, and thus seemed non-representational (non-poetic) to many of Whitman's first readers.

Above in this essay, I described "Europa" as a famously opaque poem.  That's how some reviewers and critics described it at first, and how someone steeped in the representational tradition in art, poetry included, might see this great poem.  One critic, I recall, even faulted the poem as mere "word-splash."  (I recounted this critique to the critic Helen Vendler, who was aware of it and who told me that Ashbery was a bit stung by the assessment.)  But "opaque" isn't the best way to describe this poem, with its implied opposite "transparent," as if we are to see through a poem's parts--its words, syntax, line beginnings and endings, diction/word choices, rhythms, figures, voicings--to its real subject, as if it were an elegantly or curiously written expository essay.  

What Ashbery did to change the direction of American poetry, and what poets like Stefani Iryne continue today, is to make the poem first about itself.  And this makes the reading of a poem an aesthetic rather than a rhetorical experience.  Reading a poem like this, you will not be invited to learn something about the poet's history or even the world through which the poet navigates--the represented world.  You are invited into the world of the poem itself, in all its sensual and intellectual immediacy.

As we at W@1 forge ahead into a new year of writing and reading poems, I hope we can all keep this artifactual notion of what we're about firm in our imaginations.

Diction anyone? (1.15.20)

Word choice is something we deal with every week at Wednesdays@One, but we've never actually dedicated a week's discussion to the choices we make and how we might improve what we do in this part of our poetry lives.

To begin at the beginning, Aristotle declared that diction is "fourth among the elements" of tragedy.  (The order is plot, character, thought, diction, song and, lastly, spectacle.)

For us in the 21st Century, in our small coterie of W@1, and as writers of expressive, usually lyric poetry, diction seems more urgent than "fourth among the elements," doesn't it?

Aristotle addresses this topic in the Poetics, parts XIX through XXII, the last part dealing with diction as a determining element of style.  In part XXI, Aristotle discusses words specifically--their uses, forms, parts, powers, limitations . . .

Words are of two kinds, simple and double. By simple I mean those composed of nonsignificant elements, such as ge, 'earth.' By double or compound, those composed either of a significant and nonsignificant element (though within the whole word no element is significant), or of elements that are both significant. A word may likewise be triple, quadruple, or multiple in form, like so many Massilian expressions, e.g., 'Hermo-caico-xanthus [who prayed to Father Zeus].'

Every word is either current, or strange, or metaphorical, or ornamental, or newly-coined, or lengthened, or contracted, or altered.

By a current or proper word I mean one which is in general use among a people; by a strange word, one which is in use in another country. Plainly, therefore, the same word may be at once strange and current, but not in relation to the same people. The word sigynon, 'lance,' is to the Cyprians a current term but to us a strange one.

Metaphor is the application of an alien name by transference either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy, that is, proportion. Thus from genus to species, as: 'There lies my ship'; for lying at anchor is a species of lying. From species to genus, as: 'Verily ten thousand noble deeds hath Odysseus wrought'; for ten thousand is a species of large number, and is here used for a large number generally. From species to species, as: 'With blade of bronze drew away the life,' and 'Cleft the water with the vessel of unyielding bronze.' Here arusai, 'to draw away' is used for tamein, 'to cleave,' and tamein, again for arusai- each being a species of taking away. Analogy or proportion is when the second term is to the first as the fourth to the third. We may then use the fourth for the second, or the second for the fourth. Sometimes too we qualify the metaphor by adding the term to which the proper word is relative. Thus the cup is to Dionysus as the shield to Ares. The cup may, therefore, be called 'the shield of Dionysus,' and the shield 'the cup of Ares.' Or, again, as old age is to life, so is evening to day. Evening may therefore be called, 'the old age of the day,' and old age, 'the evening of life,' or, in the phrase of Empedocles, 'life's setting sun.' For some of the terms of the proportion there is at times no word in existence; still the metaphor may be used. For instance, to scatter seed is called sowing: but the action of the sun in scattering his rays is nameless. Still this process bears to the sun the same relation as sowing to the seed. Hence the expression of the poet 'sowing the god-created light.' There is another way in which this kind of metaphor may be employed. We may apply an alien term, and then deny of that term one of its proper attributes; as if we were to call the shield, not 'the cup of Ares,' but 'the wineless cup'. 

The big paragraph on metaphor and related figures of speech is worth rereading because it touches on all those operations that we perform on a text of poetry either consciously or subconsciously, either from our experience as readers of poems or from our more general experience with the language in our everyday lives.  That is to say, metaphor is the stuff of poetry, and we use figures of speech in almost every utterance, even when we're just having a conversation with someone.

Aristotle describes words as "newly coined," "local," "ordinary" and "altered."  How often have you experienced one or more of these conditions when feeling your way through an image or a line of poetry?  How frequently do you feel you have to choose between the local and the latinate term for something, or the word that might drive your reader to the dictionary and the more accessible word?  Aristotle defines this process as "style" in part XXII of Poetics.

"The perfection of style is to be clear without being mean.  The clearest style is that which uses only current or proper words; at the same time it is mean . . ." says Aristotle.

By "mean" he means, more or less, accessible--as in, normative.  Think Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, and much that is published in our local, middling poetry journals today.  I would describe this style as "see-through."  You are intended to see through the diction, the words, to the meanings they point to, or to those that their authors would like you to see without his or her language getting in the way.  Obviously, Aristotle does not (fully) equate clarity with "perfection of style."

That diction, on the other hand, is lofty and raised above the commonplace which employs unusual words. By unusual, I mean strange (or rare) words, metaphorical, lengthened- anything, in short, that differs from the normal idiom. Yet a style wholly composed of such words is either a riddle or a jargon; a riddle, if it consists of metaphors; a jargon, if it consists of strange (or rare) words. For the essence of a riddle is to express true facts under impossible combinations. Now this cannot be done by any arrangement of ordinary words, but by the use of metaphor it can. Such is the riddle: 'A man I saw who on another man had glued the bronze by aid of fire,' and others of the same kind. A diction that is made up of strange (or rare) terms is a jargon. A certain infusion, therefore, of these elements is necessary to style; for the strange (or rare) word, the metaphorical, the ornamental, and the other kinds above mentioned, will raise it above the commonplace and mean, while the use of proper words will make it perspicuous. But nothing contributes more to produce a cleanness of diction that is remote from commonness than the lengthening, contraction, and alteration of words. For by deviating in exceptional cases from the normal idiom, the language will gain distinction; while, at the same time, the partial conformity with usage will give perspicuity. The critics, therefore, are in error who censure these licenses of speech, and hold the author up to ridicule.

So just as obviously, Aristotle does not equate loftiness of language with "perfection of style."  Poems are neither mini-expostitory essays nor riddles, not in their intrinsic "poem-ness," at least.  He seeks that middle ground or golden mean that Roman writers would later pick up on, style that steers between the maelstrom of see-through diction and the rocks of the obscure.  With his references to "perspicuity" and "distinction," Aristotle seems to be saying a poem gives you a lens upon the world that you will also hold in your hands and admire its design and engineering.

"Cleanness of diction that is remote from commonness"--who could describe better what we at W@1 aim for in our own writing?

But how do we accomplish this clean but distinct style in our choices of words?  That is for each of us to decide (to wrestle, to force or acquiesce to) as we work our way through the writing of a poem, with all of its decision points, stops, starts, false beginnings, revisions, leaps of faith, discoveries, and defeats.  Sharing our efforts with others, such as we do at W@1 each week, can clue us in to where we might want to think further about things like word choice, arrangement of words, phrasing, line breaks, borrowings, coinings, etc.  For in writing a poem, like in no other literary activity, we are working with words as the material of our art.  Here are some tools I'm sure you use regularly, but might not think about too often:

Rhyme
Concrete words (as opposed to abstract)
Nouns and action verbs
Alliteration
Metonymy and synecdoche
Meter and rhythm (or meter vs rhythm, "breath")
Juxtaposition and disjointedness
Number (related to meter, breath, e.g. counting beats or syllables)
Caesura
Metaphor and simile
Cliche/colloquialism
Hyperbole and other forms of exaggeration (e.g. understatement)
Epithet, oath, expletive

And then there are other aspects of word choice that you can (and often already do) deploy in a poem:

Strangeness/unfamiliar words or usages
Archaisms
Borrowings (e.g. from other languages, disciplines, vocabularies, subcultures)
Vernacular vs Latinate
Local expressions
New coinings (often understood as slang or jargon)
Old usages (often archaic or out-of-style words or "poeticisms")
Coded words vs "transactional"

Finally, "cleanness" and "distinctiveness" may not be what you're after when writing a poem.  You may prefer a more hermetic style, or a pedantic, or a clotted style, or something more rock 'n roll, or ballad-like or cutesy or even expository--all style decisions with implications for word choice and, I must add, audiences.  The point Aristotle makes is that the decision is yours and should be made as consciously as possible, or at least strategically (I mean to write like Homer; I intend to write like a beat poet; I plan to make my reader tear up; I want my reader to feel what I feel or to understand how I feel).  What we can do at W@1 is to expose you to the variety of styles available to you as a writer of poems, help you recognize what style you're working in, and give you some sense of how well you execute.

New decade, old poet (1.6.20)

Well!  Wednesdays@One is on to the third decade of the century!

I've been reading an essay in the Times Magazine for this week (1.5.20) about "The Irishman," but more generally about how older people--Baby Boomers--retain a stranglehold on all things American: culture, art, politics, governance.  The author drily points out that our president is over 70, as are the leaders of the Senate and the House, not to mention the top three Democratic candidates for president.  "The Irishman," and this is the point of the essay in the Times Magazine, was made by a writer-director in his late 70s and stars a cohort of aging--make that old--actors: Al Pacino (79), Robert DeNiro (76), Joe Pesci (76), Harvey Keitel (80) . . . and on.

That's a lot of old folks!

One place I don't feel that my (our) generation has a stranglehold any longer is in poetry.  What makes me say this?  The best books of poems that I read today, the most complex and artistic poems, don't appear to be coming from people born around or before 1950.  No, the really innovative work that I see is coming mostly from Gen-Xers and Millennials, and lately, kids born after Y2K (to use an already antiquated acronym!).

And I must say this: I find their poems, so many of them, unreadable!

A little clarity needed.  By "unreadable," at least among the best of these poems, I mean not readily accessible to the easy scan; not merely expository writing done up in lines and rhymes; and decidedly not pop music.  By "unreadable," I mean poetry that is verbally dense and opaque, where language crowds the surface of the text and refuses to let me "see through" it to a "meaning," at least not without getting over the hurdle of words first.  By "unreadable," I mean poetry that invites (forces?) me to stop "reading" and start listening; start noting artistic decisions that have been made from phrase to phrase and line to line and image to image; start feeling the emotive quality of pauses and leaps, jump-cuts and sly codas, or their opposites: unexpected linguistic disjunctions.

The best of these poems can't be read as expository essays with wide margins.  Or as memoirs in clipped form.  They are verbal artifacts in which the writers take risks (inaccessibility, "difficulty," meaninglessness) that people of my generation stopped taking nearly a generation ago.

The best of the poets writing these poems aren't trying to give a lecture or even share an insight.  At least, this isn't their first impulse.  They are working the material (language) into fresh artifacts of sound and sense, where the "sense" might be something like this: "That line you just read that made you scratch your head?  It means 'don't get too comfortable with what you think this thing means!'"

We at W@1 rarely write this way.  We aren't trained to anymore, if we ever were, and we don't have the intellectual stamina any longer to learn how to break rules (and get by with it.  On this last note, I think we try to break artistic rules sometimes, but most of the time we fail miserably; we're just too far along with our lives to live as rule breakers anymore.)  We write about memory, stuff we've seen and done, places we've been, people we've known . . . roundups and summations about, about, about.  Our poems appear, by comparison to the really innovative work of the younger generations, gabby and kind of pathetic, not really poems at all, but little "heartfelt expressions."

By "pathetic" I don't mean the pejorative "to be pitied," but rather, feeling-forward.  We wear our lives and our years on our sleeves.  We are generally less concerned with making pieces of art, more with writing over and over again versions of "Those Were the Days, My Friend."  Even the poems we write about this morning's walk with the dog or tending the garden or how the sun illumines a leaf outside our window have that "those were the days" feeling to them.

And that's okay!  Innovation is for youngsters.  It's hard to do and it often fails.  We Boomers have run out of time for failure.  Memory and "gathering up" are for us oldsters.  It's not always easy, but it's safe.

So what's all this got to do with the title I've given to this first blog of the year?  I'm looking forward to 2030 tonight, not back to 2010.  That's a good thing.  I've got projects in mind, and some are even in gear.  But they are old poet projects--summings and gatherings--and I feel time running out.  My youth is gone.  LONG LIVE MY YOUTH!