How to scan a line (3.15.21)

Why should we be talking about scansion in March, 2021, in America?  That's something you might do with a line of poetry written by Catullus or Bocaccio, Ariosto or Shakespeare, and, closer to our time, poets like A. E. Housman, even W. B. Yeats.

But after Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg, after Adrienne Rich and Jorie Graham, why in this century and this nation would we even have an "ear" for meter?

The fact is, we no longer have the ear for formal meter, unless it's the stuff of our childhoods, the nursery rhymes read to us sing-song by our mothers and fathers.  I have books on my shelf devoting chapters to the subject of accentual-syllabic verse and how to scan a line of poetry written in that format.  They drill into stresses and variations and "substitutions," deploying the most technical terms for the simplest of poetic activities, that is, creating a beat.  Well, maybe not the simplest.  Because creating rhythm in a poem, a well-crafted poem that captures or recreates voice, tone and mood toward a particular end, is fraught with choice, trial and error.  

Sometimes--my observation is, most of the time--when we at Wednesdays@One write, we do it by "feel." We almost never stop to count our syllables and stresses in a line.  We don't consciously insert a spondee or an anapest into a flow of iambs in such a way that a reader can later on map the progress of the line.  We don't "read music" in that way; rather, we "play by ear."

And when we play by ear, what are we really doing?  Listening to our hearts beat?  Maybe, though that sounds a little bit melodramatic, doesn't it?  Hearing our breaths, as Dr. Williams argued?  THAT sounds a little too clinical to me!  No, the "ear" we play by, feeling our way through a line, listens to the way our family talked around the supper table when we were very young; to the pitch and rhythm, the cadence and space of chatter among our friends as we grew older and mastered the language we were given by our parents and our teachers; to the drawls, clips, dipthongs, slurs, staccatos, nasals, gutturals, wheezes, airinesses, marbles, and barks and whines and whistles and chirps and, even, mispronunciations we have heard in every conversation every day of our lives in every context, from breakfast chatter to school bus chant and office drone and sideline song, and yes, hymn, pop song, nursery rhyme, greeting card, and poetry reading, to the snoring of the one we love lying next to us in bed.

I want to argue that this is how we write and read a line of poetry in March, 2021, in America.  So try reading this . . .

It's funny how money change a situation
Miscommunication leads to complication
My emancipation don't fit your equation
I was on the humble, you - on every station
Some wan' play young Lauryn like she dumb
But remember not a game new under the sun
Everything you did has already been done
I know all the tricks from Bricks to Kingston
My ting done made your kingdom wan' run
Now understand L. Boogie's non violent
But if a thing test me, run for mi gun
Can't take a threat to mi newborn son
L's been this way since creation
A groupie call, you fall from temptation
Now you wanna ball over separation
Tarnish my image in your conversation
Who you gon' scrimmage, like you the champion
You might win some but you just lost one

You might win some but you just lost one
You might win some but you just lost one
You might win some but you just lost one
You might win some but you just lost one

Now, now how come your talk turn cold
Gained the whole world for the price of your soul
Tryin' to grab hold of what you can't control
Now you're all floss, what a sight to behold
Wisdom is better than silver and gold
I was hopeless now I'm on Hope road
Every man want to act like he's exempt
When him need to get down on his knees and repent
Can't slick talk on the day of judgement
Your movement's similar to a serpent
Tried to play straight, how your whole style bent?
Consequence is no coincidence
Hypocrites always want to play innocent
Always want to take it to the full out extent
Always want to make it seem like good intent
Never want to face it when it's time for punishment
I know that you don't wanna hear my opinion
But there come many paths and you must choose one
And if you don't change then the rain soon come

See you might win some but you just lost one

--Lauryn Hill, "Lost One"

So . . . if you're like me (past middle age, male, white, Midwestern, English Major), I dare you to try to scan this.