To my friends at Wednesdays@One: this week's project is to write poems that have refrains in them. The point of this project is to get you thinking about the refrain as a poetic and rhetorical device, how it works in a poem, its thematic, syntactical and grammatical relationship to other parts of a poem, and the rhythmic and musical effects it creates. But first the guidelines for the project:
Write a poem that uses a refrain. A poem, I say, and not a song lyric. Aim for a refrain that contributes to the poem in a specific way:
- That emphasizes a theme, by reinforcing it or by undermining or questioning it, for example, something like a point-counterpoint structure
- That creates a lyrical movement in the poem, for example, by providing a recurring sound, accent (stressed or unstressed)
- That establishes an image, visual or aural, to which the poem returns periodically
What do I mean when I say a poem and not a song lyric? Well, that's part of the project, to figure out the difference. All I can do here is to suggest differences that you can be on the lookout for. Here are some lyrics with refrains that work in different ways:
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
-----
Got a new pair of shoes today
Down at the shelter
I got a brand new pair of shoes today
Down at the shelter
Thank that man who left those shoes today
Down at the shelter
Black shoes, black shoes all scuffed and gray
Down at the shelter
With the soles worn through and the laces frayed
Down at the shelter
Find that man and thank him anyway
Down at the shelter
Lace up those shoes and make my getaway
Down at the shelter
Tie a knot in those shoes, brother, we can't stay
Down at the shelter
Leave like that man who left those shoes today
Down at the shelter
The first is the famous sonnet by Keats, "When I Have Fears." It uses what you might call a poetic refrain, a syntactical and thematic pattern that recurs at regular intervals: When I have . . ., When I behold . . ., And when I feel . . . Then . . . This kind of refrain is rhetorical as much as it is poetic, for it creates the outline of a piece of logic supporting an argument in an if-then structure. The force of the "then" part depends on the repetition of the "when" part three times over. In Keats' poem, the refrain functions as a means of postponing the outcome, the poem's main message, until the proper conditions for receiving the message have been created.
Not the kind of refrain you expected? Then look closely at the second lyric, which is in fact a bluesy song lyric. The refrain is exact and frequent. You might say it functions like a drum beat. And you'd be right. Because it's main function in the song is to sustain a rhythm. But the fact that it is made from a phrase (as opposed to a hum or a la-la-la), makes it more than a rhythmical element. It also creates meaning. And it isn't just "frequent," either. This refrain is repetitive. It comes at the same point--alternating with the lines of the verse--without variation all the way through to the end of the song. It is so rigidly the same and repetitive that it creates almost a separate space in the lyric, one that's carved out for its particular pacing, rhythm, syntax, and set of stressed/unstressed syllables. Again, it's a drum beat.
Prayers of Steel
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together.
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders.
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue nights into white stars.
This poem is by Carl Sandburg. It's meant to be "an American poem" in its references to steel, girders, skyscraper, hammers, crowbars - - that is, a poem of work and working people. As the title says, it's a prayer, and in its prayerness it works by repetition of words and sounds that create an incantatory rhythm. In this poem, as in the Keats poem above, the refrain-like quality happens at the front of each line: Lay-Beat-Let, Lay-Beat-Drive-Take-Let. You'll note plenty of sonic harmony in this poem, though no rhyming. There is alliteration, falling rhythm, repeated words, but no obvious end-rhyme.
Domination of Black
At night, by the fire,
The colors of the bushes
And of the fallen leaves,
Repeating themselves,
Turned in the room,
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks
Came striding.
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.
The colors of their tails
Were like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
In the twilight wind.
They swept over the room,
Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks
Down to the ground.
I heard them cry--the peacocks.
Was it a cry against the twilight
Or against the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
Turning as the flames
Turned in the fire,
Turning as the tails of the peacocks
Turned in the loud fire,
Loud as the hemlocks
Full of the cry of the peacocks?
Or was it a cry against the hemlocks?
Out of the window
I saw how the planets gathered
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
I saw how the night came,
Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks
I felt afraid.
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.
You can see for yourself all the repetitions of this poem. They create a refrain-like pulse from line to line and stanza to stanza that rings in your ear, no matter whether you read it out loud or in silence (though I recommend trying it out loud!). Wallace Stevens was known as a poet of colors. Turn to almost any poem in his collected works and you'll find color to spare. In this poem, the word itself plays a refrain-like role: repetition of the color of leaves, peacocks, hemlock, fire, bush. It's also busy with sound: cries loud and sweeping. The effect is totally lyrical, incantatory even. And rhyme? There is lots of it in this poem, just not so much at the end of a line. The rhyming quality of this poem might best be described as swirling. Its refrain-like language creates an effect as you read--you start to anticipate where the poem is going, at least sonically. So much of Stevens' poetry is about the effect it has as you read. It's a poetry of the moment in all its immediacy.
Let's look at another kind of refrain, for comparison.
Eldorado
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old--
This knight so bold--
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow--
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be--
This land of Eldorado?"
"Over the mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shadow replied,--
"If you seek for Eldorado!"
You'll probably recognize this one as an Edgar Allen Poe poem. And you can see again the lines, phrases and words serving as refrains. What makes this one different is that it's a narrative poem (i.e., tells a story), so the recurring images and phrases tend to relate differently to different parts of the story as it unfolds. Each stanza ends like any poem with a traditional refrain, but in this case the refrain serves to move the action of the poem forward. Tennyson did the same thing with his famous poem, "The Lady of Shallot." The old Scots song, "Barbara Allen," does much the same thing. Poe does something else here that reinforces the refrain structure: he indents the first, second, fourth and fifth lines of each stanza, without variation. This creates a visual refrain.
So, to sum up. Although I am interpreting "refrain" broadly here as anything that repeats, I think you can see how closely repeated phrases, words, lines and so on can create a rhythm in a poem, as well as opportunities to make and develop meaning. I hope you see that poems with refrains don't have to rhyme, necessarily, but they SHOULD create expectation, just as the refrain of a popular song signals a return to some familiar sonic place.
As you write your poem, try to "foresee" the expectations you're creating in your reader's mind, where the reader starts to anticipate where the poem is going and where it's going to end up. Use that anticipation either to satisfy, please, surprise, arrest or otherwise exercise some effect on your reader. You want your reader to feel the beat, yes, but you also want your reader to derive some meaning and feeling from the experience.
