Poem 2: Dickinson
We have just completed Wednesday's class. See the discussion in the comments section:
TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The next assignment due is this Friday; have a draft ready for your peer-critiquing partner at 1 pm. For the ekphrastic poem choice, I am reducing the required length to 14 lines, not 18. For the Dickinson quatrain poem, I am reducing the required length to 3 quatrains, not 4. Longer is not always better.
If enough students want to have a place to talk online without my presence, please let me know, and I will collaborate with several students to arrange it within the next week.
I've divided Poem 2 into 2 posts because there were so many wonderful comments in the Ekphrastic part!
TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The next assignment due is this Friday; have a draft ready for your peer-critiquing partner at 1 pm. For the ekphrastic poem choice, I am reducing the required length to 14 lines, not 18. For the Dickinson quatrain poem, I am reducing the required length to 3 quatrains, not 4. Longer is not always better.
If enough students want to have a place to talk online without my presence, please let me know, and I will collaborate with several students to arrange it within the next week.
I've divided Poem 2 into 2 posts because there were so many wonderful comments in the Ekphrastic part!
If you're looking at this and haven't sent me the REVISION of poem 1 in the body of an email, along with the original, please do so ASAP (i.e. by tonight or tomorrow).
As you know, you have a choice for Poem 2 between this poetic exercise of using Dickinson’s meter and rhyme in a 4 or 5 quatrain poem OR doing an ekphrastic poem. HOWEVER, only do the Dickinson style poem if you are ready to follow the format EXACTLY, because if you do not follow it, you will lose grade-points. So let’s make sure you understand precisely what to do.
Dickinson was influenced by the meter and stanza pattern of the Protestant hymns she sang in her youth in church (before she stopped attending).
Let’s review iambic meter. An iamb has an unstressed syllable and a stressed syllable. To create a little variety and avoid monotony, a good poet using iambic meter might sometimes substitute another pattern for an iamb, but not frequently, and not more than once in a line.
Dickinson’s Poem 214 has 4 quatrains (4 line stanzas) consisting of alternating meters:
iambic tetrameter (8 syllables: 4 (“tetra”) units (iambs)
I taste a li quor ne ver brewed
The stronger syllables in this first line of the poem are: taste li ne brewed.
iambic trimeter (6 syllables: 3 (“tetra”) units (iambs)
From tan kards scooped in Pearl
The stronger syllables in this second line of the poem are: tan scooped Pearl
To create a little variety and avoid monotony, a good poet using iambic meter might sometimes substitute another pattern for an iamb, but not frequently, and not more than once in a line. Dickinson does this in line 7 (2ndquatrain):
Reeling—through endless summer days—
“Reeling” is the substitution: Reel is the strong syllable and ing is the weak one.
The last 3 iambs of this tetrameter line are perfect iambs, with the stressed syllables being:
End sum days.
The first and third lines of each quatrain do not rhyme, but the second and fourth do—as rime croisee (crossed rhymes—rhymes with one interval):
brewed
Pearl
Rhine
Alcohol
Obviously, brewed and Rhine do not rhyme. You might not consider Pearl and Alcohol to be a rhyme, but Dickinson and, a little later, William Butler Yeats, were famous for the innovation of slant rhyme—something that isn’t a perfect sameness of sound but is very close.
Trope is the word for any kind of phrase that is NOT literal. Metaphor and simile, which we’ve already discussed and you’ve already used in poem 1, are the most famous tropes, but there are many others. Another one you know and must have used either in speech or writing is:
Irony: in which the meaning to be received is directly opposite from the literal meaning.
The last quatrain of Louise Bennett’s “No Lickle Twang” has irony, but it’s rather complex; though some of us may have difficulty understanding the Jamaican dialect, the fakeness of “poo” in order to fool the addressee’s father is not really what the speaker wants the addressee to do; she is being sarcastic about his lack of “accomplishments” after going to the U.S. (“Merica”).
In Dickinson’s poem 214, I see irony, though not everyone will agree: when she uses tropes of drunkenness and alcohol, she means the opposite of being “wasted”; she is signifying a deep attentiveness to nature.
But let’s use a much simpler example from real life. If someone accidentally steps on your foot, you might say: “Gee, thanks.” You aren’t really being thankful, are you?
Here are 2 that you might not be aware of but are frequently used:
Metonymy is a trope in which an element or idea closely related to another stands in placeof the other.
In Clifton’s poem, the speaker utters the phrase: “to wear dark skin.” One wears clothing over skin. Clothing is something associated with (related to) a self that some people use to perceive and judge that person: clothing is used as a metonymy for the self of the whole person. For racists, “dark skin” is a metonymy for the self of the whole person of color.
Synecdoche: A trope in which a reference to a part stands for the whole.
I don’t see examples in the poems we’ve read so far, but there are various examples in Timothy Liu’s “Hard Evidence,” which I will discuss in a Video soon.
There are extremely common examples of synecdoche that are too impolite to say directly on this blog, so I will circumlocute: when a person does not like another individual of a particular gender, s/he will call that individual by a slang name for the private region possessed by those of their gender. The reference to this private region is supposed to stand in place of the entire person.
How would you go about creating slant rhymes? I've heard them used in rap songs by pronouncing the words similarly, i.e faucet made to rhyme with Boston (Bahston). But how do slant rhymes translate when you can't hear them like in Dickinson's poem? -Erika Perez
ReplyDeleteSlant rhymes can't be forced; they just come to you, and if you're a "purist," you say, "No, I can't use that," but it's no fun to be a purist! For a slant rhyme when reading aloud, poets often don't try to pronounce the 2 words similarly. "Faucet" and "Boston" are pretty far away, but a slant rhyme is usually a little closer. I just turned randomly to a poem in my Dickinson collection and found: "set" and "continent." The difference is just the "t" in the second word.
DeleteI guess it's just a concept I'll have to get used to in poetry. When I read poetry, I read it in my head and not out loud but maybe that will be beneficial for detecting slant rhymes. This is also why I've been drawn to slam poetry, because you can hear the writer's intended emphasis on words instead of assuming them as a silent reader.
DeleteYes, reading in your head will be beneficial for detection of that. A lot of poetic styles are meant for reading out loud. Toward the end of the term, we'll be focusing at least briefly on different public reading styles. Louise Bennett's YouTube video that we'll check out is the closest to Slam Poetry, but is still quite different in some respects.
DeleteHas Shakespeare used iambic pentameter before?
ReplyDeleteYes, that's his go-to meter. All of Shakespeare's 152 sonnets, not to mention many speeches in many of the 37 plays, are in iambic pentameter, and in fact, the sonnet form had to be.
DeleteDickinson rarely includes a line in iambic pentameter. It's always back and forth between tetrameter and trimeter-- 4 and 3 beats a line.
Also I'm trying to make a 4-line stanza based off of a video game I played, what rhymes with evacuation?
DeleteI'm wondering, after you've read this "Poem 2: Dickinson" post, if some of you have decided which poem 2 assignment you're doing: the ekphrastic poem or the Dickinson rhyme/meter assignment? And why did you choose that one?
ReplyDeleteI've decided to do an ekphrastic poem because there's actually a few works of art that I had in mind about writing about. My inspiration for the practice quatrain is influenced by The Birth of Venus. That is still in the works, we'll see if the concept works. -Erika Perez
Delete"The Birth of Venus" is a great idea for ekphrasis!
DeleteI'm still deciding but leaning towards the Dickerson rhyme/meter assignment because I like to play with words and I feel this can help me with my song writing -Donta mathis
DeleteThat's fine but if you do the Dickinson one, please try to have the iambic tetrameter/iambic trimeter pattern in your head before you even know what you want to express, because otherwise, it's hard to change very different rhythms into the correct ones. For example, I just wrote a few sentences to you without thinking of meter, just to convey meaning, and they didn't correspond at all to iambic norms. But now I'm going to write some ordinary prose while thinking about iambic meter:
DeleteThe day we went online to hold our class,
our way of talking changed.
(iambic pentameter followed by trimeter)
I found what I learned to be interesting, especially in relation to metonymy. I actually discovered that I was already using that technique in my poetry. Just to clarify, a metonymy is when a poet uses two similar ideas that relate to one another but, only one stands in place of the other right?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I learned a lot from what you discussed in relation to Emily Dickinson's poem. One thing I am curious about is the iambic meter. I want to know more about how you are able to tell the difference between a strong syllable and a weak syllable.
I find Emily Dickinson's poem very interesting. I like the imagery she uses. I feel it helps us as readers share more deeply in the experience she is expressing through this poem in relation to her five senses. One of the lines from her I loved the most is "Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats"(Dickinson, Poem 214). One thing I noticed from this line that I'm curious about is why she capitalized the words "Seraphs" and "Hats". I'm wondering if the capitalization comes with a significant symbolization. I notice here too that she uses personification by giving an element of nature human qualities when she says that the seraphs swing their hats.
I wanted to ask you more about irony. How doe you feel I could incorporate irony more into my poetry?
Thank you so much for teaching us these things professor.
Janessa, It's interesting that poets use metonymy without realizing it. Metonymy can be 2 similar ideas that have some relation, but it can also be concrete things that are not ideas, not abstract--including people. In Hamlet, there are 2 characters named Rosencranz and Guildenstern; they are so much alike and so connected in people's minds that when the Queen summons one, she may mean the other. That's EXTREME metonymy.
DeleteA strong syllable and a weak syllable have to do with how people pronounce words. Let's take: "Barack Obama." The way I pronounce the President's name, the first syllable is weak, the second strong, the third weak, the fourth strong, the fifth weak. How about you? For me it's ba RACK o BA ma.
Capitalization in Dickinson is something the critics have been puzzling over for more than a century. I don't think anyone really knows. They're making it up as they go along. My advice is not to follow Dickinson's example with punctuation!
We don't have to force irony in poetry. There are ironic situations that will come to your mind. I suppose one could practice writing ironic lines as an exercise. But is it necessary?
This is from Milady: I’ve decide to do the ekphrastic poem because it seems less challenging and more creative to do. The Emily Dickinson poem sticks to a certain style or meter and that itself seems a little more challenging.
ReplyDeleteMy response is: Yes, I agree that for many of us, meter and rhyme are not only challenging, but constraining in a way that does not produce the most interesting word choice that we can. This is a common perception of many poets I have know since I was a college student (a long time ago).
I had a question about syncecdoche, Is there ever any positive way to use the trope or is it by definition, always diminishing its subject by reducing a whole to a part? -Erika Perez
ReplyDeleteSynecdoche is not necessarily negative or objectifying, though it can be. It is notational, a kind of short-hand or abbreviation, in many cases, or just a clever or even cute reduction rather than a mean-spirited one.
DeleteIs this how slant rhymes work ?
ReplyDeleteI was flying high in the sky
Until the tree stretch its arms to get me bringing me to my demise
On the ground I swarm
From the grasp of the trees
By wiggling like a worm
-its donta mathis by the way
DeleteDonta, "sky" and "demise" and "swarm" and "worm" are slant rhymes. They work well.
DeleteOk thank you
DeleteDonta, which assignment will you do: the poem about an art work (ekphrastic poem) or the Dickinson rhyme/meter ? If you do the Dickinson, try to follow the meter. For example, instead of "until the tree stretched its arms to get me bringing me to my demise," you would divide that into:
Deleteuntil the tree could stretch its arms
to bring me to demise.
You stand over a hill pondering
ReplyDeleteThe planet fell you still remained
While the ones you saved were left wondering
Our enemies approached you fervor unchained
One by one they all fell
While stood silent fighting
When more came you embraced Hell
You struck them like lightning.
Now your helmet is all but left
People call it junk or they want to hurl
But I call it a pearl
Is this an example of iambic pentameter?
Manuel, you've gotten the rhymes perfectly. The second line is iambic trimeter (like Dickinson's); the fourth line is iambic pentameter but with an extra syllable at the end. The eighth line is iambic trimeter with the last unit changed from an iamb to a trochee--which is ok. The final line is perfect iambic trimeter. Every other line doesn't fit any particular meter.
DeleteHere is my practice quatrain using Dickinson's end words:
ReplyDeleteOcean foam wildly brewed
Copper hair, skin of pearl
Birthed from the briny Rhine
Grace pure as alcohol
-Erika Perez
Erika, this is poetically very strong in terms of the tropes and images, but the meter is not iambic.
DeleteFirst line: trochee/spondee/iamb
second line: same as first
third line: dactyl (3 syllables)/dactyl
Thank you for the feedback professor. I am still getting used to iambic pentameter as it is somewhat still confusing to me. Each line has 6 syllables but I don't know fully how to make it flow yet in iambic style.
DeleteMy Practice Quatrain
ReplyDeleteIn a morning, lush and brewed,
sharing the here and now
I rhine with calm hues,
every present's pearl.
*I didn't feel comfortable using alcohol because due to personal reasons, I don't drink.
"Alcohol" is a trope; Dickinson didn't drink either. You can use the trope without people thinking that you're a drinker.
DeleteI like the word play in this quatrain. The first two lines are tetrameter and trimeter respectively with one missing syllable in the tetrameter (the first, which is considered ok), and a trochee substituted for an iamb in the trimeter (which is also considered fine). The third line is missing the last syllable, and it doesn't quite feel like a tetrameter line (unlike line one) and the fourth line is missing the first syllable of trimeter (which is ok).
So why is the loss of the first syllable ok whereas the last one isn't so great? This is because the line doesn't follow through to the end--it stops short.
my quatrain via diamond.F
ReplyDeleteStay calm and brewed
Moring comes teeth is clean as pearl
remove the smell and stain of alcohol
let the mind rest and flow like a Rhine
I like the imagery very much, but I don't quite understand "moving comes teeth"--is there a typo somewhere?
DeleteLine 1: iambic dimeter (2 beats instead of Dickinson's 4)
Line 2: iambic tetrameter ( should be one less: trimeter)
Line 3: perfect iambic pentameter (should be one less: tetrameter)
Line 4: half way between tetrameter and pentameter (should be trimeter)-- "Let the mind rest and flow" would be perfect trimeter but then you would lose the rhyme
Diamond, one more thing: If you put some of the second line into the first, you might be close to the meter:
DeleteStay calm and brewed. Morning comes
teeth as clean as pearl.
Also, do we have to do poem #2 by this Friday or is that for us to do over the weekend?
ReplyDeleteYes, Janessa and everyone else, please try to get poem 2 done by this Friday at 1 pm, and I will send peer-critiquing lists via email. You only have to share your poem during the class hour on Friday will 1 or 2 other people. I am lowering the AMOUNT that you have to write: the ekphrastic poem doesn't have to be 18 lines: 14 lines would be enough. And if you have 3 solid quatrains for the Dickinson poem, that's fine. Longer poems are not always better.
DeleteHello Professor Fink,
ReplyDeleteI just got through reading Erika's comments on my poem and after reflecting on it and looking at my poem 2, I want to know from you as well how I can shift my focus back to the drawing itself? As a poet who is interested in writing more ekphrases in the future, what are some suggestions you would give me to help improve the quality of my ekphrases?
Janessa, let's put comments in the new temporary post today. Anyway, when you send me the final first version of poem 2, I will comment extensively. But I do want to say that shifting your focus back to the drawing itself is SOMETIMES desirable in an ekphrastic poem and sometimes not. You can go in either direction, and it will still be an effective ekphrastic poem, because the quality of the poem is not necessarily about fidelity to the art object; rather, it is fidelity to a subjective experience-- experience of language and/or of the world--and the art object in some cases might be a catalyst for something else. I think I say that in my video lecture, but maybe I'm just implying it and not spelling it out.
ReplyDeleteFor any of us to improve the quality of our ekphrastic poems, the best things to do are: fully understand what I said in the previous paragraph and don't constrain your imagination,
read quite a few ekphrastic poems like the ones on the list, form impressions about them, look at art works often, and when an art work speaks to you, speak back to it in poetic lines, don't edit rigorously while the poem is coming into language, and finally look at the poem carefully while determining what kind of ekphrastic poem it is (again, see my video for varieties) and add and subtract language to realize your overall intention.