Amy Lowell's "Poetry as a Spoken Art" is an interesting essay where she emphasizes the "audible quality" of poetry as its fundamental characteristic, which has been lost since the main medium of poetry consumption shifted to books. Her argument certainly resonates with poetry's oral origins, and I do think that poetry read out loud adds a whole new dimension to one's experience of the poem. It is not only that you physically hear the poetry (because honestly, if you've read enough of it there is a pretty functional "poet voice" in your head), it's that you physically produce it. That is where the change takes place: in yourself, in your engagement with the piece, in the way it affects your mood and the way your read it.
Even if Culler is right and poems can give us a voicing rather than a voice, when one reads a poem one then becomes the voicing, embodies what can be tangible or in tangible, and that is a unique experience only poetry as a genre can offer. True, you can read narrative and, of course, drama, aloud, but these genres will always invite acting or characterization, even as a narrator. Poetry is the only genre that can defy that acting quality while still inviting performance, as Amy Lowell points out when she explains the right way to read a poem.
Not to undermine everything that I have already said, but a poem I particularly enjoyed reading aloud, from the ones revised in class, is Basil Bunting's "What the Chairman Told Tom". Reading this one really invites you to take on the poetic persona from the poem, which the class identified as the "Chairman", yet I believe you can read it either as either the Chariman, or as Tom hearing the Chairman, maybe even at different instances. It might seem like pointless remark, but I think the latter choice makes it potentially both more tongue-in-cheek and more biting, sardonic even. Not only the voice, but the rhythm of it is on point. Is both conversational but beating; the right performance would make the piece burst.
Perhaps I'm overreaching, but I think the content is so relevant as someone in the Humanities, and the form is so on point, I just can't help but love it. This is a bit I particularly enjoyed:
The theme of the poetry selection this class was "ars poetica" (from Horace, not Aristotle, hehe), and we did a little activity where in paris we chose our favorite from the selection and discussed it. Mine was not discussed because we worked with my classmate's least disliked one, so I thought I shared some thoughts.
It was Archibald MacLeish's "Ars Poetica". I admit I do not "get" every single line, I feel like I need to consider it in more depth (I might do a spotlight on it), but the rhythm and some of the images are pure magic:
I think it invites paced, smooth reading. The tangibility of it ("palpable", "globed", "thumb", the "casement ledges where the moss has grown"), the wilderness of it (the "fruit", the "moss", the "birds"), but most importantly the notion that a poem should be experienced but not necessarily explained through more words than the poem itself (hence the idea of "mute", "dumb", "wordless") I found beautiful.
Cynically, I could consider the last stanza a bit fake-deep, but after the beauty of the poem as a whole, it feels earned:
As a final treat, I just want to highlight Martin Espada's "Latin Night at the Pawnshop", as a simple yet powerful poem about loss and immigrant experience in the US. I love the rhythm and how it plays with expectations of tone: although the precedence of the "pawnshop" chips at the happiness from the beginning, and the band is an "apparition", it is not until the "price tags dangling" that you get the full turn from celebratory (after calling all the band members) to sad.
Even if Culler is right and poems can give us a voicing rather than a voice, when one reads a poem one then becomes the voicing, embodies what can be tangible or in tangible, and that is a unique experience only poetry as a genre can offer. True, you can read narrative and, of course, drama, aloud, but these genres will always invite acting or characterization, even as a narrator. Poetry is the only genre that can defy that acting quality while still inviting performance, as Amy Lowell points out when she explains the right way to read a poem.
Not to undermine everything that I have already said, but a poem I particularly enjoyed reading aloud, from the ones revised in class, is Basil Bunting's "What the Chairman Told Tom". Reading this one really invites you to take on the poetic persona from the poem, which the class identified as the "Chairman", yet I believe you can read it either as either the Chariman, or as Tom hearing the Chairman, maybe even at different instances. It might seem like pointless remark, but I think the latter choice makes it potentially both more tongue-in-cheek and more biting, sardonic even. Not only the voice, but the rhythm of it is on point. Is both conversational but beating; the right performance would make the piece burst.
Perhaps I'm overreaching, but I think the content is so relevant as someone in the Humanities, and the form is so on point, I just can't help but love it. This is a bit I particularly enjoyed:
But to ask for twelve pounds a week —
married, aren’t you? —
you’ve got a nerve.
married, aren’t you? —
you’ve got a nerve.
How could I look a bus conductor
in the face
if I paid you twelve pounds?
in the face
if I paid you twelve pounds?
Who says it’s poetry, anyhow?
My ten year old
can do it and rhyme.
The words are so simple and direct, but the rhythm is so great. Take the first two lines of the first two stanzas. In the first one, the "-- // married, aren't you?--" is disruptive in the "Chairman's" speech but not disruptive of the poem overall. In the second one, the enjambment draws attention to the word "conductor" and "face", makes the Chairman seem so biting and dismissive. It just flows, it's great. My ten year old
can do it and rhyme.
The theme of the poetry selection this class was "ars poetica" (from Horace, not Aristotle, hehe), and we did a little activity where in paris we chose our favorite from the selection and discussed it. Mine was not discussed because we worked with my classmate's least disliked one, so I thought I shared some thoughts.
It was Archibald MacLeish's "Ars Poetica". I admit I do not "get" every single line, I feel like I need to consider it in more depth (I might do a spotlight on it), but the rhythm and some of the images are pure magic:
A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.
I think it invites paced, smooth reading. The tangibility of it ("palpable", "globed", "thumb", the "casement ledges where the moss has grown"), the wilderness of it (the "fruit", the "moss", the "birds"), but most importantly the notion that a poem should be experienced but not necessarily explained through more words than the poem itself (hence the idea of "mute", "dumb", "wordless") I found beautiful.
Cynically, I could consider the last stanza a bit fake-deep, but after the beauty of the poem as a whole, it feels earned:
A poem should not mean
But be.
As a final treat, I just want to highlight Martin Espada's "Latin Night at the Pawnshop", as a simple yet powerful poem about loss and immigrant experience in the US. I love the rhythm and how it plays with expectations of tone: although the precedence of the "pawnshop" chips at the happiness from the beginning, and the band is an "apparition", it is not until the "price tags dangling" that you get the full turn from celebratory (after calling all the band members) to sad.
Latin Night At The Pawnshop
Chelsea, Massachusetts, Christmas, 1987
The apparition of a salsa band
gleaming in the Liberty Loan
pawnshop window:
Golden trumpet,
silver trombone,
congas, maracas, tambourine,
all with price tags dangling
like the city morgue ticket
on a dead man’s toe.
Overall, I just think there is a simplicity to the images that makes this a straightforward poem to "get" and experience. I would like to check out more from Espada.
No comments
Post a Comment