I’m lazy :)

Why poetry and pop are not such strange bedfellows

What is it about Yeats that is so attractive to rock stars, and why does Auden have the crowd moshing at the Forum? Graeme Thomson meets the musicians turning poetry into pop

By Graeme Thomson

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/mar/11/poetry-pop-yeats-auden

Inspiration and Motivation

Let’s shake things up a little bit today. We’ve been studying forms for over two weeks now, and I don’t know about you, but my eyes are crossing. Instead, let’s focus on two other important aspects of poetry: motivation and inspiration.

Why write poetry? Why read poetry for that matter? Why the hell should I care?

That’s the crux of any type of writing, the reader wants to know why the hell I should care? Why does this piece of writing warrant my attention more than my spouse/kids/job/house/Ax Men marathon. It’s a legitimate question and one writers should always be asking themselves. Why should my reader care about what I’m writing? How to do I get them emotionally invested and as passionate or interesting in my topic as I am? Because if the reader isn’t interested, especially in this day and age, they’re going to flip to the Xbox or Dirty Jobs on the TiVo faster than the coyote gets smashed by an ACME safe.

Let’s break it down.

First, you, the author, has to care about what you’re writing. If you don’t care, the audience won’t care and that spells coyote hanging out over open space, holding up an OOPS! sign before he plows into the ground, leaving a coyote-shaped imprint for the roadrunner to be-beep! over.

Second, the material can’t matter only to you. For instance, I could write about all my horrible breakups, getting real specific about who, what, where, why, and how. But why would a reader care about that? I’m whining about my own love troubles and, frankly, no one really gives a shit about anything that doesn’t apply to them. The solution? Get over yourself. Ruthlessly mine your own experiences and look for the common thread. Everybody’s been dumped. What’s the universal in that? The pain, the feelings of inadequacy, the tears, rage, etc. So find the things in your interests that everyone’s experienced, connecting your experiences and theirs, to create an emotional link. It sounds easy, when actually it’s quite complicated. There’s no magical formula that I can give you that will instantly create that link between your writing and the reader’s emotions. All I can say is practice. Read voraciously, write extensively, and when you recognize the times where writing tweaks at your heart strings, analyze it intensively and practice implementing it in your own work.

Third, kind of got off track, but getting back to why should I care, if you don’t like poetry, aren’t interested in poetry, would rather have exploratory rectal surgery than sit through the shortest poem ever ("I" by Ghigna, http://www.fwointl.com/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=22&num=629 for those who are curious), I’m not sure why you’re reading this in the first place. I’m the first person to admit that I don’t like/don’t understand/don’t have time for poetry. But one thing I’ve learned this month is that poetry has a life all of its own. It’s everywhere. The fundamentals of music are based on rhythm and meter and music, it could be argued, is a major component of the American lifestyle. IPods and MP3 players are everywhere, making personalized playlists portable more than ever before. Essentially, people are carrying poetry with them everywhere. Poetry isn’t just about reading dead white guys; it’s an expression, a protest, an expression of appreciation, an ode, a way of showing love. So yeah, its hard, its tedious at times, it takes away from valuable YouTube time, but I guess my overall point is that people have been making poetry for thousands of years, many religious works began as poems, so poetry is everywhere, in all of us and when we ask why we should care, it’s more of a matter that we already do. The real challenge of poetry is not in finding it, but in taking the time to intelligently pursue it, analyze it, internalize it, and turn it around, let it loose, make it our own.

Leaving Italy: The Terza Rima

The Terza Rima is a classic Italian form, made famous by Dante in his Divine Comedy. It’s a highly syllabic form, which makes it easier to write in Italian than English, or so I heard in college, since Italian and similar Romantic languages have more rhyming words than our mish-meshed English.

Terza rima is written in iambic tercets, meaning a three-line grouping with a unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (looks like xX; or, oh SHIT, not OH shit, with the emphasis on the second syllable). It can be iambic pentameter, but in my opinion, since that’s more famously an English form (thank Shakespeare), it’s not strictly essential. The rhyme scheme is supposed to interlock, looking like aba bcb cdc and so forth as long as you want. Hey, Dante wrote an entire freaking book that way. Apparently, you can end the poem with a couplet, but, again, nothing strict on this. Another source, http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/Handbook/terzarima.html, asserts that the ending can look like this: xyx yzy z. Personally, I like that one, but its open. If a couplet works better, use it. For more on the terza rima, check out http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5794.

The terza rima sonnet is a fourteen-line version, sort of a cross between the English sonnet and the terza rima. This would lend itself more to iambic pentameter, if one were so inclined. Also called the diaspora sonnet, the same meter (ohSHIT) applies, as does the stanza length, as in the longer big sister terza rima. All that changes is the length, so the complete rhyme scheme looks like: aba bcb cdc ded ee.

In contrast, the Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet has a rhyme scheme of abbaabba cdecde, while the English or Shakespearean sonnet looks like abab cdcd efef gg, so the terza rima sonnet is like the love child of the English sonnet and big sister terza rima. Can’t wait to see what happens if the terza rima and infinite gloss ever fool around. On the other hand… (fierce shudder.)

Happy poeting.

Italian Poetry Again: The Barzelletta

Another Italian form, the barzelletta began in the fifteenth and sixteenth century with a group called the frottola composers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frottola. The form precedes the madrigal and likely descends from the ballata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballata, a fourteenth-century poetic form. As the frottola became the barzelletta, the difference in the forms occurred when lessons began to be inserted into the form.

The barzelletta form isn’t a set form. To see the full argument on PoetryBase, go here: http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/000/17.shtml The frottala was a kind of carnival song with irregular meter and rhyme so that theme has carried over into the barzelletta. It can have lines of seven or eight, even up to twelve, syllable lines written as couplets, or can be in blank verse with pentameter or hexameter syllables. It can rhyme or not, be full of poetic device, internal rhyme, etc. A more formal version of barzelletta can have a set rhyme scheme with a ripresa (reprise) of abba, and a stanza of cdcdda or cdcddeea, although massive variation exists on this rhyme scheme. (Seems to be a poetic theme, doesn’t it?) The stanzas are usually two lines in length and continue as in the above rhyme scheme.

For an example of the barzelletta, I went to http://books.google.com/books?id=ijIS3E4OB-MC&pg=PA330&lpg=PA330&dq=Barzelletta+poems&source=bl&ots=B1eO5Xktis&sig=pnjg1UN62FoEvMQqG8EpNEwDWY8&hl=en&ei=UNLFS5KkNIG09QTcvLGXDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CCEQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=Barzelletta%20poems&f=false. Type that four times fast. This is a simple barzelletta and the site says it should have “lines of even length and simple, unvarying rhyme scheme.” This suggestion comes from the online book Musical humanism and its legacy: essays in honor of Claude V. Palisca by Claude V. Palisca, Nancy Kovaleff Baker, and Barbara Russano Hanning. Find it at http://books.google.com/books?id=ijIS3E4OB-MC&lpg=PA330&ots=B1eO5Xktis&dq=Barzelletta%20poems&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=Barzelletta%20poems&f=false

Barzelletta – Author Unknown

L’amor donna ch’io te porto

Volentier voria scoprire

E’l mio affanno voira dire

Che per te sempre suporto

L’amor donna ch’io te porto

Volentier voria scoprire.

Non me fido a mandar messo

Per che temo esser gabato

S’io te passo per apresso

Tut e volti in altro lato.

The love, my lady, that I bear you

I would gladly disclose,

And my anguish I would tell

Which I always suffer because of you.

The love, my lady, that I bear you

I would gladly disclose.

I dare not send a messenger,

For I fear to be deceived.

If I pass close to you

You turn away.

So yeah, not real fun today. On the up side, I’m only spending one more day on Italian poetry and then we get on to a healthy mix of Spanish, Portuguese, French, and other forms; Dada poetry; some classic forms like the sonnet and sestina; and, maybe, if time permits, some focus on the poets themselves, focusing on their inspiration and motivation, their unique approach to poetry, and whatever other fun facts come up.

Italian Poetry Continues: The Madrigal

A madrigal is close to a canzone. The form originated in the Renaissance and early Baroque periods (really sound cool now, don’t I? Somehow throwing the word ‘Baroque’ around adds professor-ism, so cool), and started as secular form, set to music. The music was written to underline the sentiment behind each line of text in the poem. The madrigal took on various aspects of other types of poems, and one type of madrigal eventually developed into the aria and into the opera. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrigal_%28music%29 or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrigal_%28poetry%29 (If I’m lying, blame Wikipedia.) Love is usually the theme or topic of a madrigal.

So nuts and bolts of the form. Lines consists of seven or eight syllables and come in sets of triplets, three line stanzas. These triplet stanzas usually run with two or three per poem, followed by one or two rhyming couplets. Here’s a sample rhyme schematic: aba bcb cdc dd ee, though the triplets have no set rhyme scheme.

Apparently, the best example of the form is poet William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649). Here is one of his madrigals:

Madrigal: My Thoughts Hold Mortal Strife
William Drummond (of Hawthornden)

My thoughts hold mortal strife,
I do detest my life,
And with lamenting cries,
Peace to my soul to bring,
Oft calls that prince which here doth monarchize;
But he, grim-grinning king,
Who caitiffs scorns and doth the blest surprise,
Late having deck'd with beauty's rose his tomb,
Disdains to crop a weed, and will not come.

http://www.poemhunter.com/

Curious about what a madrigal sounds like?

Italian Poetry: The Canzone

The canzone is an Italian poetic form, along with canzone II. This week is devoted to Italian poetry, at least for now, so get used to it. :p

The canzone it a type of ballad, originating in the Provencal region of Italy. It’s typically closer to song lyrics and originated in the Middle Ages, meant to be recited to music. Dante and Petrarch utilized the form and helped make it popular. The most famous example, according to Wikipedia, so take this with a grain of salt or six, is “Voi che sapete” by Mozart.



The form itself has seven to eleven syllables per line with seven to twenty lines per stanza, with anything from one to seven stanzas per poem. It’s called similar to a sonnet on one website, http://www.webexhibits.org/poetry/explore_obscure_canzone_make.html , only easier to write. Another example of the form, this one by Dante. Dante’s rhyme scheme is quite complicated, but you can use whatever you like, even rhyming couplets. Webexibits also has a great explanation of how to layout the poem, define the subject, address the theme, etc. But if you don’t like that, the other suggestion comes from my combination of PoetryBase and Wikipedia. Together, those seem to indicate that the first two stanzas are usually similar in rhyme scheme, while the third is different, and the form usually addresses itself to someone, usually illustrious, but I assume this isn’t necessary. There is no set stanza structure, but, that said, the stanzas should have a pattern of similarity or dissimilarity. In the third stanza, the poem usually closes with a farewell of some kind.

The canzone II has five verses of twelve lines, each line with seven to eleven syllables, with a five line coda, or sixty-five lines. A coda is just a fancy way of saying ending, a way of wrapping up the poem. The rhyme scheme, however, is far more complex. It looks like this:
abaacaaddaee
eaeebeeccedd
deddaddbbdee
cdcceccaacbb
bcbbdbbeebaa
aedcb
Or:
-----------a
---------b
---------a
----------a
---------c
---------a
Etc.

The rhyme scheme looks to be based on Dante’s work, so read the work, know the rules, and then feel free to break them.

Lazy Blogger Day

In a nod to the keynote speaker at Rally of Writers in Lansing this weekend, Thomas Lynch, here’s a sample of one of his poems from Poetry Foundation.

For the Ex-Wife on the Occasion of Her Birthday

by Thomas P. Lynch

Let me say outright that I bear you no

unusual malice anymore. Nor

do I wish for you tumors or loose stools,

blood in your urine, oozings from any orifice.

The list is endless of those ills I do not pray befall you:  

night sweats, occasional itching, PMS,

fits, starts, ticks, boils, bad vibes, vaginal odors,  

emotional upheavals or hormonal disorders;

green discharges, lumps, growths, nor tell-tale signs of gray;  

dry heaves, hiccups, heartbreaks, fallen ovaries  

nor cramps—before, during, or after. I pray you only  

laughter in the face of your mortality

and freedom from the ravages of middle age:

bummers, boredom, cellulite, toxic shock and pregnancies;  

migraines, glandular problems, the growth of facial hair,  

sagging breasts, bladder infections, menopausal rage,  

flatulence or overdoses, hot flashes or constant nausea,  

uterine collapse or loss of life or limb or faith  

in the face of what might seem considerable debilities.  

Think of your life not as half-spent but as half-full  

of possibilities. The Arts maybe, or

Music, Modern Dance, or Hard Rock Videos.  

Whatever, this is to say I hereby recant

all former bitterness and proffer only all the best  

in the way of Happy Birthday wishes.

I no longer want your mother committed,

your friends banished, your donkey lovers taken out and shot  

or spayed or dragged behind some Chevrolet of doom.  

I pray you find that space or room or whatever it is  

you and your shrink have always claimed you’d need  

to spread your wings and realize your insuperable potential.

Godspeed is what I say, and good credentials:

what with your background in fashions and aerobics,  

you’d make a fairly bouncy brain surgeon  

or well-dressed astronaut or disc jockey.  

The children and I will be watching with interest  

and wouldn’t mind a note from time to time  

to say you’ve overcome all obstacles this time;  

overcome your own half-hearted upbringing,  

a skimpy wardrobe, your lowly self-esteem,  

the oppression of women and dismal horoscopes;  

overcome an overly dependent personality,  

stretch marks, self-doubt, a bad appendix scar,

the best years of your life misspent on wifing and mothering.

So let us know exactly how you are once

you have triumphed, after all. Poised and ready  

on the brink of, shall we say, your middle years,

send word when you have gained by the luck of the draw,

the kindness of strangers, or by dint of will itself  

if not great fame then self-sufficiency.

Really, now that I’ve my hard-won riddance of you  

signed and sealed and cooling on the books against  

your banks and creditors; now that I no  

longer need endure your whining discontent,  

your daylong, nightlong carping over lost youth,  

bum luck, spilt milk, what you might have been,  

or pining not so quietly for a new life in  

New York with new men; now that I have been  

more or less officially relieved of

all those hapless duties husbanding

a woman of your disenchantments came to be,  

I bid you No Deposits, No Returns,

but otherwise a very Happy Birthday.

And while this mayn’t sound exactly like good will  

in some important ways it could be worse.  

The ancients in my family had a way with words  

and overzealous habits of revenge

whereby the likes of you were turned to birds  

and made to nest among the mounds of dung  

that rose up in the wake of cattle herds

grazing their way across those bygone parishes  

where all that ever came with age was wisdom.

Thomas Lynch, “For the Ex-Wife on the Occasion of Her Birthday” from Skating With Heather Grace. Copyright © 1986 by Thomas Lynch. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.