Poetic forms too can be cross-bred, subverted, made sport of, mutilated, sabotaged and rebelled against, but HERE IS THE POINT HERE IS THE POINT. If there is no suggestion of an overall scheme at work in the first place, then there is nothing to subvert or undermine: a whole world of possibility is closed off to you. Yes, you can institute your own own structures, you can devise new forms or create a wholly original poetic manner and approach, but there are at least three major disadvantages to this. First, it is all too often a question of reinventing the wheel (all the trial-and-error discoveries and setbacks that poetic wheelwrights have undergone over two millennia to be caught up with in one short lifetime); second, and this flows from the first point, it is fantastically difficult and lonely; third, it requires the reader to know what you are up to. Since human beings first sang, recited and wrote they have been developing ways of structuring and presenting their verse. Most readers of poetry, whether they are aware of it or not, are instinctively familiar with the elemental formsfor a practising poet to be ignorant of them is foolish at best, perverse and bloody-minded at worst. We can all surely admit without sacrificing any cherished sense of our bold modernity and iconoclastic originality that a painter is in a better position to ignore the 'rules' of composition or perspective if he knows exactly what those rules are. Just because poems are made of our common currency, words, it does not mean that poets should be denied a like grounding and knowledge. Besides, as I have emphasised before, initiation into the technique of poetry is all part of becoming a poet and it is structures, you can devise new forms or create a wholly original poetic manner and approach, but there are at least three major disadvantages to this. First, it is all too often a question of reinventing the wheel (all the trial-and-error discoveries and setbacks that poetic wheelwrights have undergone over two millennia to be caught up with in one short lifetime); second, and this flows from the first point, it is fantastically difficult and lonely; third, it requires the reader to know what you are up to. Since human beings first sang, recited and wrote they have been developing ways of structuring and presenting their verse. Most readers of poetry, whether they are aware of it or not, are instinctively familiar with the elemental formsfor a practising poet to be ignorant of them is foolish at best, perverse and bloody-minded at worst. We can all surely admit without sacrificing any cherished sense of our bold modernity and iconoclastic originality that a painter is in a better position to ignore the 'rules' of composition or perspective if he knows exactly what those rules are. Just because poems are made of our common currency, words, it does not mean that poets should be denied a like grounding and knowledge. Besides, as I have emphasised before, initiation into the technique of poetry is all part of becoming a poet and it is pleasurable pleasurable: one is in the company of one's forebears, one is not alone.
Ezra Pound, generally regarded as the principal founder of modernism, wrote of the need to refresh poetics: 'No good poetry is ever written in a manner twenty years old,' he wrote in 1912, 'for to write in such a manner shows conclusively that the writer thinks from books, convention and cliche, not from real life.' He went further, asserting that extant poetical language and modes were in fact defunct, he declared war on all existing formal structures, metre, rhyme and genre. We should observe that he was a researcher in Romance languages, devoted to medieval troubadour verse, Chinese, Japanese, Sicilian, Greek, Spanish, French and Italian forms and much besides. His call to free verse was not a manifesto for ignorant, self-indulgent maundering and uneducated anarchy. His poems are syntactically and semantically difficult, laden with allusion and steeped in his profound knowledge of classical and oriental forms and culture: they are often laid out in structures that recall or exactly follow ancient forms, cantos, odes and even, as we shall discover later, that most strict and venerable of forms, the sestina sestina. Pound was also a Nazi-sympathising, anti-Semitic,1 antagonistic son of a bitch as it happens: he wasn't trying to open poetry for all, to democratise verse for the kids and create a friendly free-form world in which everyone is equal. But if the old fascist was right in determining that his generation needed to get away from the heavy manner and glutinous cliches of Victorian verse, its archaic words and reflex tricks of poetical language, and all out-dated modes of expression and thought in order to free itself for a new century, is it not equally true that antagonistic son of a bitch as it happens: he wasn't trying to open poetry for all, to democratise verse for the kids and create a friendly free-form world in which everyone is equal. But if the old fascist was right in determining that his generation needed to get away from the heavy manner and glutinous cliches of Victorian verse, its archaic words and reflex tricks of poetical language, and all out-dated modes of expression and thought in order to free itself for a new century, is it not equally true that we we need to escape from the dreary, self-indulgent, randomly lineated drivel that today passes for poetry for precisely the same reasons? After a hundred years of free verse and Open Field poetry the condition of English-language poetics is every bit as tattered and tired as that which Pound and his coevals inherited. 'People find ideas a bore,' Pound wrote, 'because they do not distinguish between live ones and stuffed ones on a shelf.' Unfortunately the tide has turned, and now it is some of Pound's once new ideas that have been stuffed and shelved and become a bore. He wrote in 1910: 'The art of letters will come to an end before need to escape from the dreary, self-indulgent, randomly lineated drivel that today passes for poetry for precisely the same reasons? After a hundred years of free verse and Open Field poetry the condition of English-language poetics is every bit as tattered and tired as that which Pound and his coevals inherited. 'People find ideas a bore,' Pound wrote, 'because they do not distinguish between live ones and stuffed ones on a shelf.' Unfortunately the tide has turned, and now it is some of Pound's once new ideas that have been stuffed and shelved and become a bore. He wrote in 1910: 'The art of letters will come to an end before AD AD 2000. I shall survive as a curiosity.' It might be tempting to agree that 'the art of letters' has indeed come to an end, and to wonder whether a doctrinaire abandonment of healthy, living forms for the sake of a dogma of stillborn originality might not have to shoulder some of the responsibility for such a state of affairs. 2000. I shall survive as a curiosity.' It might be tempting to agree that 'the art of letters' has indeed come to an end, and to wonder whether a doctrinaire abandonment of healthy, living forms for the sake of a dogma of stillborn originality might not have to shoulder some of the responsibility for such a state of affairs.
Add a feeble-minded kind of political correctness to the mix (something Pound would certainly never have countenanced) and it is a wonder that any considerable poetry at all has been written over the last fifty years. It is as if we have been encouraged to believe that form is a kind of fascism and that to acquire knowledge is to drive a jackboot into the face of those poor souls who are too incurious, dull-witted or idle to find out what poetry can be. Surely better to use another word for such free-form meanderings: 'prose-therapy' about covers it, 'emotional masturbation', perhaps; auto-omphaloscopy might be an acceptable coinagegazing at one's own navel. Let us reserve the word 'poetry' for something worth fighting for, an ideal we can strive to live up to.
What, then, is the solution? Greeting-card verse? Pastiche? For some the answer lies in the street poetry of rap, hip-hop, reggae and other musically derived discourses: unfortunately this does not suit my upbringing, temperament and talents; I find these modes, admirable as they no doubt are, as alien to my cultural heritage and linguistic tastes as their practitioners no doubt find Browning and Betjeman, Pope, Cope and Heaney. I will try to address this problem at the end of the book, but for now I would urge you to believe that a familiarity with form will not transform you into a reactionary bourgeois, stifle your poetic voice, imprison your emotions, cramp your style, or inhibit your languageon the contrary, it will liberate you from all of these discomforts. Nor need one discourse be adopted at the expense of another, eclecticism is as possible in poetry as in any other art or mode of cultural expression.
There are, to my mind, two aesthetics available when faced by the howling, formless, uncertain, relative and morally contingent winds that buffet us today. One is to provide verse of like formlessness and uncertainty, another is (perhaps with conscious irony) to erect a structured shelter of form. Form is not necessarily a denial of the world's loss of faith and structure, it is by no means of necessity a nostalgic evasion. It can be, as we shall see, a defiant, playful and wholly modern response.
Looking back over the last few paragraphs I am aware that you might think me a dreadful, hidebound old dinosaur. I assure you I am not. I am uncertain why I should feel the need to prove this, but I do want you to understand that I am far from contemptuous of Modernism and free verse, the experimental and the avant-garde or of the poetry of the streets. Whitman, Cummings, O'Hara, Wyndham Lewis, Eliot, Jandl, Olsen, Ginsberg, Pound and Zephaniah are poets that have given me, and continue to give me, immense pleasure. I do not despise free verse. Read this:
Post coitum omne animal triste i see you !.
you come closer improvident with your coming then
stretched to scratch is it a trick of the light?
i see you worlded with pain but of necessity not weeping
cigaretted and drinked loaded against yourself you seem so yes bold irreducible but nuded and afterloved you are not so strong are you ?.
after all
There's the problem. The above is precisely the kind of worthless arse-dribble I am forced to read whenever I agree to judge a poetry competition. the problem. The above is precisely the kind of worthless arse-dribble I am forced to read whenever I agree to judge a poetry competition.2 It took me under a minute and a half to write and while I dare say It took me under a minute and a half to write and while I dare say you you can see what utter wank it is, there are many who would accept it as poetry. All the cliches are there, pointless lineation, meaningless punctuation and presentation, fatuous creations of new verbs 'cigaretted and drinked', 'worlded', 'nuded', 'afterloved', can see what utter wank it is, there are many who would accept it as poetry. All the cliches are there, pointless lineation, meaningless punctuation and presentation, fatuous creations of new verbs 'cigaretted and drinked', 'worlded', 'nuded', 'afterloved',3 a posy Latin titleevery pathology is presented. Like so much of what passes for poetry today it is also a posy Latin titleevery pathology is presented. Like so much of what passes for poetry today it is also listless listless, utterly drained of energy and drivea common problem with much contemporary art but an especial problem with poetry that chooses to close itself off from all metrical pattern and form. It is like music without beat or shape or harmony: not music at all, in fact. 'Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down,' Robert Frost wrote. Not much of a game at all, really.
My 'poem' is also pretentious, pretentious in exactly the way much hotel cooking is pretentiousaping the modes of seriously innovative culinary artists and trusting that the punters will be fooled. Ooh, it's got a lavender reduction and a sorrel jus: it's a pavane of mullet with an infusion of green tea and papaya. Bollocks, give me steak and kidney pudding. Real haute cuisine is created by those who know what they are doing. Learning metre and form and other such techniques is the equivalent of understanding culinary ingredients, how they are grown, how they are prepared, how they taste, how they combine: then and only then and only then is one fit to experiment with new forms. It begins with love, an absolute love of eating and of the grain and particularity of food. It is first expressed in the drudgery of chopping onions and preparing the daily stockpots, in the commitment to work and concentration. They won't let you loose on anything more creative until you have served this apprenticeship. I venerate great chefs like Heston Blumenthal, Richard Corrigan and Gordon Ramsay: they are the real thing, they have done the workwork of an intensity most of us would baulk at. Of course some people think that they, Blumenthal, Corrigan et al., are pretentious, but here such thinking derives from a fundamental ignorance and fear. So much easier to say that everything you fail to understand is pretentious than to learn to discriminate between the authentic and the fraudulent. Between lazy indiscipline and frozen traditionalism there lies a thrilling space where the living, the fresh and the new may be discovered. is one fit to experiment with new forms. It begins with love, an absolute love of eating and of the grain and particularity of food. It is first expressed in the drudgery of chopping onions and preparing the daily stockpots, in the commitment to work and concentration. They won't let you loose on anything more creative until you have served this apprenticeship. I venerate great chefs like Heston Blumenthal, Richard Corrigan and Gordon Ramsay: they are the real thing, they have done the workwork of an intensity most of us would baulk at. Of course some people think that they, Blumenthal, Corrigan et al., are pretentious, but here such thinking derives from a fundamental ignorance and fear. So much easier to say that everything you fail to understand is pretentious than to learn to discriminate between the authentic and the fraudulent. Between lazy indiscipline and frozen traditionalism there lies a thrilling space where the living, the fresh and the new may be discovered.
Fortunately, practising metre and verse forms is not as laborious, repetitive and frightening as toiling in a kitchen under the eye of a tyrannical chef. But we should never forget that poetry, like cooking, derives from love, an absolute love for the particularity and grain of ingredientsin our case, words.
So, rant over: let us acquaint ourselves with some of the poetic forms that have developed and evolved over the centuries.
The most elemental way in which lineation can be taken forward is through the collection of lines into STANZA FORM STANZA FORM: let us look at some options.
II.
Stanzaic Variations OPEN F FORMS.
Tercets, quatrains and other stanzasterza rimaottava rimarhyme royalruba'iyatthe Spenserian stanza
A TERCET TERCET is a stanza of three lines, is a stanza of three lines, QUATRAINS QUATRAINS come in fours, come in fours, CINQUAINS CINQUAINS in fives, in fives, SIXAINS SIXAINS in sixes. That much is obvious. There are however specific formal requirements for 'proper' cinquains or sixains written in the French manner. There is, for example, a sixain form more commonly called the in sixes. That much is obvious. There are however specific formal requirements for 'proper' cinquains or sixains written in the French manner. There is, for example, a sixain form more commonly called the sestina sestina, which we will examine in a separate section. Forms which follow a set pattern are called closed forms closed forms: the haiku, limerick and sonnet would be examples of single-stanza closed forms. Forms which leave the overall length of a poem up to the poet are called open forms open forms.
Terza Rima Tercets, three-line stanzas, can be independent entities rhyming aba cdc aba cdc and so on, or they might demand a special kind of interlocking scheme such as can be found in and so on, or they might demand a special kind of interlocking scheme such as can be found in TERZA RIMA TERZA RIMA, the form in which Dante wrote Inferno, Purgatorio Inferno, Purgatorio and and Paradiso Paradiso.
The TERZA RIMA TERZA RIMA mode is very fine, mode is very fine,Great Dante used it for his famous text;It rhymes the words in every other lineWith each thought drawing you towards the next:A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C-D...This middle rhyme is sequently annexedTo form the outer rhymes of Stanza ThreeAnd thus we make an interlocking rhyme rhyme:This subtle trick explains, at least to me,Just why this form has stood the test of time. time.
As you can see, this linked rhyming can go on for ever, the middle line of each stanza forming the outer rhymes of the one that follows it. When you come to the end of a thought, thread or section, you add a fourth line to that stanza and use up the rhyme that would otherwise have gone with the next. I have done this with 'rhyme' and appended the (indented) stop-line 'Just why this form has stood the test of time'. A young Hopkins used a stop-couplet to end his early terza rima poem, 'Winter with the Gulf Stream': to end his early terza rima poem, 'Winter with the Gulf Stream': I see long reefs of violetsIn beryl-covered ferns so dim,A gold-water Pactolus fretsIts brindled wharves and yellow brim,The waxen colours weep and run,And slendering to his burning rimInto the flat blue mist the sunDrops out and the day is done.
Chaucer, under Dante's influence, wrote the first English terza rima poem, 'A Complaint to his Lady', but the best-known example in English is probably Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind': Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;And, by the incantation of this verse,Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearthAshes and sparks, my words among mankind!Be through my lips to unawaken'd earthThe trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
It does not matter how you lay out your verse (Shelley used five fourteen-line stanzas) or in what metre (Hopkins wrote in iambic tetrameter and Shelley in pentameter): it is the rhyme-scheme rhyme-scheme that defines the form. that defines the form.
In order of ascending line length, the QUATRAIN QUATRAIN comes next. comes next.
The Quatrain The QUATRAIN QUATRAIN is is HEROIC HEROIC and profound and profoundAnd glories in the deeds of noble days:Pentameters of grave and mighty sound,Like rolling cadences of brass, give praise.Alas! its ELEGIAC ELEGIAC counterpart counterpartBemoans with baleful woe this world of strife:In graveyards and in tears it plies its artLamenting how devoid of hope is life.In equal form the COMIC QUATRAIN COMIC QUATRAIN's made,But free to say exactly what it thinks;It's brave enough to call a spade a spadeAnd dig for truth however much it stinks.
There is, of course, no formal formal difference between those three samples, they are merely produced to show you that quatrains in difference between those three samples, they are merely produced to show you that quatrains in abab abab have been used for all kinds of purposes in English poetry. Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' is probably the best-known have been used for all kinds of purposes in English poetry. Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' is probably the best-known elegiac elegiac use quatrains have been put to. Its lines have given the world classic book and film titles ( use quatrains have been put to. Its lines have given the world classic book and film titles (Far from the Madding Crowd and and Paths of Glory Paths of Glory) as well as providing some memorably stirring phrases: Forbade to wade4 through slaughter to a throne, through slaughter to a throne,And shut the gates of mercy on mankind; A cross-rhymed quatrain (perhaps obviously) allows for fuller development of an image or conceit than can be achieved with couplets: Full many a gem of purest ray serene sereneThe dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear bear;Full many a flower is born to blush un seen seen,And waste its sweetness on the desert air air.
(Gray's repetition of 'Full many' is an example of a rhetorical trope called anaphora anaphora, in case you are interested, in case you care, in case you didn't already know, in case of too much anaphora, break glass. Actually, that was epanaphora epanaphora.) The Rubai From Persia comes a quatrain form called the RUBAI RUBAI (plural (plural ruba'iat ruba'iat or or ruba'iyat ruba'iyat), rhyming aaba, ccdc, eefe aaba, ccdc, eefe etc. etc.
In ancient Persia and Islamic lands,The price of heresy was both your hands:Indeed the cost could even be your head head(Or burial up to it in the sands).The wiser heads would write a RUBAI RUBAI down downAnd pass it quietly round from town to town,Anonymous, subversive and directThe best examples garnered great renown.Collections of these odes, or RUBA'IYAT RUBA'IYATShowed sultans where progressive thought was at;Distributed by dissidents and wits,Like early forms of Russian samizdat.The Ruba'iyat of Omar, called Khayyam,Are quatrains of expansive, boozy charm.As found in Horace, Herrick and Marvell,The message is: 'Drink! When did wine do harm?Too soon the sun will set upon our tents,Don't waste your time with pious, false lamentsDrink deep the wine of life, then drink some more'I never heard a poet make more sense.
The translation of the Ruba'iat of Omar Khayyam Ruba'iat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald ranks alongside Burton's by Edward Fitzgerald ranks alongside Burton's Arabian Nights Arabian Nights as one of the great achievements of English orientalism: as one of the great achievements of English orientalism: A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread,and ThouBeside me singing in the WildernessOh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!...'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and DaysWhere Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,And one by one back in the Closet lays.The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,But Right or Left, as strikes the Player goes;And he that toss'd Thee down into the Field,He knows about it allHe knowsHE knows!The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor WitShall lure it back to cancel half a Line,Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
If that kind of poetry doesn't make your bosom heave then I fear we shall never be friends. Open forms in sixain also exist in English verse. Wordsworth in his 'Daffodils' used the stanza form Shakespeare developed in 'Venus and Adonis', essentially a cross-rhymed quatrain closing with a couplet, abab cc abab cc: For oft when on my couch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude,And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the Daffodils.
Rhyme Royal RHYME R ROYAL has a noble history has a noble historyFrom Geoffrey Chaucer to the present dayIts secret is no hidden mystery:Iambic feet, the classic English wayWith b b and and b b to follow to follow a b a a b a.This closing couplet, like a funeral hearse,Drives to its end the body of the verse.
RHYME R ROYAL (or Rime Royal as it is sometimes rendered) is most associated with Geoffrey Chaucer, whose (or Rime Royal as it is sometimes rendered) is most associated with Geoffrey Chaucer, whose Troilus and Criseyde Troilus and Criseyde marks the form's first appearance in English. It was once thought that the name derived from its later use by Henry IV, but this is now, like all pleasing stories (from King Alfred's Cakes to Mr Gere's way with gerbils), disputed by scholars. I suppose by rights a seven-line stanza should be called a heptain or septain, but I have never seen either word used. Auden used the marks the form's first appearance in English. It was once thought that the name derived from its later use by Henry IV, but this is now, like all pleasing stories (from King Alfred's Cakes to Mr Gere's way with gerbils), disputed by scholars. I suppose by rights a seven-line stanza should be called a heptain or septain, but I have never seen either word used. Auden used the ababbcc ababbcc of rhyme royal in his 'Letter to Lord Byron'. You would think that he would choose of rhyme royal in his 'Letter to Lord Byron'. You would think that he would choose ottava rima ottava rima, the form in which the addressee so conspicuously excelled. Auden apologises to his Lordship for not doing so: Ottava Rima would, I know, be properThe proper instrument on which to payMy compliments, but I should come a cropper;Rhyme-royal's difficult enough to play.But if no classics as in Chaucer's day,At least my modern pieces shall be cheeryLike English bishops on the Quantum Theory.
Auden's reluctance to use ottava rima ottava rima stemmed, one suspects, from its demand for an extra rhyme. I have always loved this form, however, as my sample verse makes clear. stemmed, one suspects, from its demand for an extra rhyme. I have always loved this form, however, as my sample verse makes clear.
Ottava Rima OTTAVA R RIMA is a poet's dream, is a poet's dream,The most congenial of forms by far.It's quite my favourite prosodic schemeAnd Byron's too, which lends it some eclat.Much more adaptable than it may seem,It plays both classical and rock guitar;It suits romantic lyric inspiration,But I prefer Byronic-style deflation.
As you can see, OTTAVA R RIMA rhymes rhymes abababcc abababcc and thus presents in eight lines, hence the ottava, as in octave. It is in effect rhyme royal with an extra line, but just as one or more gene in the strand of life can make all the difference, so one or more line in a stanza can quite alter the identity of a form. The origins of ottava rima are to be found in Ariosto's epic and thus presents in eight lines, hence the ottava, as in octave. It is in effect rhyme royal with an extra line, but just as one or more gene in the strand of life can make all the difference, so one or more line in a stanza can quite alter the identity of a form. The origins of ottava rima are to be found in Ariosto's epic Orlando Furioso Orlando Furioso and it entered English in translations of this and other Italian epics. John Hookham Frere saw its potential for mock-heroic use and it was through his 1817 work and it entered English in translations of this and other Italian epics. John Hookham Frere saw its potential for mock-heroic use and it was through his 1817 work Whistlecraft Whistlecraft that Byron came to use the form, first in that Byron came to use the form, first in Beppo Beppo and then in his masterpiece of subverted epic and scattergun satire, and then in his masterpiece of subverted epic and scattergun satire, Don Juan Don Juan.
As Auden remarks, 'Rhyme-royal's difficult enough...'. Two pairs of three rhymes and a couplet per verse. Perverse indeed.
Some of W. B. Yeats's best loved later poems take the form away from scabrous mock-heroics by mixing true rhyme with the sonorous twentieth-century possibilities opened up by the use of slant-rhyme, finding an unexpected lyricism. This is the celebrated last stanza of 'Among School Children': Labour is blossoming or dancing whereThe body is not bruised to pleasure soul,Nor beauty born out of its own despair,Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,How can we know the dancer from the dance?
I trust you are still reading out loud reading out loud...
Spenserian Stanza Nine lines of verse did E EDMUND S SPENSER take takeTo forge the style that bears his name divine,A form that weaves and wanders like a snakeWith art all supple, subtle, serpentine,Constructing verse of intricate designWhose coils, caressing with sublime conceit,Engirdle and embrace each separate line:But Spenser, with an extra final beat,Unsnakelike ends his verse on hexametric feet.
An open form whose qualities have appealed to few in recent times is the SPENSERIAN S STANZA, which Edmund Spenser developed from the ottava rima of Tasso and Ariosto for his epic, The Faerie Queen The Faerie Queen. But you never know, it might be the very structure you have been looking for all these years. The rhyme-scheme is seen to be ababbcbcc ababbcbcc, and is cast in eight lines of iambic pentameter followed by an iambic alexandrine. Byron used the form in 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage', and Keats in 'The Eve of Saint Agnes': Saint Agnes' EveAh, bitter chill it was!The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,And silent was the flock in woolly fold:Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he toldHis rosary, and while his frosted breath,Like pious incense from a censer old,Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.
Clive James is one of the few poets I know to have made something new and comic of the Spenserian Stanza: his epistolary verse to friends published in his collection Other Passports Other Passports contains some virtuoso examples, well worth looking at if you are thinking of trying the form: it includes the excellent admonitory alexandrine, 'You can't just arse around for ever having fun.' Martin Amis, to whom the verse was written, certainly took the advice, as we know. I am aware of few modern serious poems in the form, the last significant work appearing to be Tennyson's 'The Lotos-Eaters', although Cambridge University offers an annual contains some virtuoso examples, well worth looking at if you are thinking of trying the form: it includes the excellent admonitory alexandrine, 'You can't just arse around for ever having fun.' Martin Amis, to whom the verse was written, certainly took the advice, as we know. I am aware of few modern serious poems in the form, the last significant work appearing to be Tennyson's 'The Lotos-Eaters', although Cambridge University offers an annual5Spenserian Stanza Competition open to all comers of any age or fighting weight, which 'fosters and recognizes student excellence in the writing of Spenserian stanzas' and is sponsored by the International Spenser Society, no less. The past winners appear to have written theirs very much in the style of Spenser himself, complete with phalanxes of recondite archaic Spenserian words and syntax, rather than to have exhibited any interest in demonstrating the form's fitness for modern use, which seems a pity.
ADOPTING AND A ADAPTING.
Other stanzaic forms are mentioned in the Glossary, the VENUS AND A ADONIS S STANZA, for example. Of course it remains your decision as to how you divide your verse: into general quatrains or tercets and so on, or into more formal stanzaic arrangements such as ottava rima or ruba'iat, or any self-invented form you choose. Ted Hughes wrote his poem 'Thistles' in four stanzas of three-line verse. Tercets, if one wishes to call them that, but very much his own form for his own poem.
Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of menThistles spike the summer airOr crackle open under a blue-black pressure.Every one a revengeful burstOf resurrection, a grasped fistfulOf splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust upFrom the underground stain of a decaying Viking.They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects.Every one manages a plume of blood.Then they grow grey, like men.Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear,Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.
You may think that this is arbitraryenjambment between stanzas two and three shows that each does not wholly contain its own thought. Hughes is following no closed or open form, why then should he bother to set his verse in stanzas at all? Why not one continuous clump of lines? All kinds of neat arguments could be made about the poem itself needing, as the ground does, to fight the random aggression of its thistling, bristling words, to be farmed; then again, maybe four stanzas reflect the four seasons of the thistles' birth, flourishing, death and rebirth; or one might think the stanzas in their short definitive shape chime with the plainly laid down statements Hughes makes, but I do not think such sophistry, even when it convinces, is necessary. We see, we feel, we know that the layout is just plain right right. Imagine the same lines in one group: something something is lost. Perhaps Hughes wrote it as a single stream of lines and then realised that they needed arrangement into four groups of three much as an artist might realise that he needs to regroup his landscape, rubbing out a tree in the background, foregrounding that clump of bushes, moving the church spire to the right and so on. The artist does not consult a book on composition or apply absolutely set rules learned at art school, he just feels, he just is lost. Perhaps Hughes wrote it as a single stream of lines and then realised that they needed arrangement into four groups of three much as an artist might realise that he needs to regroup his landscape, rubbing out a tree in the background, foregrounding that clump of bushes, moving the church spire to the right and so on. The artist does not consult a book on composition or apply absolutely set rules learned at art school, he just feels, he just knows knows. Experience and openness, instinct and a feel for order, these are not taught, but they are not entirely inborn either. Reading, preparation, concentration and a poetic eye that is every bit as attuned as a poetic ear all contribute to the craftsmanship, the poetic skill that might, in time, make such judgements second nature.
If, then, you wish to use your own stanzas, rhyming or not, organised in traditional or personal ways, allow yourself to feel that same sense of composition and rightness, just as you might when arranging knick-knacks and invitations on a mantelpiece or designing a birthday card. It is not a question of right and wrong, but nor is it a question of anything goes. Incidentally, do allow yourself to enjoy Hughes's use of the word 'fistful'a fabulous consonantal and and assonantal play on 'thistle', rhyming back to the first word of the second line. Is it not assonantal play on 'thistle', rhyming back to the first word of the second line. Is it not divine divine?
An open quatrain form whose qualities are sui generis sui generis enough to deserve a whole section on its own is the enough to deserve a whole section on its own is the ballad ballad. It is our next stoponce the following exercise is done.
Poetry Exercise 11 As you can see I have headed each section above with my own attempts to describe each stanza form under discussion in its own dress. Your exercise is to do the same but better but better. I look forward to bumping into you one day in the street or on a train and hearing you recite to me in triumphal tones your self-referential rhymes royal and auto-descriptive Ruba'iyat.
III.
The Ballad In fours and threes and threes and fours The BALLAD BALLAD beats its drum: beats its drum: 'The Ancient Mariner' of course Remains the exemplum.
With manly eights (or female nines) You are allowed if 'tis your pleasure, To stretch the length to equal lines And make a ballad of LONG MEASURE LONG MEASURE.
Well, what more need a poet know?
In technical prosodic parlance we could say that most ballads present in quatrains of alternate cross-rhymed iambic tetrameter and trimeter quatrains of alternate cross-rhymed iambic tetrameter and trimeter. However, since the ballad is a swinging, popular form derived from song and folk traditions it is much better described as a form that comes in four-line verses, usually alternating between four and three beats to line. The word comes from ballare ballare, the Italian for 'to dance' (same root as ballet, ballerina and ball).
The ballad's irresistible lilt is familiar to us in everything from nursery rhymes to rugby songs. We know it as soon as we hear it, the shape and the rhythm seem inborn: There's nothing like a ballad songFor lightening the loadI'll chant the buggers all day longUntil my tits explode.A sweetly warbled ballad verseWill never flag or tireI sing 'em loud for best or worseThough both my balls catch fire.I'll roar my ballads loud and gruff,Like a lion in the zooAnd if I sing 'em loud enough'Twill tear my arse in two.
Or whatever. Old-fashioned inversions, expletives (both the rude kind and and the kind that fill out the metre) and other such archaic tricks considered inadmissible or old-fashioned in serious poetry suit the folksy nature of ballad. The ballad is pub poetry, it is naughty and nautical, crude and carefree. Its elbows are always on the table, it never lowers the seat for ladies after it's been or covers its mouth when it burps. It can be macabre, brutal, sinister, preachy, ghostly, doom-laden, lurid, erotic, mock-solemn, facetious, pious or obscenesometimes it exhibits all of those qualities at once. Its voice is often that of the club bore, the drunken rogue, the music hall entertainer or the campfire strummer. It has little interest in descriptions of landscape or the psychology of the individual. Chief among its virtues is a keen passion to tell you a story: it will grab you by the lapels, stare you in the eyes and plunge right in: the kind that fill out the metre) and other such archaic tricks considered inadmissible or old-fashioned in serious poetry suit the folksy nature of ballad. The ballad is pub poetry, it is naughty and nautical, crude and carefree. Its elbows are always on the table, it never lowers the seat for ladies after it's been or covers its mouth when it burps. It can be macabre, brutal, sinister, preachy, ghostly, doom-laden, lurid, erotic, mock-solemn, facetious, pious or obscenesometimes it exhibits all of those qualities at once. Its voice is often that of the club bore, the drunken rogue, the music hall entertainer or the campfire strummer. It has little interest in descriptions of landscape or the psychology of the individual. Chief among its virtues is a keen passion to tell you a story: it will grab you by the lapels, stare you in the eyes and plunge right in: Now gather round and let me tellThe tale of Danny Wise:And how his sweet wife AnnabelleDid suck out both his eyes.And if I tell the story trueAnd if I tell it clear,There's not a mortal one of youWon't shriek in mortal fear.
How could we not want to know more? Did she really really suck them out? Was Danny Wise suck them out? Was Danny Wise asleep asleep? Was Annabelle a witch? How did it all turn out? Did he get his revenge? Is the teller of the tale poor Danny himself? Sadly, I have no idea because the rest of it hasn't come to me yet.
While the second and fourth lines should rhyme, the first and third do not need to, it is up to the balladeer to choose, abab abab or or abcb abcb: nor is any regularity or consistency in your rhyme-scheme required throughout, as this popular old ballad demonstrates: In Scarlet Town, where I was born,There was a fair maid dwellin' dwellin'Made every lad cry wellaway,And her name was Barbara Allen Allen.All in the merry month of May May,When green buds they were swellin' swellin',Young Jemmy Grove on his deathbed lay lay,For love of Barbara Allen Allen.
A quatrain is by no means compulsory, a six-line stanza is commonly found, rhyming xbxbxb xbxbxb, as in Lewis Carroll's 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' and Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol Ballad of Reading Gaol.
The Walrus and the CarpenterWere walking close at hand hand:They wept like anything to seeSuch quantities of sand sand:'If this were only cleared away,'They said, 'it would be grand grand.'And all men kill the thing they love,By all let this be heard heard,Some do it with a bitter look,Some with a flattering word word,The coward does it with a kiss,The brave man with a sword sword!
Although more 'literary' examples may favour a regular accentual-syllabic measure, ballads are perfect examples of accentual verse: it doesn't matter how many measure, ballads are perfect examples of accentual verse: it doesn't matter how many syllables syllables there are, it is the beats that matter. Here is Marriot Edgar's 'Albert and the Lion', which was written as a comic monologue to be recited to a background piano that plunks down its chords on the beats of each four-or three-stress line. Part of the pleasure of this style of ballad is the mad scudding rush of there are, it is the beats that matter. Here is Marriot Edgar's 'Albert and the Lion', which was written as a comic monologue to be recited to a background piano that plunks down its chords on the beats of each four-or three-stress line. Part of the pleasure of this style of ballad is the mad scudding rush of un unaccented syllables, the pausing, the accelerations and decelerations: when Stanley Holloway performed this piece, the audience started to laugh simply at his timing timing of the rhythm. I have marked with underlines the syllables that might receive a little extra push if required: it is usually up to the performer. Recite it as you read. of the rhythm. I have marked with underlines the syllables that might receive a little extra push if required: it is usually up to the performer. Recite it as you read.
There's a fam famous seaside place called Black Blackpool,That's noted noted for for fresh fresh-air and fun fun,And Mr Mr and and Mrs Mrs Rams RamsbottomWent there with young there with young Al Albert, their son son.A grand grand little little lad lad was their was their Al AlbertAll dressed dressed in his in his best best; quite a swell swell'E'd a stick stick with an with an 'ors 'orse's 'ead 'and 'andleThe fin finest that Wool Woolworths could sell sell.
Or there's Wallace Casalingua's 'The Day My Trousers Fell', which has even more syllables to contend with: Now I trust trust that your that your ears ears you'll be you'll be lend lending,To this tale tale of our of our dec decadent times times;There's a be gin ginning, a mid middle and an end endingAnd for the most most part there's part there's rhyth rhythms and verses verses and and rhymes.My name name, you must know know, is John West Weston,Though to my friends friends I'm I'm Jack Jackie or Jack Jack;I've a place place on the on the out outskirts of Prest Preston,The tiniest scrap scrap of a garden with a of a garden with a shed shed and a and a hamm hammock round't back back.I was giv giving the fish fish girl her girl her pay payment,The cod cod were were nine ninety a pound poundWhen, with a snap snap and a rustle of and a rustle of rai raimentMy trous trousers, they dropped dropped to the to the ground ground. Con-ster-nation.
Border ballads, like 'Barbara Allen' and those of Walter Scott, became a popular genre in their own right, often like ballads, like 'Barbara Allen' and those of Walter Scott, became a popular genre in their own right, often like broadsheet broadsheet ballads expressing political grievances, spreading news and celebrating the exploits of highwaymen and other popular rebels, rogues and heroes: subgenres like the ballads expressing political grievances, spreading news and celebrating the exploits of highwaymen and other popular rebels, rogues and heroes: subgenres like the murder murder ballad still exist, ballad still exist,6 often told from the murderer's point of view, full of grim detail and a sardonic acknowledgement of the inevitability of tragedy. often told from the murderer's point of view, full of grim detail and a sardonic acknowledgement of the inevitability of tragedy.
Frankie and Johnny were lovers,O Lordy, how they could love;They swore to be true to each other,Just as true as the stars above.He was her man but he done her wrong.
Robert Service, the English-born Canadian poet, wrote very popular rough'n'tough ballads mostly set around the Klondike Gold Rush; you will really enjoy reading this out, don't be afraid (if alone) to try a North American accentand it should be fast fast: A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and glare,There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
To observe the regularity of the caesuras in this ballad would be like complimenting an eagle on its intellectual grasp of the principles of aerodynamics, but I am sure you can see that 'Dangerous Dan McGrew' could as easily be laid out with line breaks after 'up' and 'box' in the first two lines, 'drink' in the last and as the commas indicate elsewhere, to give it a standard four-three structure. We remember this layout from our examination of Kipling's ballad in fourteeners, 'Tommy'. A. E. Housman's 'The Colour of his Hair',7 a bitter tirade against the trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde, is also cast in fourteeners. I can't resist quoting it in full. a bitter tirade against the trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde, is also cast in fourteeners. I can't resist quoting it in full.
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?And what has he been after, that they groan and shake their fists?And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.'Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;In the good old time 'twas hanging for the colour that it is;Though hanging isn't bad enough and flaying would be fairFor the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.Oh a deal of pains he's taken and a pretty price he's paidTo hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade;But they've pulled the beggar's hat off for the world to see and stare,And they're taking him to justice for the colour of his hair.Now 'tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet,And the quarry-gang on portland in the cold and in the heat,And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spareHe can curse the god that made him for the colour of his hair.
There is also a strong tradition of rural rural ballad, one of the best-known examples being the strangely macabre 'John Barleycorn': ballad, one of the best-known examples being the strangely macabre 'John Barleycorn': There were three men come out of the WestTheir fortunes for to try,And these three men made a solemn vow:John Barleycorn should die!They plowed, they sowed, they harrowed him in,Threw clods upon his head,And these three men made a solemn vow:John Barleycorn was dead!They let him lie for a very long time'Til the rain from Heaven did fall,Then Little Sir John sprung up his head,And so amazed them all.
After being scythed, threshed, pounded, malted and mashed, John Barleycorn (not a man of course, but a crop) ends his cycle in alcoholic form: Here's Little Sir John in a nut-brown bowl,And brandy in a glass!And Little Sir John in the nut-brown bowlProved the stronger man at last!For the huntsman he can't hunt the foxNor loudly blow his horn,And the tinker can't mend kettles nor potsWithout John Barleycorn!
There are ballad operas operas (John Gay's (John Gay's The Beggar's Opera The Beggar's Opera being the best known), being the best known), jazz jazz ballads and pop ballads culminating in that revolting genre, the ballads and pop ballads culminating in that revolting genre, the power power balladbut here we are leaking into popular music where the word has come to mean nothing much more than a slow love song, often (in the case of the American diva's power ballad) repulsively vain and self-regarding, all the authentic guts, vibrancy, self-deprecation and lively good humour bleached out and replaced by the fraudulent intensity of grossly artificial climaxing. I acquit country music of these vices. American ballads, balladbut here we are leaking into popular music where the word has come to mean nothing much more than a slow love song, often (in the case of the American diva's power ballad) repulsively vain and self-regarding, all the authentic guts, vibrancy, self-deprecation and lively good humour bleached out and replaced by the fraudulent intensity of grossly artificial climaxing. I acquit country music of these vices. American ballads, cowboy cowboy ballads, ballads, frontier frontier ballads and so on, were extensively collected by the Lomax family, much in the same way that Cecil Sharpe had done for rural and border ballads and other native British genres of folk and community music. Shel Silverstein came up with the ever-popular 'A Boy Named Sue' for Johnny Cash, who also wrote and performed his own superb examples, I would especially recommend the 'Ballad of Ira Hayes' if you don't already know it. ballads and so on, were extensively collected by the Lomax family, much in the same way that Cecil Sharpe had done for rural and border ballads and other native British genres of folk and community music. Shel Silverstein came up with the ever-popular 'A Boy Named Sue' for Johnny Cash, who also wrote and performed his own superb examples, I would especially recommend the 'Ballad of Ira Hayes' if you don't already know it.
One of the great strengths of the ballad in its more literary literary incarnations is that its rousing folk and comic associations can be subverted or ironically countered. Its sense of being somehow traditional, communal and authorless contrasts with that individuality and strong authorial presence we expect from the modern poet, often so alone, angst-ridden and disconnected. Both John Betjeman and W. H. Auden used this contrast to their advantage. The strong ballad structure of Betjeman's 'Death in Leamington' counters the grim, grey hopelessness of suburban lives with a characteristically mournful irony: incarnations is that its rousing folk and comic associations can be subverted or ironically countered. Its sense of being somehow traditional, communal and authorless contrasts with that individuality and strong authorial presence we expect from the modern poet, often so alone, angst-ridden and disconnected. Both John Betjeman and W. H. Auden used this contrast to their advantage. The strong ballad structure of Betjeman's 'Death in Leamington' counters the grim, grey hopelessness of suburban lives with a characteristically mournful irony: She died in the upstairs bedroomBy the light of the evening starThat shone through the plate glass windowFrom over Leamington Spa.
Nurse looked at the silent bedstead,At the grey, decaying face,As the calm of a Leamington eveningDrifted into the place.She moved the table of bottlesAway from the bed to the wall;And tiptoeing gently over the stairsTurned down the gas in the hall.
While Auden does much the same with the less genteel 'Miss Gee': Let me tell you a little storyAbout Miss Edith Gee;She lived in Clevedon TerraceAt Number 83....She bicycled down to the doctor,And rang the surgery bell;'O doctor, I've a pain inside me,And I don't feel very well.'Doctor Thomas looked her over,And then he looked some more;Walked over to his wash-basin,Said, 'Why didn't you come before?'Doctor Thomas sat over his dinner,Though his wife was waiting to ring,Rolling his bread into pellets;Said, 'Cancer's a funny thing.'...They laid her on the table,The students began to laugh;And Mr Rose the surgeonHe cut Miss Gee in half.
Casting such lost lives as ballad heroes certainly provides an ironic contrast with which to mock the arid futility of much twentieth-century life. To use the rhythms of the greenwood and the yardarm for the cloying refinement of Leamington or the grimness of Miss Gee's forlorn little world can indeed point up the chasm between the sterile present and the rich past, but such a mismatch also works in the opposite opposite direction, it raises the lonely spinsters out of their ordinariness and connects them to the tradition and richness of history, it mythologises them, if you like. When an artist paints a prostitute in the manner of a Renaissance Madonna he is simultaneously marking an ironic distinction direction, it raises the lonely spinsters out of their ordinariness and connects them to the tradition and richness of history, it mythologises them, if you like. When an artist paints a prostitute in the manner of a Renaissance Madonna he is simultaneously marking an ironic distinction and and forging an affirmative connection. The artists Gilbert and George have done much the same with their skinheads in stained-glass. These are strategies that only work because of the nature of form and genre. forging an affirmative connection. The artists Gilbert and George have done much the same with their skinheads in stained-glass. These are strategies that only work because of the nature of form and genre.
Poetry Exercise 12 A poet can be rough and flexible with the ballad, it is the beat and the narrative drive that sustains. Your exercise is to finish the one that I started a few pages ago.
Now gather round and let me tellThe tale of Danny Wise:And how his sweet wife AnnabelleDid suck out both his eyes.And if I tell the story trueAnd if I tell it clearThere's not a mortal one of youWon't shriek in mortal fear.
Don't worry about metre or syllable-countthis is a ballad. I have used an a a rhyme, by all means drop it from time to time, but do stick to the four-line structure. Enjoy yourself. One thing I can guarantee you: after you have written just one or two stanzas, you'll be chanting ballad lines to yourself as you make coffee, nip to the loo, walk to the shops and brush your teeth. The ballad has a certain flow, a rhythmic swing and a beat; it makes no difference where you go, you're sure to tap your feetwell, hush my mouth... rhyme, by all means drop it from time to time, but do stick to the four-line structure. Enjoy yourself. One thing I can guarantee you: after you have written just one or two stanzas, you'll be chanting ballad lines to yourself as you make coffee, nip to the loo, walk to the shops and brush your teeth. The ballad has a certain flow, a rhythmic swing and a beat; it makes no difference where you go, you're sure to tap your feetwell, hush my mouth...
IV.
Heroic Verse HEROIC V VERSE has passed the test of time: Iambic feet in couplets linked by rhyme, has passed the test of time: Iambic feet in couplets linked by rhyme,Its non-stanzaic structure simply screamsFor well-developed tales and epic themes.The five-stress line can also neatly fitSardonic barbs and aphoristic wit.Augustan poets marshalled their iambsTo culminate in pithy epigrams.Pope, Alexander, with pontific skillCould bend the verse to his satiric will.
The mode continued in this lofty styleUntilwith manic laugh and mocking smile New modes emerged, a kind of fractured, mad Enjambment turned up. Pauses. Something had Gone wrong...or right? The stops and starts of human Speech burst through. Now, once formal lines assume an Unforced, casual air, but nonethelessObey the rigid rules of metre, stressAnd rhyming. Gradually another changeTakes place. New poets start to rearrangeThe form, unpick the close-knit weave, make room For looser threads of consonantal rhyme.The modern age with all its angst and doubt Arrives, picks up the tab and pays its debtTo history, precedent and every voiceThat did its bit to mould heroic verse.And still today we grudgingly affirmThere's life in the old dog; our mangy formStill bites, still barks, still chases cats and birds,Still wags its tail, still pens and shepherds words,And, taken off her leash, this bitch on heatWill walk you off your pentametric feet.
HEROIC V VERSE is far from dead. Since its Chaucerian beginnings it has been endlessly revivified: after a playful Elizabethan reshaping it acquired marmoreal elegance in the eighteenth century, only to undergo a complex reworking under John Keats, Robert Browning and Wilfred Owen until it emerged blinking into the light of modern day. At first glance it seems remarkably simple, too simple, perhaps, even to deserve the appellation 'form': it is as open as they come, neither laid out in regular stanzas, nor fixed by any scheme beyond the simple is far from dead. Since its Chaucerian beginnings it has been endlessly revivified: after a playful Elizabethan reshaping it acquired marmoreal elegance in the eighteenth century, only to undergo a complex reworking under John Keats, Robert Browning and Wilfred Owen until it emerged blinking into the light of modern day. At first glance it seems remarkably simple, too simple, perhaps, even to deserve the appellation 'form': it is as open as they come, neither laid out in regular stanzas, nor fixed by any scheme beyond the simple aabbccdd aabbccdd of the rhyming couplet. New paragraph presentation is possible either with line breaks or indentation as I have offered above, but in general the verse is presented in one unbroken block. Only the occasional braced triplet will relieve the procession of couplets. To the modern eye this can be forbidding; we like everything in our world to come in handy bite-sized chunks. Yet you might say that handy bite-sized chunks is what heroic verse is best remembered for: Pope's of the rhyming couplet. New paragraph presentation is possible either with line breaks or indentation as I have offered above, but in general the verse is presented in one unbroken block. Only the occasional braced triplet will relieve the procession of couplets. To the modern eye this can be forbidding; we like everything in our world to come in handy bite-sized chunks. Yet you might say that handy bite-sized chunks is what heroic verse is best remembered for: Pope's Essays on Man Essays on Man and and on Criticism on Criticism are veritable vending machines of aphorism. are veritable vending machines of aphorism.