Echo Chamber with Comments

(in Open Form)

of this you can be sure

             no need to ignore

perhaps in time

            when clock does chime

the slime no more on outroads

or sleet inroads                                  out there

all  clean...again         swear

each day and apple in gullet

             doc at bay

                         nuh bills to pay

yea, man

            joke and poke

                        frolic and graze

lambs out there...catnip and tulips  frowns ..... tears... barbwiremusement        wind in trees stiff as a board     airconden..sir  enslaved

Look

             they      dance            prance

no cry...no sigh...life too short for strife 

Manup

            put      gun      knife  away

                        yuh  must be some gallowsbait or redneck  chicken

                                    or  some brainless centipede wuh yuh say

Such a handsome man born in may

                                                             ray the name on display

vagrant slapping tar

                        headfull of river tamarinds sprouting

like some backyard spinach patch

            keeping him in a fray...         driftwood on some bay

where is humanity? eyes seem to say to church bell-goers with deaf ears

           

Too many sad nights

            watching orchestrated fights

                        without keeping score           boxer falls to the floor

face full of sweat and gore

                                     the crowd beehive for exitdoor

            not wanting

                                    to be bombed anymore

 yahall should know

 echo is  hello...on rebound...every time

                        the persistence of the chime

            when a sound is dropped

                        after its source has stopped...the distance replies

to  the echo sounds of imagist rebound

of Cummings with the Ezra Pound

of Frost on Justice standing on the Virginia  of     Woolf

they rode high on the individuality express

lyrically bulldozing those fixed blocks of measured thought

blooming in Victorian gardens
full of romantic musings 

©Paterika Hengreaves
(September 26, 2013)

Readers who are accustomed reading poems written in traditional forms known as Fixed From, Closed Form and Classical Forms would find the poem “Echo Chamber” does not fit the mold of traditional form because of its fragmented style and lacks conciseness. This poem has broken all the rules governing Fixed Form poetry with respect to rhyme scheme pattern, meter, syllable count, syntax, punctuation, spelling, stanzaic arrangements and is devoid of a consistent pattern; this is because it is written Free Verse also referred to as Open Form and Non-Conformist Poetry. However, it must be said of Free Verse that in spite of its rhyming pattern it fosters a rhythmic cadence that relies on natural speech.

Dylan Thomas the modernist poet sought to point out the free spirited nature of Free Verse that thrive on the concept of individuality and not on the slavish dictates of traditional forms of poetry in a poem entitled “A Letter to My Aunt” in Free Verse discussed the correct approach to modernist poetry as shown below:

A Letter to My Aunt (Dylan Thomas)

To you, my aunt, who would explore The literary Chankley Bore, The paths are hard, for you are not A literary Hottentot But just a kind and cultured dame Who knows not Eliot (to her shame). Fie on you, aunt, that you should see No genius in David G., No elemental form and sound In T.S.E. and Ezra Pound. Fie on you, aunt! I'll show you how To elevate your middle brow, And how to scale and see the sights From modernist Parnassian heights. First buy a hat, no Paris model But one the Swiss wear when they yodel, A bowler thing with one or two Feathers to conceal the view; And then in sandals walk the street (All modern painters use their feet For painting, on their canvas strips, Their wives or mothers, minus hips). Perhaps it would be best if you Created something very new, A dirty novel done in Erse Or written backwards in Welsh verse, Or paintings on the backs of vests, Or Sanskrit psalms on lepers' chests. But if this proved imposs-i-ble Perhaps it would be just as well, For you could then write what you please, And modern verse is done with ease.

Do not forget that 'limpet' rhymes With 'strumpet' in these troubled times, And commas are the worst of crimes; Few understand the works of Cummings, And few James Joyce's mental slummings, And few young Auden's coded chatter; But then it is the few that matter. Never be lucid, never state, If you would be regarded great, The simplest thought or sentiment, (For thought, we know, is decadent); Never omit such vital words As belly, genitals and -----, For these are things that play a part (And what a part) in all good art. Remember this: each rose is wormy, And every lovely woman's germy; Remember this: that love depends On how the Gallic letter bends; Remember, too, that life is hell And even heaven has a smell Of putrefying angels who Make deadly whoopee in the blue. These things remembered, what can stop A poet going to the top? A final word: before you start The convulsions of your art, Remove your brains, take out your heart; Minus these curses, you can be A genius like David G. Take courage, aunt, and send your stuff To Geoffrey Grigson with my luff, And may I yet live to admire How well your poems light the fire.

Free Verse illustrates a radical disconnect from classical brands of poetic expression, started by a band of maverick poets who were influenced by the imagist movement of 1912. Their mission statement was couched under the banner of “make it new”. It came across the Atlantic to America as an import from the British modernist poetry genre around the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. E. E. Cummings, James Joyce Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams T. S. Eliot, and Langston Hughes, just to mention a few, embossed this new poetic art form.

Modernist poetry showed up in 1890 and 1970 in the context of Modernism. Schools within it included imagism and the British Poetry Revival. Ezra Pound played his role in the onslaught on Fixed Form poetry. Here are two poems selected as examples from his stockpile of Open Form poetry:

A Pact

I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman -

I have detested you long enough.

I come to you as a grown child

Who has had a pig-headed father;

I am old enough now to make friends.

It was you that broke the new wood,

Now is a time for carving.

We have one sap and one root -

Let there be commerce between us

(by Ezra Pound )

A Girl

The tree has entered my hands,

The sap has ascended my arms,

The tree has grown in my breast -

Downward,

The branches grow out of me, like arms.

Tree you are,

Moss you are,

You are violets with wind above them.

A child - so high - you are,

And all this is folly to the world. 

(by Ezra Pound)

The nature of Modernism in poetry is such that it broke with the immediate past, and sought to “make it new” by throwing the Classical Form of poetry under the bus. Objectivity and impersonality drove the engines of Modernist poetry with a vengeance. Modernist poets who in addition to abandoning Fixed Form rules in poetry believed it was essential to by-past poetry that elevated the personal toward poetry that projected intellectual expression about the world around mankind, even though at times they reverted to the personal like for example in the case  when T. S. Eliot did so in “Four  Quartets”.  The concern at this moment is not to provide an analysis of the four poems that make-up “Four Quartets” per se but to focus on the element of form as they are written down by the poet. No one can escape the fact that T. S. Eliot favored the Free Verse format when sharing his poetic thoughts. The excerpt from “Burnt Norton” the first poem in the set of four poems in “Four Quartets” provides an example as follows:

Burnt Norton

T. S. Eliot

                 

Words move, music moves

Only in time; but that which is only living

Can only die. Words, after speech, reach

Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,

Can words or music reach

The stillness, as a Chinese jar still

Moves perpetually in its stillness.

Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,

Not that only, but the co-existence,

Or say that the end precedes the beginning,

And the end and the beginning were always there

Before the beginning and after the end.

And all is always now. Words strain,

Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,

Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,

Will not stay still. Shrieking voices

Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,

Always assail them. The Word in the desert

Is most attacked by voices of temptation,

The crying shadow in the funeral dance,

The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

Edward Estlin Cummings wrote Free Verse poetry too.  An example of this is shown in his poem “I Will Wade Out” as follows:

I Will Wade Out

i will wade out

                        till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers

I will take the sun in my mouth

and leap into the ripe air

                                       Alive

                                                 with closed eyes

to dash against darkness

                                       in the sleeping curves of my body

Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery

with chasteness of sea-girls

                                            Will i complete the mystery

                                            of my flesh

I will rise

               After a thousand years

lipping

flowers

             And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

Cummings had this to say in defense of Free Verse; “so far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art form was, is, and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality”. Here, Cummings opined that poets should be left to their own devices when creating poetry without a blueprint that comes in the form of Close Form poetry. He was not alone in this because other Modernist poets were of the same persuasion.

Langston Hughes created his jazzy poems in Free Verse with heaps of symbolism as he stretched his poetic voice to speak of freedom and the struggles of ‘black America’ still relevant in 21^st century America as far as people of color is concerned. Here are three examples bearing the titles “Bass Spittoons”, “Bound No’th Blues” “As I Grow Older” from his poetic works written in Free Verse shown below:

Brass Spittoons

Clean the spittoons, boy. 

Detroit, 

Chicago, 

Atlantic City, 

Palm Beach. 

Clean the spittoons. 

The steam in hotel kitchens, 

And the smoke in hotel lobbies, 

And the slime in hotel spittoons: 

Part of my life. 

Hey, boy! 

A nickel, 

A dime, 

A dollar, 

Two dollars a day. 

Hey, boy! 

A nickel, 

A dime, 

A dollar, 

Two dollars 

Buy shoes for the baby. 

House rent to pay. 

Gin on Saturday, 

Church on Sunday. 

My God! 

Babies and gin and church 

And women and Sunday 

All mixed with dimes and 

Dollars and clean spittoons 

And house rent to pay. 

Hey, boy! 

A bright bowl of brass is beautiful to the Lord. 

Bright polished brass like the cymbals 

Of King David’s dancers, 

Like the wine cups of Solomon. 

Hey, boy! 

A clean spittoon on the altar of the Lord. 

A clean bright spittoon all newly polished— 

At least I can offer that. 

Com’mere, boy! 

(Langston Hughes)

 Bound No’th Blues

Goin’ down the road, Lawd,

Goin’ down the road.

Down the road, Lawd,

Way,way down the road.

Got to find somebody

To help me carry this load. 

Road’s in front o’ me,

Nothin’ to do but walk.

Road’s in front of me,

Walk…an’ walk…an’ walk.

I’d like to meet a good friend

To come along an’ talk. 

Hates to be lonely,

Lawd, I hates to be sad.

Says I hates to be lonely,

Hates to be lonely an’ sad,

But ever friend you finds seems

Like they try to do you bad. 

Road, road, road, O!

Road, road…road…road, road!

Road, road, road, O!

On the no’thern road.

These Mississippi towns ain’t

Fit fer a hoppin’ toad

 (Langston Hughes)

As I Grew Older

It was a long time ago.

I have almost forgotten my dream.

But it was there then,

In front of me,

Bright like a sun-

My dream.

And then the wall rose,

Rose slowly,

Slowly,

Between me and my dream.

Rose until it touched the sky-

The wall.

Shadow.

I am black.

I lie down in the shadow.

No longer the light of my dream before me,

Above me.

Only the thick wall.

Only the shadow.

My hands!

My dark hands!

Break through the wall!

Find my dream!

Help me to shatter this darkness,

To smash this night,

To break this shadow

Into a thousand lights of sun,

Into a thousand whirling dreams

Of sun!

(Langston Hughes)

William Carlos Williams was an American poet and physician born in 1883 and died in 1963. He lived his life in an era when poets rose up against the ideology of conformist poets. He embraced the notion of individuality in his poetic undertakings. No surprise that his poems reflected modernistic and imagistic elements; a stark break from classical poetic forms and Victorian sentimentalism.  The evidence of his non-conformist ideology in English Language poetry is provided in poems he wrote and from which the following examples are provided below: 

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

(William Carlos Williams)

The Shadow

Soft as the bed in the earth

Where a stone has lain—

So soft, so smooth and so cool,

Spring closes me in

With her arms and her hands.

Rich as the smell

Of new earth on a stone,

That has lain, breathing

The damp through its pores—

Spring closes me in

With her blossomy hair;

Brings dark to my eyes.      (William Carlos Williams)

The Spouts

In this world of

as fine a pair of breasts

as ever I saw

the fountain in

Madison Square

spouts up of water

a white tree

that dies and lives

as the rocking water

in the basin

turns from the stonerim

back upon the jet

and rising there

reflectively drops down again

(William Carlos Williams)

"Libertad! Igualdad! Fraternidad!"

You sullen pig of a man

you force me into the mud

with your stinking ash-cart!

Brother!

--if we were rich

we'd stick our chests out

and hold our heads high!

It is dreams that have destroyed us.

There is no more pride

in horses or in rein holding.

We sit hunched together brooding

our fate.

Well--

all things turn bitter in the end

whether you choose the right or

the left way

and--

dreams are not a bad thing.

(William Carlos Williams)

This 20^th century poet and novelist James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was one year older than William Carlos Williams having been born on February 2, 1882 in Rathgar, Republic of Ireland. He died in 1941. He was in league with contemporaries of his time in denouncing Conformism in English Language poetic forms. Therefore, no surprise to find his poems reflected the modernist avant-garde flavor. So strong was he in non-conformist belief that it became the driving force that propelled him to break away from Catholicism because he believed poets were the repositories of genuine spiritual life; priests were mere usurpers. His non-conformist leanings are reflected in his poetic works written in different styles he compartmentalized under such headings of Chamber Music 1907, a collection of love poems; Pomes Penyeach in 1927; Collected Poems in 1936. The non-conformist leanings of James Joyce are reflected in his poetic works as seen in the following exemplars below:  

A Flower Given to My Daughter

Frail the white rose and frail are

Her hands that gave

Whose soul is sere and paler

Than time's wan wave.

Rosefrail and fair -- yet frailest

A wonder wild

In gentle eyes thou veilest,

My blueveined child.

(James Joyce)

Ecce Puer

Of the dark past

A child is born;

With joy and grief

My heart is torn.

Calm in his cradle

The living lies.

May love and mercy

Unclose his eyes!

Young life is breathed

On the glass;

The world that was not

Comes to pass.

A child is sleeping:

An old man gone.

O, father forsaken,

Forgive your son!

(James Joyce)

Who Goes Amid the Green Wood

Who goes amid the green wood

With springtide all adorning her?

Who goes amid the merry green wood

To make it merrier?

Who passes in the sunlight

By ways that know the light footfall?

Who passes in the sweet sunlight

With mien so virginal?

The ways of all the woodland

Gleam with a soft and golden fire -- -

For whom does all the sunny woodland

Carry so brave attire?

O, it is for my true love

The woods their rich apparel wear -- -

O, it is for my own true love,

That is so young and fair.

(James Joyce)

Modernist poets do not follow any rules when they are composing their poems. They are of the view that poetic creations must come from focusing on the process of poetry, not from what the words in the poem actually say. Aesthetic thought is not revered by non-conformist poets.  When asked what poetic structure influences my poetic compositions, I responded that my forte is structured poetry but I write unstructured poems as well.  I believe in a balance diet in every facet of my life.

It seems that the American poetic world is growing tired of process driven poetry (non-compliant forms) and aesthetic thought in poetry is being revisited under the banner of “New Formalism” which sprung up in the late 19^th century and early 20^th  century, a movement that champions a return to rhyme and meter in poetry. This has fuel the war of words between Free Verse fans and New Formalism fans.

The bee in the bonnet that is buzzing in the Free Verse camp is that New Formalism is retrogressive because it favors traditional metrical compliance over progressive and experimental modes of Free Verse. This back and forth spattering in the poetic world is unnecessary because both ideologies have legitimate place in poetic literature. However, experimentation in poetry is at its best when structures in formal versification are well mastered and understood before experimentation on avant-garde poetry is undertaken. A poet who only writes free verse but does not know the rudiments of structured poetry or have the ability to write a structured poem how such a poet can carry out experimentation in poetry authoritatively? Is the babbling of the tongue to be construed as poetry of excellence? The audience decides. No poetic structure is free of rules. Free Verse has rules to follow; it is not “free” in the true sense of the word. It is free because it does not adhere to the rules governing Traditional forms of versification; and that’s what free means in the world of poetry.

True freedom in words, thought and deed is driven by individualism that seeks new ways of adapting the original (the time-tested) without the eradication of its blueprint. Every new generation of poets yearn to know their true poetic roots from which they can advance their individuality in intellectual and non-intellectual pursuits; pseudo-poetic roots alone will not cut the mustard. Every generation needs to know what is authentic and what is not...when shifting the pendulum. A true poet is versatile, not a slave to one set of poetic ideology.