formal poetry - A New Poetics

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If poisonous minerals, and if that tree,
Whose fruit threw death on (else immortal) us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damn'd, alas ! why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me,
Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous?
And, mercy being easy, and glorious

To God, in His stern wrath why threatens He?
But who am I, that dare dispute with Thee?
O God, O! of Thine only worthy blood,
And my tears, make a heavenly Lethean flood,
And drown in it my sin's black memory.
That Thou remember them, some claim as debt;
I think it mercy if Thou wilt forget.

John Donne was famous for his metaphysical poems, the Holy Sonnets. This one, Sonnet #9, is a little different from the other ones. Usually, his sonnets were all about him wanting to be cleansed and for God to punish him for his sins and show him humility, etc. But here we see him thinking pretty much like everyone else would have. "God, I know I've done bad things, but why should I be punished for these things when so many other bad things in the world go unpunished? How about we just forget this ever happened, okay?"

The "Lethean flood" image refers to the river Lethe in classical mythology, which marked the border to the underworld. Supposedly having the water touch you would wipe your memory, or something like that.

Donne led an extremely difficult life, having to live through the Black Death (bubonic plague) that claimed thousands of lives daily, and living in poverty and in the midst of religious strife (Catholics vs. Protestants) and coping with the untimely death of his wife, and the deaths of many of his children. In his Holy Sonnets he pours out his heart and soul, arguing with God using sometimes shocking images and metaphors such as rape and abuse.

Donne's sonnets aren't the purest in form, but they are pure in emotion and power. I think the reason they're still so popular today is because of the raw intensity of the emotions and ideas that pour from these poems. Here you really get a glimpse into his psyche, his torment. This poem is not as intense as some of his others, like Sonnet 14, but it is just different because of its more melancholy nature. It feels like he's just ready to give up, pleading with God to just forget all the bad stuff, and make himself forget, also.

The rhythm in this poem, as in a lot of his other poems, is irregular. But this was intentional on his part; he was smart enough to know how to make it be clean and proper, but he broke the rules on purpose. The irregular rhythm and meter seem to fit well with the emotional tones of his poem. The rhyme scheme is different, too: abbaabbaaccadd. It seems like a mixture of the Petrarchan (Italian) form and the Spenserian's interlocking rhyme scheme. It works well for the poem, though; it sounds nice, but it's not overpowering, nor does it call attention to itself.

Next Sunday I'll look at one of Shakespeare's most famous sonnet, and go through it analytically to see what makes it so good. Have a nice day, everyone!

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: formal poetry, sonnet

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Spring Pools by Robert Frost

January 24th 2009 16:27

These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods—
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.

Everyone knows about poems like The Road Not Taken and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, but what about Robert Frost's less-well-known poems? Well, perhaps Spring Pools *is* well-known to everyone except me.

I came across this poem yesterday and it made my brow furrow, since I thought I'd read all the famous poems of his. So is this poem of his not very popular? Well, I for one like it a lot: the images are constructed nicely and they're not overpowering, tucked neatly inside the form of the poem. The only problem I might have with this poem is the its form, unlike most of his more famous poems, is--to me--lacking. The rhyme scheme is fine, but the way the words are put together in some places just seemed, I don't know--clunky. Not that it's a bad poem, just not in line with my aesthetic tastes.

The line "blot out and drink up and sweep away" felt a little too much; too many parallel structures. But perhaps that's what Frost wanted, for the reader to feel a little uncomfortable when reading that line. Frost was a skilled enough poet that I don't think he ever wrote anything without intention; although--like any poet--even some of his published poems might have been more juvenile attempts at mastering the craft. After all, not every poem that a good poet writes is good by default.

In the end, I still like this poem. I resonate with the seasonal images he uses, and the way he executes them is still classic Frost: simple words arranged in simple ways, but put together with other words to make something beautiful. And, as usual, the ending brings a nice thoughtful twist to the poem that opens it up to more possible meanings.

Besides, I have a soft spot for poetry that deals with nature. I love hiking and other activities that have me enjoying the great outdoors. There's such splendor and beauty and majesty in nature, tucked under fern fronds and hidden away in tree stumps. There are so many poems in the forests and the mountains waiting to be plucked like wild strawberries. Frost, through his poetic career, has gathered quite a bushel basket of hidden poems, another favorite of mine being Design.

I may in subsequent Fridays look at more of Frost's poems, probably more lesser-known ones. Tomorrow (Sunday) I'll take a look at one of John Donne's Holy Sonnets. Have a nice day!

P.S. I should have written this post yesterday as per my schedule, but yesterday was so hectic that I didn't even get to think about blogging until 2 AM...and I was much too tired.

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: formal poetry, criticism

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Poetic Budding--Sunrise

January 23rd 2009 03:20

"Sunrise"

The sun will rise, fresh and bright,
To cast off the dark of night.
Grayness clings to everything
But dies with the dawn that brings

Color to the faded world;
Light into dark unfurled
Like banners of a king.
A new day's start the dawn will sing.

So, you know how some organisms reproduce asexually? One of those processes is called budding. This is when a new, similar organism grows by itself right off the original organism and eventually comes off, becoming its own independent entity.

Well, that's what happened with this poem. While I was writing "Darkness Deposed"--which can be found earlier on this blog--this poem just kind of sprang into existence. While I was crafting the images and pruning and shaping the form of that longer poem, I got tired and needed a break. During that break I jotted this poem down, revised it later (this is the revised version) and liked it enough that I kept it alongside "Darkness Deposed."

I like this poem because it's short and to-the-point. I feel that it flows nicely, is quite concise, and that the rhyme scheme isn't too awkward or flashy. Coming from my perspective as a believer in Jesus Christ, I also wrote the poem with the double meaning of "light" coming in to destroy evil. Also, images of the second coming came into my head too, with the light coming like banners of a king. But I don't mind if other people take it to mean different things.

I might make "Poetic Budding" an irregularly regular topic, along with Condensed Poetry. I may even feature this poem's early and late incarnations for a future segment of Condensed Poetry.

Another image/metaphor I used here that I enjoy--and might use for future poems--is the idea of light also bringing color. When it's dark, you can't see colors, or at least they're very faded and washed out, like an old VHS black-and-white movie. When your life has no light in it--no joy, no clarity--everything is dull and drab. But insert some color, some light, into your life--joy, clarity, sight--and the gray turns to gold.

Hope you all have a good night/day.

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: formal poetry, writing poetry, editing

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Metrical Musings

January 19th 2009 16:47

“Take (your) Heart”

If home is where our hearts reside

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: formal poetry, villanelle, writing poetry, meter

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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost

January 18th 2009 21:01

Whose woods these are I think I know

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: formal poetry, sonnet, criticism, meter

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Messing with the Sonnet

January 16th 2009 22:36

"Grandpa"

He was the liveliest fossil on earth

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: formal poetry, sonnet, writing poetry, meter

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Denial

January 14th 2009 14:48

I'm not going to talk much today; I'm mostly going to let the poem do the talking. I will say that "Denial," my poem for today, is written as a sestina. For those who don't know, a sestina is a non-rhymed poem of six six-line stanzas, and a final three-line stanza, also known as a tornada or envoi. Sestinas are traditionally written in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter), the form that Shakespeare made famous via his plays. The difficult and fun aspect of the sestina is that the end-words of the first stanza are recycled as the end-words for every other stanza, although in a different order. If the order of the end-words in stanza 1 is 123456, then the order of those end-words in the next stanza will be 615243, and then 364152, and so on. The tornada has 2 of these words in each line, one in the middle or beginning, and the other at the end (3/6, 4/1, 5/2 or really any order you want). So the sestina lends itself to a sort of obsessive narration and the tornada wraps everything up; if done well, a sestina can be very powerful and subtle. You can take "Denial" any way you like; I wrote it as sort of a puzzle that can have various valid conclusions. Look for the word repetition, and I would love to see what your interpretation is. Here's the poem, and have a great day!

Denial

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: formal poetry, sestina, writing poetry, meter

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This gold is here to stay

January 12th 2009 15:24

"Nothing Gold Can Stay," by Robert Frost

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: formal poetry, criticism, meter

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Spenser's Sonnet 37

January 12th 2009 03:29

This is a very late edition of Sonnet Sunday: my apologies. I just got settled back in at school, and the obligatory and inevitable welcoming of friends delayed this post considerably. It's still Sunday on the U.S. east coast, so that has to count for something, right?...Right?

Sonnet 37 from Sir Edmund Spenser's "Amoretti

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Posted By: Andrew Kerstetter - Category: formal poetry, sonnet, criticism

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