Poetic Evolution--Trapping the Stars
January 31st 2009 16:15
A while back I posted a poem called "Trapping the Stars." Here it is in that original incarnation:
Soul’s door spreads wide
For stars to move in,
Webbing the velvet void
In nets of smoking silver;
Heart’s hall invites
The whispering winds
To nestle near the hearth
And fan the dwindling flame;
Stars stowed indoors
Shed no light and burn
Their cage into heaps ash,
Blazing into distant darkness--
Wild wind entrapped
Will languish, giving
No spark to withered fire,
Drifting through drafty walls
To freedom.
Heart and soul must venture out
To find the light and light the fire.
Well after a while of it simmering in my brain-pot, I decided I didn't like it at all. The rhythm was all wrong and it was clunky and awkward, and I felt I didn't really get out the ideas that I wanted to. So I changed it.
But instead of condensing it--as I've done with other poetry--I expanded upon it; the poem evolved, matured, into something new and (in my opinion) better. Here's the new version of "Trapping the Stars":
The door of my soul is spread wide,
Luring the winter stars
To lend their light
And web this silent void
With glowing nets of silver lace;
This frigid hall my heart calls home
Invites the mountain winds
To bring fresh air
As food for dying flames
That choke on ashes long since spent.
But stars confined within these walls,
Break the brittle
Cage and take their leaving,
Blazing into distant darkness;
When savage wind is kept in chains,
Its breaths will slow and die
And give no spark
To chilling flames, and soon
Will be reborn in open skies.
To try and take the light of life
And keep it in a place
So dense with dark
Can only end in pain:
Regret will be the only food
For fools who try to trap the stars.
As you can see, I made the poem longer, which is the opposite of what I did with my poem "Ripples." Instead of clipping and pruning the excess verbage off the poem like I did before, I cultivated the little seedling poem and helped it blossom into a strong, leafy tree that can stand on its own.
This also goes along with what I had said about Emily Dickinson's poem "Hope is the Thing with Feathers" poem. With the original version of "Trapping the Stars," I tried too hard to make it 'free verse,' something that I'm not too good at. I was working outside my sphere of expertise, and the result was clunky, awkward, immature, and unfinished. If I'd clipped stuff off of that poem, it only would have become even more awkward and unfinished.
I changed it to have a better, more flowing meter and more concise structure throughout. I generally kept the iambic standard, except for the first two lines. The first line--which can be interpreted several ways--I read as "the DOOR of my SOUL is spread WIDE," as being `~ (`=unstressed, ~= stressed, | = boundary between feet) Ok, so the first line I thought was `~|``~|``~| which is 1 iamb and 2 anapests; definitely a free verse line. But some scholars and academics might make the argument that the line is really `~`|`~`|`~|, which is 2 amphibrachs and an iamb. But at that point it's just splitting hairs; besides, someone else might have a completely different stress pattern than me, anyway. The 2nd line, "LURing the WINter STARS" or ~`|`~|`~| is 1 trochee and 2 iambs. Again, academics might say that it's ~``|~`~|, 1 dactyl and 1 cretic. But again, that would just be splitting hairs.
The rest of the poem is pretty firmly iambic, except for the last 4 lines of the 3rd stanza, which are trochaic: "LOSing their LIVing LIGHT/ BREAK the BRIttle/ CAGE and TAKE their LEAVing/ BLAZing INto (or into) DIStant DARKness." I like switching an iambic poem up with some trochaic, because I feel the trochaic foot feels more urgent than the iamb; it's a bit more galloping, giving a sense of emotional quickness, whereas the iamb is more relaxed and natural feeling. AKA: I made those lines trochaic on purpose, whether the effect I just described was felt by other readers.
It's fine to play around with meter and feet as long as it's done with intention. Like the old saying goes, you need to learn the rules before you can break them. Whether I did so successfully in the new version of "Trapping the Stars" isn't up to me to decide. All I know is I definitely did everything in this poem--the images, the lines, the meter--with intention, so at least I can sleep well with the knowledge that I knew what I was doing. If the poem is actually "good" then I can say that I did a "good" job; but that's for other people to decide.
Have a nice day everyone!
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