No Winter Maintenance
March 12th 2009 16:28
December boughs stretch out like claws
That scratch around for sustenance
Which won’t be found till Springtime thaws.
This road’s in need of maintenance,
But signs say snow forestalls the fix.
Till Spring there‘ll be no recompense
Which make our fragile minds irate,
Though selfsame storms our souls transfix:
Our hearts their crystal mirrors bait,
Reflecting light to blind our eyes
As mounds of mirrors gather weight
And trap us under pallid skies,
Surrounded by the level white
Of snow that brings our hope’s demise.
Their weary eyes dismayed with sight
Of hidden paths and hidden holes
And roadways clogged with diamonds bright,
The people quickly think their goals
Are overwhelming; then they scheme
To fight for what the storm controls,
To push against the ice and scream
Frustrations at the diamond-wall,
To melt the frost, their rage redeem
The time it took to shred the pall
And give them some small sustenance,
All peaceful thoughts beyond recall.
They never win the fight, nor get their recompense:
As I await in warm abode for Spring to make the call,
They know defeat and raise the sign “No winter maintenance.”
Living in the midst of the U.S. snowbelt region, I'm well-acquainted with the "no winter maintenance" sign, and people's frustration at the snow. This poem can be seen as humorous, but also harboring some deeper more serious thoughts and critiques on humanity and human nature. At least that's my opinion; but of course the final word isn't really up to me, since I'm biased.
This poem takes the form of a terza rima. A terza rima is, in my mind, a sort of combination of the Spenserian sonnet's interlocking rhyme and the villanelle's repetition. Instead of whole repeating lines like the villanelle, the tercets (3-line stanzas) of the terza rima are connected by their end-rhymes: aba bcb cdc ded, and so on. The terza rima is not a closed form: the poet can continue writing the tercets as long as he wants as long as the rhyme scheme remains intact. This poem form usually ends with either a single line that rhymes with one of the lines in the previous tercet, a rhyming couplet, or with a final tercet that fits the rest of the poem's rhyme.
I chose to write this poem in iambic tetrameter, but the final tercet has one line of hexameter and two lines of heptameter. When I say iambic pentameter, I'm not talking about the number of syllables: I'm talking about the number of poetic feet. If you just say "pentameter" that means there are five feet--hexameter= six feet, heptameter=seven feet, tetrameter= four feet, etc. A poetic foot is made up of two or more syllables; some feet have up to 5 or 6 syllables (though in that range it's mostly splitting hairs...a 5-6 syllable foot could easily be interpreted as 2 or more smaller feet).
But when I say "iambic" I'm referring to what kind of poetic foot is used in the line. An iamb is a foot of two syllables, an unstressed one followed by a stressed one. But there are 3-syllable and 4-syllable feet as well: a dactylic foot has a stressed syllable and 2 unstresseds ("Washington"), and its opposite is an anapestic foot, or anapest. A cretic foot--or amphimacer--has a stressed, unstressed, and another stressed syllable ("Crocodile"). An example of a four-syllable foot is a secundus paeon, which has one unstressed syllable then a stressed syllable, then 2 more unstressed syllables.
So when you see a term like "iambic pentameter" versus "dactylic trimeter," the 2nd one has only 1 less syllable than the first, because a dactyl is 3 syllables, and trimeter means there are 3 feet, so there are 3 dactyls= 9 syllables. Pentameter means 5 feet, and if its iambic, then there are 5 iambs= 10 syllables. So don't assume that just because something says "pentameter" or "tetrameter" that it will have 10 or 8 syllables, since the number of syllables depends on what kind of foot is used.
Anyway, back to my poem. The hardest part of terza rimas, for me, is the interlocking rhyme scheme. I have concrete, poetic ideas, but I have to mold them, manipulate them to fit the form. This is annoying but also rewarding, as it helps expand your vocabulary and mode of thinking. If it weren't for this restriction, I might not have come up with my metaphors of snow/ice being like mirrors and diamonds. I picked diamonds because I honestly don't think they're very attractive...it's just a cultural thing. They're just obnoxiously sparkly with no color at all. I find it shallow and unaesthetic that the only reason people value diamonds so much is because they're pricey; rare; valuable. I don't see much aesthetic/romatic value in them at all. Of course there are plenty of people who honestly think diamonds are beautiful, but a huge majority of people only value them because they are themselves very valuable monetarily.
I also made the poem circular in a way, reusing the words 'maintenance' and 'recompense' at the end, just as I did near the beginning. Also notice the shifting viewpoint/pronouns throughout the poem...see if you can decipher some meaning from the shift of pronoun usage. I'm trying more and more in my poetry to add subtle clues to make readers think without knocking them over the head with what I'm trying to do. Let me know if it works!
Tomorrow I'll start a new segment on epic poetry by beginning my discussion of John Milton's Paradise Lost. Starting with book 1, each Friday I'll discuss each subsequent book's themes and how it accomplishes its task poetically. I'll also try to mark the important differences between epic poetry and prose and other, shorter poetry. Until then, have a nice day!
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