Poetry Periodically #22

Monday's column featured formal pieces, a villanelle by Sylvia Plath and a terzanelle by your humble correspondent.  This time I've got some not-so-formal poems by David Wagoner, another modern American master that I was unaware of until recently.

I'll go ahead and start with one that should be posted above the door of any creative writing class.






THIS IS A WONDERFUL POEM

Come at it carefully, don't trust it, that isn't its right name,
It's wearing stolen rags, it's never been washed, its breath
Would look moss-green if it were really breathing,
It won't get out of the way, it stares at you
Out of eyes burnt gray as the sidewalk,
Its skin is overcast with colorless dirt,
It has no distinguishing marks, no I.D. cards,
It wants something of yours but hasn't decided
Whether to ask for it or just take it,
There are no policemen, no friendly neighbors,
No peacekeeping busybodies to yell for, only this
Thing standing between you and the place you were headed,
You have about thirty seconds to get past it, around it,
Or simply to back away and try to forget it,
It won't take no for an answer: try hitting it first
And you'll learn what's trembling in its torn pocket.
Now, what do you want to do about it?

- David Wagoner







Like James Wright, Wagoner's work has a certain emotional weight, a sense of melancholy nostalgia, that is always present even in the lightest of poems.  It's the same undercurrent of dark wistfulness that I've always loved and searched for in my own work, and that I see in the work that I most admire.

There are so many of Wagoner's poems that I would like to feature, but I'll give just this one more, and encourage you to seek him out, as his work is not widely anthologized and deserves better attention from the academic community.

I first noticed him in a weathered anthology from the '60s called "The Contemporary American Poets," which covered work from 1940-1968 or so, a very short window, but there is some amazing work in it, including Wagoner's "The Shooting of John Dillinger Outside the Biograph Theater, July 22, 1934," which is a masterpiece.  The book's editor was Mark Strand, who will probably appear in this column before long himself.  This poem is not from that anthology, but it makes me very happy.







THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL BAND CONCERT

When our semi-conductor
Raised his baton, we sat there
Gaping at Marche Militaire,
Our mouth-opening number.
It seemed faintly familiar
(We'd rehearsed it all that winter),
But we attacked in such a blur,
No army anywhere
On its stomach or all fours
Could have squeezed through our crossfire.

I played cornet, seventh chair,
Out of seven, my embouchure
A glorified Bronx cheer
Through that three-keyed keyhole stopper
And neighborhood window-slammer
Where mildew fought for air
At every exhausted corner,
My fingering still unsure
After scaling it for a year
Except on the spit-valve lever.

Each straight-faced mother and father
Retested his moral fiber
Against our traps and slurs
And the inadvertent whickers
Paradiddled by our snares,
And when the brass bulled forth
A blare fit to horn over
Jericho two bars sooner
Than Joshua's harsh measures,
They still had the nerve to stare.

By the last lost chord, our director
Looked older and soberer.
No doubt, in his mind's ear
Some band somewhere
In some music of some Sphere
Was striking a note as pure
As the wishes of Franz Schubert,
But meanwhile here we were:
A lesson in everything minor,
Decomposing our first composer.

- David Wagoner








Legal notice:
Some may feel that the inclusion of works not in the public domain is a violation of the fair-use doctrine of US copyright law. I obviously do not agree, but I will gladly defer to the wishes of the rightsholder, and if anyone wishes for a post of their work or work for which they own the intellectual rights to be taken down, they may ask for its removal and it will be so. I claim no ownership and have no rights as to the works I will be posting, save for any that were written by me.

Poetry Periodically #21

Two weeks rest and a basic rethinking later, here's a new start when a new start is needed.

The A Poem A Day column was a bit much to maintain every single day, so the new plan is to publish a few a week, probably three or four, more if I'm so inclined and have the time and less if I'm not and don't.  No schedule, just every couple days or so.

Today we're returning to form by exploring form, specifically the villanelle and its variations.  I personally find poetic form to be a liberating and fascinating challenge, a way of parsing my lines and images to their leanest and sharpest, by giving them a shape in which only the strongest parts fit.  It's always a step in my revision process, seeing if the poem can be given more energy and depth by reshaping it.  Some poets find formal writing unbearable, and feel it's an unnecessary construct that prevents their work from taking the shape it desires for itself.  The debate rages on.

The villanelle is a diabolical little form of French origin, consisting of 19 lines and two rhymes, with a very strict pattern of repetition, to wit:

A1  (refrain)
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1 (refrain)

a
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1 (refrain)

a
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1
A2 (refrain)

The 'a' and 'b' represent end rhymes, each 'a' or 'A' line ending with the 'a' rhyme and each 'b' line ending with the 'b' rhyme.  The 'A1' and 'A2' refrains are lines that are entirely repeated.

So, as you can see, with the repeating lines and the claustrophobic rhyme scheme, there isn't a lot of wiggle room in this form, and it's always listed as one of the most difficult to tackle (only the pantoum is harder, in my opinion).  Nevertheless, it's a form that has been the catalyst for some of the greatest poems of the last hundred years, including Roethke's "The Waking," Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," and Bishop's "One Art."

What I've got is a lesser known example, but one I find just as powerful, and in which the oppression of the two-pronged rhyme scheme is deflected by some excellent slant.




MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary darkness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said.
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

- Sylvia Plath





And if the villanelle isn't enough, there's a popular hybrid form called a terzanelle, which requires a double explanation.  The 19 line form and structure of the villanelle is intact, but the rhyme scheme and repetitions are taken from another old French form called terza rima.

Terza rima features an interlocking stanza scheme, where the middle line of one stanza is the last line of the next one, and each stanza introduces a new rhyme in the middle line, like this:

A 1
B 2
A 3

B 4
C 5
B 2

C 6
D 7
C 5

When this is applied to the villanelle form, it allows for more than two rhymes, but still maintains a pattern of line repetition, and the last stanza also features the first and third lines of the first stanza in a refrain, just like the villanelle.

I recently (as in, a couple of weeks ago) applied myself to the terzanelle form, and after several revisions over many days achieved the following.  The terzanelle allows for a very lush and dense poem with its additional rhymes and interlocking repetitions, and I gave myself the extra constraint of a generalized rhythm scheme of tetrameter.  Here's the unabashedly sentimental result:




BALLAD TIME

The ballad time has just begun;
The bass exhaling in our hair,
The steady breathing of the drum.

The solid darkness of the air
Inhales the words as they are sung,
The bass exhaling in our hair.

The world fills with a molten hum;
The floor under the dancers' feet
Exhales the words as they are sung.

There's a moment when our fingers meet,
Hearts fluid, lifted off the ground,
No floor under the dancers' feet.

The waxen room is coming down,
The seconds dripping down the walls,
Liquid souls pooling on the ground.

The air shimmers, quickening, and falls.
The ballad time has now begun;
The seconds dripping down the walls,
The steady breathing of the drum.

- John Phillips










Legal notice:
Some may feel that the inclusion of works not in the public domain is a violation of the fair-use doctrine of US copyright law. I obviously do not agree, but I will gladly defer to the wishes of the rightsholder, and if anyone wishes for a post of their work or work for which they own the intellectual rights to be taken down, they may ask for its removal and it will be so. I claim no ownership and have no rights as to the works I will be posting, save for any that were written by me.