Damaged Wine Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel A. Scurek) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:58:00 +0000

Vintage Poem of the Week:

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel A. Scurek) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:46:00 +0000

One of the most studied and debated poems in the history of the English language. Perhaps Robert Browning's most famous poem, first published in 1842, my version is copied from the George Mason University academic research systems website. Click on links for excellent footnotes.

My Last Duchess
(Ferrara)

That's my last duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
That depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain drawn for you, but I) [10]
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much" or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough [20]
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart - how shall I say? - too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 't was all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace -all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech, [30]
Or blush,at least. She thanked men - good! but thanked
Somehow - I know not how - as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech - (which I have not) - to make your will
Quite clear to such a one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss
Or there exceed the mark"- and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set [40]
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse
- E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence [50]
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me .

Wikipedia

Poets.org

Victorian Web

The Literature Network

Books and Writers

Good Poetry vs. Bad Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel A. Scurek) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:52:00 +0000

WHY EXCELLENCE?

What a conceit: “excellence in poetry”. We assume excellence, don’t we? Why state such obvious criteria? Does anyone aim for mediocrity in poetry?

Hard to tell. I doubt it. But since excellence can be so subjective, publishers assume that high quality is their natural benchmark. But quality might become eschewed when another mission sits center stage. I’ve read wildly radical poetry that misses the mark but got published anyway because it fit a magazine’s criteria of bold, uncompromising and untraditional. And I’ve read poems drowning in sentimentality yet published in formalist magazines because, I assume, they fit the magazine’s basic structural criteria.

The difference between good and great is debatable. That’s fair. But similarly, because we often use subjective criteria, we find the differentiation between bad and good even more problematic. I once saw a staged reading of a very poorly written play. But because the playwright made the characters speak nonsensically most of the time, one audience member applauded the writer as poetic, stating that, “we need more poetry onstage”. Was the audience member incapable of recognizing that the “poetry” in the play was awful? How did the word “poetry” become not only an adjective but one that we instantly recognize as complimentary? Why, when someone critiques a work by saying, “it’s poetic”, do we recognize this as a compliment, without question?

I blame conceptual art—at least partially. Because of conceptual art, everyone can label themselves “artist” and their work “art” because, even when the execution is arguably weak, the subjective idea behind it is more easily defended. My favorite definition concerning the difference between good poetry and great poetry comes from the late poet Judson Jerome who said (and I'm paraphrasing) "...good poetry aims for expression; great poetry aims for communication". Not only do I think this makes for an excellent definition of great art, period, I think it can be used to separate the good from the bad in poetry.

I think most people get confused between bad and great poetry. I know I do. Great and bad poetry often mingle and dance together; so much so that it’s often nearly impossible to tell them apart. Consider their strongest similarity: both often make huge demands on the reader. But poetry that is little more than wordplay gets real dull real quick. Paintings can be abstract because they don't require deduction in order to appreciate them. But with poetry you have to decode the language first (or eventually) and if it doesn't make sense it just gets boring. But poetry is also language and good poetry gets inside language and illuminates. So the high quality stuff can also seem to not make sense. This is why I think good and bad poetry get mixed up so often: we’re used to poetry being difficult, we’ve been taught that good poetry is difficult, we therefore believe that if it’s difficult, it must be good.

But simple and straightforward reads like prose. Is that bad? Writing straightforward poetry is, of course, not bad. Shakespeare’s sonnets, once you sort through the arcane words and phrases, are astonishingly clear. But simple and straightforward might also be prose in disguise. Broken-line prose irritates me more than nonsense because it's trying to be sneaky: express some pedestrian thought but make it look all jagged on the page and - oompa! Poetry!

And the same happens in incomprehensible poetry. Trust me, I know: I’ve written plenty of it. Try an experiment. Write something incomprehensible but put a famous poet’s name to it. Then give it to someone to read. The reader might not like it but I bet they will blame themselves before they blame the poet. I know that the first time I read T.S. Eliot’s, “The Wasteland”, I blamed myself for not understanding it. I’ve been told it’s a great poem; if I don’t get it, the fault must lie with me. On the same note, I found poems in William Blake’s Songs of Innocence to be so simple and direct that they didn’t seem like the product of a master. Again, I felt that the flaw belonged to me.

Maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. Sometimes you need to keep working with a poem (or get a copy with a lot of footnotes). That’s what I recommend. When you break apart a great poem, whether it’s simple or obtuse, you start to unravel wonderful mysteries. But the point is that there are plenty of poets out there who take advantage of both traditions: the incomprehensible and the straightforward. They dress their poems up enough to look like that is how they meant it to be (conceptually) and if you question its stature then that’s because you are not taking the poem on its terms but your own. And, of course, you can’t use your own criteria because the poet—and thus the poem produced by the poet—is more advanced than you can conceptualize.

This is a nasty little scam: shame the reader into believing they are the flaw and not the poem. And it’s worse than just a nasty little scam: I’m sure this has turned millions of people off from reading poetry. They sense the snobbery of the poet but still assume the fault lies with them. I’ve spent years telling friends that they might want to trust their instincts; the poem at question might just not be very good.

There's nothing wrong with being able to understand poetry just as there’s nothing wrong with poetry that’s cryptic. The late great John Dickson once told me that he has no problem with cryptic but the meaning must be in there somewhere.

It’s always been the case that poets aren’t the only people writing poetry. People posing as poets write also write poetry. Typically, they’re read by other people posing as poets. But if someone takes apart language and puts it together again in a new way—whether it’s simple or complex—then the poser becomes the poet. And that’s what I want to publish.

Daniel A. Scurek

February 15, 2010

Previous Vintage Poem of the Week:

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel A. Scurek) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:01:00 +0000

Ode on Melancholy
by John Keats

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolfs-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.