the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

The son of one of my friends is working on poetry assignments and, as it turns out, has the same objections my students do when confronted with poetry. He doesn't "like" it. He doesn't "get" it. I have many responses to this, as you might imagine, and none of them are in agreement with the student.

Of course students like poetry. They love it. It speaks to them. They can't get enough of it. They listen to it all the time. When was the last time you saw a teenager walking down the street with headphones on? He's listening to poetry.

The poetry he's listening to probably has a more emphatic bass beat than the sort of poetry us older folk tend to like, and maybe it doesn't have any "thees" and "thous" and "wherefores," but so what? It's poetry. Musical lyrics are--MOO*--some of the best poetry being produced today**.

* My Opinion Only

** Exceptions do exist.

"Yabbut," my students say, "It's not the same."*

* Vague "arguments" like this are one of the many reasons English teachers have a job and will continue to.**

** Notice how I just broke two grammar "rules" in one sentence there? That takes skill, baby.

What they mean is this: music is, well, music. "Poetry" is something esoteric and dense that some dead white guy wrote and it has nothing to do with them and oh my god is that even English?*

* For the record, from here on out, I know I know. But it's my broad brush and I'll paint if I want to.

And they're right. Very often, they are right.

You're probably asking where I go from here. I mean, I'm in front of a new class and I'm teaching them that poetry is amazing and they don't want to live without it, but I've just agreed it isn't their cup of tea. Now what?

Well...I have your attention, don't I? You can bet your ass I have theirs.

OK. First, understand this, and make sure your students understand: what the poet meant* and what each of us understands are more than likely all going to be different. There are wrong answers, but only if you can't effectively argue for them. At the same time, there are many right answers to literary interpretation. I'd even argue that good literature should have multiple valid interpretations. That's one of the things that makes it so exciting and timeless. It speaks to each of us in our own place, time, culture, and experience.

* Very rarely does a poet explain what he means, and even when he does, generations of critics will suggest that that was only what he was aware that he meant. And those critics have a point.

Next, understand that while there is literature for all ages, it isn't all meant to be read and understood by all ages. You won't teach a 2-year-old to grasp the concept of Monopoly, and it's going to be a struggle to convince a 15-year-old to understand or even care about Julius Caesar.* Without any apparent segue, consider the classic Bob Seger song "Against the Wind." My father loved this song when it came out, and he probably loves it still. I think I was in my early teens when it was released. I thought it was so-so. It didn't speak to me. (In hindsight, I suspect that had it spoken to me at 14, I'd be desperately in need of therapy today.) It's a pretty song, but the lyrics aren't for kids. It is about fighting the tides of life. When you're a kid, you're too naive to realize you're fighting, and if you do, you either don't care or you take pride in it, because you're going to change the world; then you get older and the struggle wearies you; then you grow old, only to realize that you're still fighting the tide, and that you will lose eventually. It wasn't until I bought the Greatest Hits of Bob Seger 18 years later that I heard this song--really heard it--for the first time.

* Another sideline, but what the hell. I'm infamous for them. It has been suggested that the only reason Julius Caesar is taught in high schools instead of, well, pretty much any of the Shakeman plays, with the possible exception of Romeo and Juliet, is that it is his only play not peppered with bawdy jokes. It just has a man being stabbed to death by friends, which is--of course--completely acceptable literature for children.

All poetry is like that. There are two lessons to take from this. First, if a child does not see the value of a poem she is assigned, that's ok. She just doesn't have the necessary experience yet. Give her time to run against the wind. The second lesson is this: it is still our job to make sure students know the poetry is out there, and that some of it is for adults, because someday it will speak to them like nothing else can. Part of my job is to introduce them to some poetry I know is too "old" for them, because if I'm successful, I bookmark it in their minds so they can find it when they're older and need its understanding and insight.

Be advised that you won't like everything you read and there is no requirement that you do, "classic" or not. Some of it, let's face it, you'll probably never like, and tastes cannot be forced. I was forced to eat butter beans as a child even though I hated them, and even today, I loathe them with a passion that defies measurement. So I get it. I may make you read William Wordsworth until you go bald, but it won't make you like it. But it isn't my job to make you like it. My job is to introduce you to it, show you some of the techniques poets use and what effects they produce with those techniques, and teach you some of the ways you can and will use poetry as a weapon (or how it will be used against you). In the process, you will develop a greater appreciation of this timeless art form.

One more thought: you don't have to understand it to like it. Actually, you don't have to understand it to understand it. :D I mean it. I "get," for example, e. e. cummings' "anyone lived in a pretty how town." It's gibberish, but it has depth and meaning to me. I also love T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," but I'm damned if I can give any reasonable explanation of what it's about. But you know what? I have some favorite songs I feel the same way about (and I bet you do, too). Poetry, then, can reach us emotionally even when it misses us intellectually. Keep this in mind. When you encounter a poem that you find yourself fighting to figure out, do yourself a favor and read it a couple of times without trying to understand it. Just let the words flow through you, like you do with music. (Or as a friend told me years back, "If you don't understand, just keep walking, and the fog will clear.")

So ok. We're going to read some classic, dead-white-guy etc poetry. (This may hurt a little, but I'm doing it for your own good. :D )  Not really. It should be relatively painless, but if you want to nail yourself to a cross, that's your business. (If you do, though, I want to watch. I want to see how you get that last nail in).

Let's pick a poem. I'm going to play with one that is on my friend's son's list: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet 43." (Don't you love that? All the work went into the poem and none into the title. That wouldn't fly today, would it? Imagine: Diana Black's Book 12. Not terribly gripping, huh? We judge books by their covers and titles all the time.)

Here it is. You'll probably all recognize it. I do. (By the way, I was required to read this poem and discuss it in various classes when I was growing up, but I never really liked it or gave it much mind. What I say about it now are seat-of-the-pants observations from a professional English instructor who is essentially looking at this poem for the first time.)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Oh Heavens to Betsy. It has "thees" and "thous" in it. Feel those walls going up already? Ugh. Why did they do that? They did it because it was the intimate form of the word "you," the form they would use with husbands, wives, or children (and the Romance languages still have this distinction.) There came a point in the evolution of English where it was considered too familiar to use the terms at all, and at that point, they switched to using "you" like we do today.

So where do you begin? First, read it. (I'll wait.)

ME: What's it about?

STUDENTS: Love.

ME: I thought you said you don't understand poetry.

Kidding. Well...sometimes I do say that, but I usually let them get themselves in good and deep first.

ME: Expand on that.

STUDENT: She's trying to say she loves him more than words can say.

ME: And she's doing that with...words?

STUDENT: Yeah.

ME: Have any of you ever been in love? (I work with college students, by the way, so...of course they've been in love.) Have you ever been in love and tried to explain to your beloved how you feel? How'd that work out for you? (Let that sink in.) I submit to you that one of the reasons we have poetry and will always have poetry is because poets find ways to say what we don't know how to, and how much we love is one of those things.

Next: Read the poem aloud. Poetry, with few exceptions, is intended to be music with words. That is, not lyrics, per se, but lyrical. Accomplished poets can make music using only words. They can create an underlying, unobtrusive rhythm, or they can create a rhythm that is so powerful that it almost drowns out the words. This poem has a steady rhythm, doesn't it? Again: read it aloud. Hear the rhythm? Every line goes Ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM. Five heartbeats in a row (that's called "iambic pentameter," by the way--five heartbeats in a row). Do you hear it? Heartbeats. In a love poem. Cool, huh?

The heartbeats kinda break up here and there, though. The first three lines are steady, strong heartbeats. At the fourth line, though, it starts...missing a beat here and there. Try to read the poem aloud to the obvious rhythm of a heartbeat and you'll hear what I mean. So now, we have a heart that skips beats. In a love poem. Neat, isn't it?

The poetry is in a classic form called a sonnet (as labeled). Sonnets are traditionally love poems, so the very form of the poem emphasizes its theme.

What else do we associate with poetry? Rhyme, of course! If the meter is the rhythm of poems, the rhyme creates some of the harmony (and I submit that it appeals to our brains in exactly the same ways that musical harmony does). When music harmonizes, we connect the sounds and enjoy the tension between them. In poetry, rhyme connects ideas. The farther apart the rhymes, the more subtle the connection, implying more distance and time; the closer the rhymes, the more overt the connection of the ideas and urgent the message.

Remember how I said poetry can be used as a weapon? In the OJ Simpson trial, Johnny Cochran, lead defense lawyer, famously chanted to the jury, about the glove found at the crime scene: "It does not fit; you must acquit!" Notice the unmistakeable connection between the ideas "does not fit" and "acquit." (Also, the shorter the lines, the faster and more urgent we perceive the message to be.) His message was not just in his meaning, but in the artistic essence of his delivery. He played them a tune so emotionally powerful that they forgot the prosecution's perfectly logical explanations for why the crime scene glove hadn't fit, etc. Never underestimate the power of poetry.

Back to the sonnet. It begins with the A-B-B-A end-rhyme pattern. Read it again:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.

The B-B rhymes of height and sight are close and tight, suggesting an immediacy, an urgency. The A-A rhymes of ways and grace are farther apart, but not so far apart that we don't hear the echo. The echo itself gives us a sense of time and distance, along with the urgency here and there in the B-B lines. This is not just a burning love in the now; it's a love that transcends time and distance.

Notice also that ways and grace are not perfect rhymes. They are what are called "near rhymes." We hear them as almost-rhymes, we sense the subtle changes, but we accept them. This is what long-term love requires of us, too. When we live with someone we love, we see them change, but what they are now will always be the person we fell in love with. That person will always echo the "original" person, even if she doesn't do so perfectly (and she won't).

All this, and I haven't even begun to talk about the words themselves, the meanings, the imagery. I just want you to taste what poetry does to us so you can understand that only through embracing it and studying it do we learn to recognize the techniques that poets use to effect us emotionally, usually without us even knowing. Behind our backs.

I'll give a few basic tricks for understanding the meaning of poetry, then I'll tie this up, as it's getting kinda out of hand.

1. Read. It. Aloud. You wouldn't "read" music in your head--even if you could--and you shouldn't "read" poetry in your head. 

I cannot emphasize this enough. Think about how different pauses and inflections can change the meanings. Experiment.

Here's a drill I like doing with my students: How many different ways can you say the words "I love you" that change the phrase's meaning? I can think of several. "I love you?" (Who told you that?) "I love you?" (I thought you were someone else.) "I love you." (Not her. Me.) "I love you." (Not your best friend.)

You get the picture. Actors are deeply conscious of this. It is, after all, how they deliver their lines that define their characters. The same is true with poetry. Where do you put the emphasis? Where do you pause? Where does your voice rise? Drop? Get louder? Speed up? All of these techniques are musical ones, and they all change the meaning we imbue the lines with.

When you read a poem, read it at the same speed you'd tell your best friend about your weekend. (This is one of the hardest tricks to master: learning to read aloud at a normal talking pace. It is crucial, though.)

2. When you're trying to understand what the poem's tone is, ask yourself this: If the poem were set to music, what kind of music would it be and why? (Answering "Country, because I like country" is not an answer. "Country, because this poem is crying in its beer because its wife left it and took the dog" is.) Answer this question, and you will know what the tone of the poem is. Some poems are classical music, because they are genteel; some are pop, because they're lighthearted and cute; some are metal, because they're intense and in your face.

3. If you're having trouble getting at the basic meaning of the words and sentences, try this trick....

I'll need a different poem to demonstrate this, so bear with me. This is another of my all-time favorites, Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," which begins like this:

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,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
thecurtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed 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, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess's 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
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.

It isn't the whole thing, but enough to show you what I mean. Most people tend to read poetry one line at a time, dropping their voices at the end of each line then pausing, like they would read a regular sentence. Reading a poem this way almost always makes it virtually unintelligible. They must unlearn this tendency to sing-song it. I chose this poem because it's hard to read without being seduced by the rhythm and rhyme into a steady

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,

(pause)

Looking as if she were alive. I call

(pause)

That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands (etc.)

No. Nonononono. Find the poem online, copy it to a word document, then put it in paragraph form. Then read it. Aloud.

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, the depth and passion of its earnest glance, but to myself they turned (since none puts by the curtain I have drawn for you, but I) and seemed 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, 'twas not her husband's presence only, called that spot of joy into the Duchess's 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 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.

Now...what's he saying? Do you hear his voice now? Let's say you're the Duke, you're showing your guest (an envoy from the man whose daughter the Duke wants to marry next) this painting in your collection, and explaining that it is your last wife (pretty as a picture, you might say). How would you deliver these lines?

The next step is to ask yourself why the poet broke the lines where he did. What effect did he get by breaking them there? Why would Browning use such an overpowering rhythm and rhyme that you can hardly figure out what's going on?

Then ask yourself this: Why did he choose the words he chose? Poets don't just use a word because it "fits" or completes the rhyme (at least, not poets worth their salt). Each word is selected for its connotation as much as its denotation, for its contribution to the rhythmic effect of the piece, and for its harmonization with other words or ideas, or for the cacophony it creates.

Enough for now. I've already waxed far more eloquent than I intended. I hope this is of some help to those who sincerely want to "get" poetry, or at least entertaining to those of you who are still wondering why you read it.

Y'all be excellent to one another.

d