Variations

[tarbaby]

Dear Yejun

I see Sad Luck Dame has taken an interest in your work. I have been feeling guilty about not getting back to you on this until now. But I am so stupid about private messages. I could not think of what to say. I suppose "your welcome" would have been sufficient.

I am happy that you have got a reply from SDL on your work. She is literate enough to appreciate it. I am not.

Sincerely
tarbaby
et al.

[SadLuckDame]

I'd been interested, but off course momentarily.

A simple monarch
flown into traffic
regaining my course.

I can count it, I notice the 'stresses', and just need to learn to work with them. Thanks for the reminder. I'll try again tomorrow.

[Yejun]

I can count it, I notice the 'stresses', and just need to learn to work with them. Thanks for the reminder. I'll try again tomorrow.

You're already half way there.

A simple monarch
flown into traffic
regaining my course.

a sim | ple mon | arch

--You have two iambs in the first line and an extra syllable at the end. "Monarch" is an interesting word in that while 'arch' is unstressed it still echoes its historical stress. Read it with a French accent and you'll see what I mean.

If you finished the thought:

A simple monarch butterfly

you'd have iambic tetrameter.

flown in | to traf | fic

You have a trochee in the first position, followed by an iamb and an extra syllable again.

You could of course read it with slightly more stress on 'to' or on 'in' ('into' is one of the few words that can be read either way naturally) but why would you do that?


re gain | ing my course

iamb and anapest

The important thing to hear is that each line carries two stresses.

Put them in the right order and you should hear a palpable rhythm.

[Doreen Peri]

I just write by the way it sounds when I hear it in my head or read it aloud.

I never learned the names for any of these stresses, etc. I know what iambic pentameter sounds like but I wouldn't be able to diagram the stresses... (in poetry, do they call it diagram? like diagramming a sentence?) ... well I probably would... I mean there are ten of them an the stress is on the upbeat... daDA daDA daDA daDA daDA.... but that's not how you're diagramming the stresses. I think of it all as music. Poetry is word music.

I remember taking Advanced Grammar and Composition when I was a senior in high school. We had to diagram sentences. Grammatical stuff. I hated it. I found it tedious and boring and just had no interest in it.

I'm sure we also studied the iambs and stresses, etc., when studying poetry in both HS and college, but I'm pretty sure I was probably sitting at my desk, dazing off, day dreaming, writing poetry instead. I never really paid attention to any of it.... unless I NEEDED to learn some of it to pass a test but then it quickly left my knowledge base.

That said, I think what you're doing here with these lessons is very cool! Maybe I can catch up with all I didn't learn way back when.

I think it's especially useful to those who don't HEAR the stresses automatically like speaking them. Or for writing formula/structured poetry to help hear the beats.

Thanks for doing this, Brad!

[Yejun]

I just write by the way it sounds when I hear it in my head or read it aloud.

We're talking about the same thing.

I never learned the names for any of these stresses, etc. I know what iambic pentameter sounds like but I wouldn't be able to diagram the stresses... (in poetry, do they call it diagram? like diagramming a sentence?)

It's called scanning or scansion.

well I probably would... I mean there are ten of them an the stress is on the upbeat... daDA daDA daDA daDA daDA.... but that's not how you're diagramming the stresses. Wink I think of it all as music. Poetry is word music.

I'm avoiding daDA daDA. While talking with Karen, she convinced me that it sounded stupid when you compare it to what's actually written in the meter. The other problem is that it is often seen as a prescription for reading, not a description of alternating stresses. You don't have to follow daDA when you're reading, the rhythm should emerge naturally if you've got it right.

I don't mind the idea of word music. But we can take the metaphor too far. Poetry is not music. There are things in music that you can't do in poetry. There are things in poetry you can't do (or hear) in music.

Tempo need not be metronomic in traditional poetry. That's chanting and not every poem needs to be chanted.

[SadLuckDame]

I know I'll get to try my hand at it this week-end. It's Friday and I'm almost released. Plan to bang one out.

[Yejun]

I wanted to expand a bit on the whole idea that poetry is not music.

Simply put:

music, no lyrics (classical, the Ventures, etc)

music with lyrics and melody (opera, pop music)

music with poetry (hip hop, performance artists, some of things you, Doreen, are doing)
--metrical poetry w/music is the largest group here

poetry with no music (everything else we call poetry)
--metrical poetry is a subgroup

The way I see it each variation here has its own strengths and weaknesses.

[SadLuckDame]

A / sim / ple mon /arch but / ter / fly
went / fly / ing in / to sil / ly put / ty
lea / ving im / prints de / light / ful / ly

or

lea / ving be / hind an im / print

or I can make it more logical visually

went fly / ing in / to bak / ing flo / ur

I'm unsure if I have delightfully done correctly.
But, let me know.
I know what you mean about remove the natural lyrical sound from conversation out and trying to make it create sound from the syllables only. It's a challenge trying to know which will actually be stressed or not.

[tarbaby]

Y wrote:

If you can find the time, please read what I've written in the first thread and let me know where you either get confused or get apathetic.

It would help me a lot.

I would like to help you but I can not help you with
Prosody:

the patterns of stress and intonation in a language
poetic rhythm: (prosody) a system of versification
the study of poetic meter and the art of versification
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Kind of like being color blind.




Y wrote:

I understand that you respect what I'm doing -- and thank you for that, but I'm confused by what you mean by not 'literate'.

Perhaps literate was not a good word choice.



Kind of like autism I think.


http://www.qmu.ac.uk/ssrc/prosodyinasd/

You need someone who can "hear you"

I hope that is helpful.

[Doreen Peri]

I completely disagree that poetry is not music.

I don't even think of it as a metaphor. I think of it as word music. Literally.

Poetry is a spoken art. When I read the words on the page, I hear them in my head. The words are lyrics. They're musical. They ARE music.

I don't know how else to say it but the spoken word is an instrument and the words are the notes.

[stilltrucking]

Yes
i was going to mention music doreen but I edited it out.

A friend of mine was a musician said of me as sat rapt in the music tapping my foot out of time "I don't what he hears but he sure listens"

[Yejun]

There are things in music that you can't do in poetry. There are things in poetry you can't do (or hear) in music.

Doreen,

If you're right, what key should Auden's "September 1, 1939" be performed in?

And it doesn't help that at least one venerated master of versification, Ezra Pound, was, by all accounts, tone deaf.

Two points really bother me however:

When we compare the two, music and poetry, on musical grounds, poetry will always come off as second rate. How could it not?

I see "Poetry is music" as the other side of "Content is everything". Put the two together and you have a coin ... or poetry.


TB,

It's not you. The terminology in prosody is unbelievably stupid and contradictory. I don't mind if you have no interest in this stuff, but as long as you can speak English, there's nothing to stop you from learning it. You do it every time you speak.

[Doreen Peri]

Doreen,

If you're right, what key should Auden's "September 1, 1939" be performed in?

The key the performer/spoken word artist wants to perform it in. Poetry isn't music written in any key signature. It's rhythm and beats and percussion and the sounds of the language. It's lyric. Lyric is music. The performer's instrument.. his or her voice.. will determine the key.

And it doesn't help that at least one venerated master of versification, Ezra Pound, was, by all accounts, tone deaf.

Beethoven was deaf, too. What's your point?

Two points really bother me however:

When we compare the two, music and poetry, on musical grounds, poetry will always come off as second rate. How could it not?

No! It wouldn't! Why would it? It's just a different genre of music. Like bluegrass is different than jazz. Like symphonies are different than a solo folk guitarist playing a tune. Like an a capella contralto is different than a full choir. It's the bare bones tone of a poet's voice, the lyricist, the composer. Then when someone else speaks it, it's the musician playing his instrument which is his voice, to interpret the notation.

I see "Poetry is music" as the other side of "Content is everything". Put the two together and you have a coin ... or poetry.

I don't understand that.

(really cool debating/talking with you again. It's possible we haven't done this in 10 years. Ha!)

[Doreen Peri]

Also... any time I say "performer or reader," it could also be the READER from the page, from the printed work or work on the screen, etc. The reader who's reading it from the page, not speaking it at a mic or anything.... (which is what I meant by "reader" when I said "reader")... can also determine the key signature.

haha.. I'm hoping I'm getting my point across. I am such a lousy writer sometimes... sighh.. I try.

[Yejun]

A sim / ple mon /arch but / ter fly

okay.

went fly / ing in / to sil / ly put (ty)

Okay. You have a hypermetrical syllable at the end. That's okay.

lea / ving im / prints de / light / ful / ly

Well, it reads like this

leav-ing /im-prints/ de-light/-ful-ly

the '-ly' at the end is bumped ever so slightly by it being the end syllable, the previous syllable being unstressed, and your metrical grid being iambic tetrameter (4 stresses).

imprint when it's a noun.

imprint when it's a verb.

You have two trochees in the beginning and that's going to bother a lot of metrical purists.

How about

and leaving imprints happily (?)

--though, to be honest, I think delightfully is the better word here.

lea ving / be hind/ an im /print

One trochee in the first position. This is perfectly acceptable.