Poetics by Praxis

A portion of the long poem, The Throne of Labdacus.
by Gjertrud SchnackenbergWhat is: a leaking through of events
From beyond the bourn of right and wrong;

What is: a sequence of accidents
Without a cause,

Or from which the cause
Is long-lost, like a ruthless jewel

Missing from an archaic setting’s
Empty, bent, but still aggressive prongs.

Topics for Discussion:
- meta-formal qualities: “a ruthless jewel”(li.6) is the title of Section Eight of this long poem
- couplets, unrhymed, roughly iambic with heavy substitution: the first and last couplet have 9 syllables (one short of pentameter), all of the rest of the lines fall even shorter than this (down to dimeter, line 4) the poem is questioning “what is” incompleteness? Hence, the couplets themselves are incomplete
- This poem is also in dialogue with the last poem: the couplets prior to this section have exact masculine rhymes and convey how the story of Oedipus was circulated through Thebes “in a whispering poetry” (p.6,li.27), ending with the un-rhymed pair, “simply a making known-/ Making known what is.” (p.7,li.41-42).
- Therefore, Schnackenberg sets up this short “lyric” within the long poem, as a questioning and probing of exactly that which poetry is NOT: “a sequence of accidents/ Without a cause”
- The poem leaves the reader with an incredibly strong image of form itself, however, and Schnackenberg is consistent with providing these images throughout her work: the setting of the ring, devoid of a jewel, implies a frame narrative without the intention, the completion, the beauty that would make it a poem

Original post by Whitney

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION:-          4 stanzas with 5 lines-          All lines are capitalized, no variation in length or indention-          ABAAB-          Iambic, 4 meters, some anapests

-          Strict form, narrative or lyrical poem- able to relate to the reader, reader becomes the narrator

-          Use of imagery and description to place the reader-          Rhyme scheme plays with idea of straight roads/paths-          Poem is about choice of paths in life and decisions

-          Use of capitalization in the first word

-          Very steady sound and use of words

-          Lot of punctuation at the end of lines very little enjambment

Original post by sfinn2id

“Dusting”
- Gjertrud Schnackenberg

1 A circle widens beneath my cloth, the years
Of dust rubbed from the wavy windowpanes.
Bits of planets, burst stars have sifted down,
Dust from remote globes of the universe
5 Drops in our closets, piles in corners softly,
Swirls in sunrays toward boxes we’ll unpack,
Around the clocks and mirrors under sheets;
The clouds I shake from carpets give it back,

The children paste paper stars upon the door.
10 With wet footprints disappearing in the hall,
Old wallpaper designs disclosing faces,
The faucet’s voice, the floorboard’s startled cry
Under my heel, what ghost is it accounts
For breath in the rooms, pale tears coursing
15 The windowpanes, what ghosts? I count even
the doorknob in my hand among the living.

Items for Discussion:
- nonce eight-line stanzas/ roughly iambic pentameter with some reversed first feet, and spondaic substitution
- rhyming pairs: “unpack/back”(li.6,8) “coursing/living”(li.14,16)
- all of the lines, with the exception of thirteen and fourteen, have more stressed than unstressed syllables. Lines 1,5,9,10,11,and 16 have one extra syllable (for a count of eleven), which comes as a weak, unstressed head or tail of the line.
- lines end on a stress generally, until the bottom of the second stanza, where they start to end on unstressed syllables: “faces, accounts, coursing, even, living…”
- Schnackenberg works roughly in the ghost of an “Ottava Rima” without the customary rhymes. Instead, she frustrates our expectation of couplets concluding each stanza, with the paired sounds in “even/living” (15-16)
- line 14 lends an interesting half-meaning; the ambiguity of “pale tears coursing” leads us to believe the speaker herself may be crying, before we find it is rain. This line is also the ONLY one in the whole poem that falls short of ten syllables. It has only nine, and ends on a weak unstressed syllable, so that the line itself “runs out of breath” in a way.
- assonance and consonance: the first stanza is brimming with repeated “w’s,” long “o” sounds, slippery “r’s” and “s’s” In other words, the sounds of the first stanza are very breathy, which mimics the act of dust particles floating.
- personification: by stanza two, we feel that the stresses pounding toward a crescendo (most of the lines have six or seven stresses), which culminate at the moment that the faucet is given a “voice” (12), and the floorboard a “cry” (12), evolving toward the supernatural possibilities of the presumably old house.
- The entire poem wrestles with the themes of ghosts, haunting, uncovering what is old, or disturbing what is old. These are echoed well by Schnackenberg’s use of a nonce form extremely close to traditional forms. In the poem, she presents us with two stanzas, as though they were imperfect mirrors of one another. It is unclear whether the speaker’s “Dusting” is a restoration or a disturbance. It is equally unclear whether Schnackenberg’s use of form is a restoration or a disturbance of earlier usage.

Original post by Whitney

Found in Poets.com
From the Academy of American Poets

“The More Loving One”
W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

• Quatrain Form
• Rhyming couplets (rhyme aabb)- rhyme is masculine, mostly monosyllabic (sing songy)
• Ironic rhyme juxtapositions: well/hell, (I) am/damn, suggests that hell is well and that he is damned by loving the stars (being the more loving one).
• The first, third and fourth stanzas are one sentence enjambed throughout the four lines.
• The second stanza varies in that it is composed of two sentences that are enjambed (2 lines each) and thus presents two ideas. It also includes the only question in the poem. The first sentences (lines 5 & 6) question stands out, imposes the idea of the opposite happening than what he describes. The second sentences answers it. This stanza is conclusive.
• Ironic because for all that he is the “more loving one” he also does not give a damn in the end. Ironic also that the poem is symmetrical and equal (perfect couplets and rhyme) when Auden is talking about an unequal love (he is the more loving one).
• Serious (rhyme scheme indicates, use of swear words in lines 1 & 10) about a silly subject
• Metaphor of unrequited love, (references Renaissance idea of the enjoyment of being in love)

Original post by alison

Late Air
Elizabeth Bishop

From a magician’s midnight sleeve

            the radio-singers

distribute all their love-songs

over the dew-wet lawns.

            And like a fortune-teller’s

their marrow-piercing guesses are whatever you believe.

But on the Navy Yard aerial I find

            better witness

for love on summer nights.

Five remote red lights

            keep their nests there; Phoenixes

burning quietly, where the dew cannot climb.

Original post by katiewalsh

“Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer’s fingers fluttering though her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

Topics for Discussion:
- heroic couplets with exact masculine rhymes– masculine containment of feminine subject/ mirrors the oppression of Aunt Jennifer.
- Adrienne Rich and the conflation of the personal and political in her approach to feminist writing/ poem published in 1951/ metaphor of colonization, taming the exotic, to describe conquering a woman sexually, socially, politically, etc.
- diction choices: line two, “denizens”–> 1. an animal or plant naturalized in a region 2. a foreigner who is granted rights of residence and sometimes of citizenship./ world of green- money?/ vs. topaz- multi-colored, iridescent
- lines containing description of masculine oppression are exact iambic pentameter, with no substitutions (lines 4, 7, 12)
- stresses build to the end of second stanza: “massive weight” and “heavily” combine for a sensory experience of her containment by marriage
- half-meaning invites layered reading: line 6 “ivory needle” becomes a phallic symbol, also one of poaching, conquest/ line 10 “ringed” can be read either 1. encircled, hemmed in or 2. reference to a circus ring, entrapment of the tiger(s)
- subversive within state of containment: poem discusses her creation of something free, though she is bound, through the medium of embroidery (typically feminine, domestic activity)
- ambiguity of “they” in the first stanza: does it refer to men? tigers? tigers become asexual as a result/ syntax allows for the blurring of gender lines.
- last stanza: very regular number of syllables per line/ containment by death, and yet, the creation of something grants immortality to the idea of freedom/ poem circles back and provides meta-commentary on the virtue of art.
- rhyming pairs: lie/by and made/unafraid

Whitney

Original post by intertextuality

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went downtown,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked,
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good morning,” and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich- yes, richer than a king-
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

• Iambic pentameter- Heroic couplets/quatrain with pyrrhic substitutions belying something darker

• Richard Cory- image of a nice wealthy man with a kind heart, a role model for the town folk- ends up committing suicide- ironic ending

• Town folk seemed to be fixated on his wealth- 1st stanza, 4th line; 2nd, stanza 4th line; 3rd stanza, 1st line; proximity of “king” and “place” in the 3rd stanza- possible cause for suicide?

• Richard Cory- “Rich”, “Core”, “Coeur”- heart, fr.

• tone is generally cheerful as set up through the iambic meter and lends to the ironic ending

Original post by klyphe