Anybody want to read Mary Oliver's Rules of the Dance with me?

[Andrea345]

I have by no means made it through the reading list on the Sister Bear thread. I've just started _Rules of the Dance, A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse_ by Mary Oliver, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, New York (1998). She states in her introduction that her third reason for writing this book "was to offer readers of poetry a text and commentary which would help them understand the metrical process: that is, not only how the metrical poem should be written, but how it should be read, or received by the reader."

By page 5 she opened up Robert Frost to me through his poem "Bereft." Understand, I never liked Frost before, not for any reason I could identify, I just "didn't". When Oliver wrote, "The length of each line gives us a slight edginess; there is in it something uncomfortable... Rhyme usually changes, easily and often... But not here. Here the same rhyme persists through five lines, until it feels like what it is: a stagnation, an inability to move forward." She expressed what was making me feel so uncomfortable just reading this piece aloud. And I did. Three times before I read on to what she had to say.

I like Oliver's accessibility to someone like me who's taken the mandatory English courses, passed the tests, memorized the lines and died in the middle of a Fundamentals exam. I'm trying to learn what scansion is, why something "works" or doesn't "work."

"Underlying the construct of the metrical poem is the certainty that all sound and all patterns, as well as words, are sensible to interpretation." (p.6)

Does anyone else think that "Bereft" still works as a sound poem? Does anyone know why he used the "or" end rhyme? The "or" sounds slightly aggressive to me. Maybe I'm over-emphasizing the sounds. But then he goes into the "st" end rhyme: short, abrupt, slightly angry sounding lines. The last 6 lines have two types of rhyme, much broader sounding end rhymes. It tripped me up while reading it aloud. I was reading fast and then I wasn't. Weird.

How come the verbs "was" & "had" aren't accented (stressed). If they hadn't been shown that way on this page, if I'd had to follow the last set of rules I read, I would have stressed them and screwed up the scansion of the page.

Here's to good reading!
-a



[This message has been edited by Andrea345 (edited 05-11-2001).]

[Howard Miller]

Not having Oliver's book myself, I can't really comment. Why don't you give us her metrical reading of the line?

A WORD OF WARNING: If you read a number of the works on that list, you are going to find that no two writers on meter will say exactly the same things. Meter is not an exact science, no matter what you might have been led to believe. There are serious disagreements among metrists concerning a number of points about meter (the existence or nonexistence of the pyrrhic foot in English, for instance), and you will even find different metrists giving somewhat different readings of the same lines. Ultimately, it will come down to your judgment, experience, and prejudices as to what is the correct way to scan a particular line. This doesn't mean you can't learn a great deal from studying such works; such study is absolutely indispensible. But there jist ain't no one set of "rules" that wraps it all up in one neat, tidy little bundle. So don't take what any one writer says as absolute gospel. Except me. And Julie. And me when Julie's wrong.

Modestly yours,

Howard

[Andrea345]

Hello Howard,
Your word of warning is actually something I recently learned through some great crits given by Julie & Scavella: ( http://www.everypoet.com/poetry/poetry_forums/Forum17/HTML/001985.html )
This myth that meter is fixed was the first mistake I made in my own evaluation of my ditty (doggerel, excuse me, I’m still trying to learn terms). What I’m still trying to decide is how I can best signal my intentions to the reader with sound. The effect of line breaks and the way words work together, affecting each other and their stresses and therefore the sound of the piece.... I still can’t nail down my own piece of doggerel.

Here’s Oliver’s take on “Bereft” (p. 4) I dropped the capitalization of the pronoun “I” so I wouldn’t show it as stressed. Any bungling on showing the syllables is my own fault. The minute I think I know where the syllables break, I’m wrong. I look a lot of words up, but I always miss those which I didn’t or are an inflected form.

WHERE had i HEARD this WIND beFORE (8syl / 4 ft
CHANGE like THIS to a DEEPer ROAR? (8syl
WHAT would it TAKE my STANDing there FOR, (9syl
HOLDing Open a REStive DOOR, (8 syl
LOOKing down HILL to a FROTHy SHORE? (9syl
SUMmer was PAST and DAY was PAST. (8syl
SOMber CLOUDS in the WEST were MASSED. (8syl
OUT in the PORCH’s SAGging FLOOR, (8syl
LEAVES got UP in a COIL and HISSED, (8syl
BLINDly STRUCK at my KNEE and MISSED. (8syl
SOMEthing SINister IN the TONE (8syl
TOLD me my SEcret MUST be KNOWN: (8syl
WORD i was IN the HOUSE aLONE (8syl
SOMEhow MUST have GOTten aBROAD, (8syl
WORD i was IN my LIFE aLONE, (8syl
WORD i had NO one LEFT but GOD. (8syl


She focused first on the accented syllables. When I first read it, before I noticed the heavy end rhyme, I scanned it like this:

where HAD i HEARD this WIND beFORE
CHANGE like this to a DEEPer ROAR?

Then the rhyme forced me to accent the end word “FOR” at the end of the third line, yet Frost messed with the syllable count and messed up my reading. Why would he throw an extra word in? Was it just for meaning? As far as I can tell there’s only one other line with 9 syllables (“frothy shore” line). And I keep wanting the line: "Told me my secret must be known:" to read "Told me THAT my secret must be known:" but the word "that" messes up the whole sound of what has been going on, so I understand it on the sonic level but not the what? grammatical? level.

My second reading was easier, I accommodated the stress on the 1st line WHERE because of what I’d learned through reading it the first time. And it was his heavy use of rhyme here, which I didn’t like while listening to it, that forced me into the cadence that he surprised me by changing, but only in the first part of the poem. It made it difficult to read, all the end stops left me hoping for an enjambment, something to smooth away the pounding sounds of the end rhyme. I was not comfortable reading this piece. I don’t know if it was me or if it was Frost’s intention, but I was slightly angry at the end. The last line, soothing though the sounds of “Word I had no one left but God.” sounded more bitter in contrast to the hard edged rhymes before it. Maybe this is part of the reason I’ve never “enjoyed” reading Frost. How intentionally was I manipulated? I understand he was quite meticulous in his workings.

And then, if you change the line breaks (my semi-random choice) and just a few words

Where had I heard
this wind before change like this
to a deeper roar? What would
it take my standing there, holding
open a restive door, looking down
the hill to a frothy shore?

Summer was past
and day was past. Somber clouds
in the west were massed. Out on
the porch’s sagging floor, leaves got
up in a coil and hissed, blindly
struck at my knee and missed.

Something sinister
in the tone told me my secret
must be known: word I was in
the house alone somehow must
have gotten abroad. Word I was
in my life alone, word I had no one
left but god.

and the tone of the poem isn’t as brutal to my ears. Weird. I’ve never played with poetry like this before....



[This message has been edited by Andrea345 (edited 05-08-2001).]

[Howard Miller]

It sounds to me that you're catching the tone Frost intended; the anger, frustration, and bitterness seem to me to be what the poem is about. Not that this is what many people expect of Frost, given the erroneous reputation Frost often has of being the "good, gray poet" in the mold of Whittier; at least, many of my students have acquired that attitude toward Frost in high school (all too often a veritable fount of misinformation).

As far as syllable count goes, Frost generally wrote what he himself referred to as "loose iamb" verse, i. e., verse which is generally iambic but not strictly so; extra syllables and shifting feet give his verse the "conversational tone" that he so often aimed at. For that reason, Frost is not necessarily the best poet as an example of how strict meter works.

For one beginning the study of meter, the best course would be to focus first on writers whose work is strict, to learn how it's done, then to begin to explore those poets (like Frost) who are sufficiently expert at meter that they can work primarily with sophisticated variations. If you're interested in pursuing this further, e-mail me at:

hmiller@mail.maconstate.edu


Howard

[Julie]

Originally posted by Howard Miller:

For one beginning the study of meter, the best course would be to focus first on writers whose work is strict, to learn how it's done, then to begin to explore those poets (like Frost) who are sufficiently expert at meter that they can work primarily with sophisticated variations. If you're interested in pursuing this further, e-mail me at:

hmiller@mail.maconstate.edu


Howard

That's why I tend toward recommending Pope.

Julie

[Andrea345]

I'm pulling some of Pope's works off of the web. whoops! I do hope you mean Alexander Pope. That's who I assume you're talking about.

My own, personal, ready for me to mark-up and dog-ear copy of Oliver's _Rules_ came in the same day I started Timothy Steele's _All the Fun's In How You Say a Thing_. The reason I like the Oliver book over the Pinsky is because she does show the stress in the early chapters. The Steel book does so as well.

I need flash cards. I have no pride.

What I will do is select a poem of Pope's that I think is iambic pentameter and mark it up. So don't recommend a specific poem yet. Let's see if I can find one.

-a


[This message has been edited by Andrea345 (edited 05-11-2001).]

[barisaxchick]

Hey, I just picked up a copy of "Rules for the Dance" so I am going to be a giant sponge absorbing all this knowledge. I was really interested, because unlike you, Andrea, I have not had any schooling about meter. As I mentioned in the Newbie room, my teachers in high school and college emphasized content with complete disregard to form. Maybe that's a good approach for new poets--I don't know.

I was interested in your exploration of rhythm and meter and stress patterns, and checked out "Ditty" and also the poem about writing in the woods (in response to clive). Both times I read the poem a couple times first, then read your diagram for the intended stress pattern. I noticed that both times I wanted to hear the poem different from your intention. Not being knowledgable or schooled in this in any way, I will still propose that certain syllables are going to be stressed by the reader no matter where you place them, so the poet is at the mercy of the English language and must work with the existing accent patterns that people have grown up with. Am I right? Someone with knowledge, please comment!

I suppose you could intend someone to read:

i WISH to DO someONE irREpaRAble HARM

and they would read it:

i WISH to do SOMEone IRrePArable HARM

BTW, that example line does not express any intention of mine!! ;-) It is just an example!

Andrea, thanks for giving me such excellent feedback on my posted poems; hopefully I will improve sufficiently in my comprehension that I may return the favor and be able to help you out, too.

Looks like the Oliver book is pretty informative so far! I am so ready to learn!

[Andrea345]

Hello barisaxchick:
Nope, my schooling around meter sounds pretty much like yours or: "This Is The Way The Meter IS." Well, as Julie, Scavella & Clive & Howard & Harry pointed out, along with your point at the end of your post, is that a lot of it can be manipulated. As I found out in "Ditty" it is especially flexible in the rewrite stage. That's why I'm dumping the rhyme altogether.

btw ... my diagrams are consistently wrong.


I will still propose that certain syllables are going to be stressed by the reader no matter where you place them, so the poet is at the mercy of the English language and must work with the existing accent patterns that people have grown up with. Am I right? Someone with knowledge, please comment!

I'm not the one to respond to that question, but I wonder that too. Oliver's response, p.8 was: "Rhythm is made up of the continual tonal rise and fall of speech, by writing the words down in such a way that the inflections, heavy or light, WILL FALL at CERTAIN POINTS only, OR MAINLY. " She continues with these points:

"Almost all words of more than one syllable contain at least one syllable which is uttered with special emphasis, and others which are spoken lightly." (p.8) I messed this one up in the call to Clive in the way I scanned "NUM bers" as "num BERS". Clive's point was that I broke with the way the word is commonly spoken.

her next point:

"...there is meaningful and necessary inflection within the phrasing of any group of words." This is where Julie was making her point about (the one clearest to me) as anapest in "would I smell". They group together so nicely, don't they?

Then was her point about verbs & nouns are more commonly stressed rather than connectives, articles, & prepositions.

I made a "cheat sheet" from the Turco _Book of Forms_ but it has gotten me in trouble calling something stressed b/c I keep going "noun - stressed", "verb - stressed" instead of really hearing how the words work together.

In "Ditty" Scavella had a great point about the quickness with which certain words are said. She used the examples of "roof" and "book". I was about to write exactly the opposite of what she said, but she said that "As a general rule, words and sounds that take longer to say get more stress than words and sounds that don’t."


I may return the favor and be able to help you out, too.

All I have is a month more of reading the crits & working with what people are saying here. Which means I'd love your help too.

I've picked a piece from 2nd part of King Henry IV, Act 4, Scene 5 (Julie, sorry, I read some of the Alexander Pope and ... well ... he might be dependable, but..., sorry... I'll take a suggested poem. I just couldn't stare at his stuff. I have no taste. I admit it. I love Robert W. Service and "The Cremation of Sam McGee."

Anyway, some of the lines struck me as not iambic (big surprise... we even tell her the anser & she messes up a perfect iambic pentameter) but here's why:
O PAR don/ ME my LIEGE / but for my TEARS,
10 syl, yes, but "O" seems stressed to my ears and why would "FOR" be stressed? I don't want to make it so. rats... when I remove the stress I have 3 stupid feet: 1st would be one of those weird ones - headless iamb&trochee... so I know I'm messing up. "My Liege" sounds like it should go together, oh well...

the MOIST im PED i MENTS un TO my SPEACH 10 syl

i HAD fore STALL’D this DEAR and DEEP RE buke 10 syl

ere YOU with GRIEF had SPOKE and I had HEARD 10

the COURSE of IT so FAR. there IS your CROWN; 10

and HE that WEARS the CROWN im MORT al LY 10

long GUARD it YOURS! if I AF fect it MORE 10

than as YOUR HON our and as your RE nown, 10

let ME no MORE from THIS o BE di ENCE


I only put it iambic pentameter b/c I knew what it was supposed to be. I cheated. As you can see after the 1st line I started the endless cycle of violence against the poem & scansion. I'm going to go work on my rewrite.

barisaxchick, I'm still on the early portion of Chapt. 3. She's reviewing variation. The reason I like the Oliver book is that it shows where she reads the accent.

rats...
-a

[This message has been edited by Andrea345 (edited 05-11-2001).]

[barisaxchick]

Originally posted by Andrea345:
long GUARD it YOURS! if I AF fect it MORE 10

than as YOUR HON our and as your RE nown, 10

-a

[This message has been edited by Andrea345 (edited 05-11-2001).]

Thanks for your reply. This are becoming more illuminated for me as I read the Oliver book. I didn't know what iambic pentameter really meant until yesterday!
Again, I read some of the accents different from you in your example. This may be because of the differences in regional dialects or just the different way we hear things musically.
On the lines above, I read "af FECT" rather that "AF fect". I normally stress the second syllable when I say that word.
On the second line above, I felt the rhythm completely different (I don't know which is right, or whether it is important!)

"than AS your HON our and AS your re NOWN"

I really like the triplet feel at the end of the line. I just finished the 2nd chapter of the Oliver book, and found that to me, the anapest pattern had the most pleasing musical quality, although Ms. Oliver said it was unnatural.
I thought it would be great if someone made a Blurb explaining the metrical patterns and other rhythmic terms. Of course, I don't know if every newbie is as ignorant about such things as I was until yesterday!

On a lighter note, one of my friends once mentioned that every poem by Emily Dickenson can be sung to the tune "Yellow Rose of Texas." I actually tried that; it was pretty silly, but funny. It's a little harder to take the poetry seriously when you hear that silly tune in your head, though.

[Andrea345]

Again, I read some of the accents different from you in your example.
On the lines above, I read "af FECT" rather that "AF fect".

Nope, you got it right. I got sloppy. (aargh!!!)


On the second line above, I felt the rhythm completely different (I don't know which is right, or whether it is important!)

"than AS your HON our and AS your re NOWN"

I like yours better. You nailed the re NOWN (what was I thinking yesterday evening? I guess I was really, really tired...)
Now that I think about it, here's how it reads to me this morning:
"than as YOUR HON our AND as YOUR re NOWN"
I think I just killed the triplet you were writing of. I'll bet the thing is "supposed" to scan:
"than AS your HON our AND as YOUR re NOWN" b/c that's perfect iambic pentameter. What we're experiencing here is what Julie call's the flexibility in scansion or reading meter (besides me getting re NOWN wrong, plain & simple)

Rachel (The Broad) first published this hyperlink. It's a glossary of poetic terms and ha some other great hyperlinks: http://shoga.wwa.com/~rgs/contents.html

I've got a cheat sheet I put together of the metrical patterns from Lewis Turco's book _The Book of Forms_ (3rd edition, Univ. Press of New England, Hanover & London, 2000).
from pp 33-40
Basics of accentual-syllabic prosidy

Lewis Turco, The Book of Forms,

1st count all syllables
2nd count stressed syllables
3rd count verse feet


STRESS

Every word in English two syllables in length or longer will have one strongly stressed syllable.

The general rule for stressing words of a single syllable is this: Verbs and nouns generally take a stress: action words, subjects, or objects.
Exceptions:
verbs that we generally elide: “Have” (I’ve), “are” (you’re), “am” (I’m)
articles (a, the)
prepositions (of, to, on, in, etc.)
coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for)
certain pronouns such as “I” and sometimes “you,” which we tend either to use in an elision or merely to slide over

In any series of 3 unstressed syllables in a line of verse, one of them, generally the middle syllable, will take a secondary stress through promotion and will be counted as a stressed syllable.

In any series of 3 stressed syllables in a line of verse, one of them, generally the middle syllable, will take a secondary stress through demotion and will be counted as an unstressed syllable.

Any syllable may be rhetorically stressed by means of italics or some other typographical ploy.


FEET

There are FOUR standard feet in English prosidy:
(u = unstressed, / = stressed)

· iamb – 2 syllables – u /
· anapest – 3 syllables – u u /
· trochee – 2 syllables - / u
· dactyl – 3 syllables - / u u

minor feet:
· headless iamb – foot of 1 stressed syllable (/)
· tailless trochee - same
One can tell these two feet apart only from their position in a line of verse. They occur, for instance when the unstressed first syllable of an iamb is dropped in order to vary the rhythm of a line of verse, or when the unstressed 2nd syllable of a trochee is dropped for the same reason

· spondee – 2 syllables - / /
· amphibrach – 3 syllables – u / u
· double iamb- 4 syllables – u u / / - equals 2 iambs in a line of verse.. (Oliver, _Rules_, p. 27: "There is something called the pyrrhic foot, which is composed of two light stresses. The pyrrhic foot appears in Greek and Roman poetry; in English verse it occurs only when immediately followed by a spondee, and the two feet together are called a double ionic.")
· double trochee – 4 syllables - / / u u
· amphimacer – 3 syllables - / u / - does not exist in English. It is either a headless iamb and an iamb, or a trochee and a tailless trochee.
· antispast – 4 syllables – u / / u - iamb followed by a trochee
· tribrach – 3 syllables – u u u – 3 unstressed syllables does not exist in English
· molossus – 3 syllables - / / / - 3 stressed syllables does not exist in English
· bacchic – 3 syllables – u / / - iamb & tailess trochee
· antibacchius (antibacchic) – 3 syllables - / / u – headless iamb & a trochee
· choriamb – 4 syllables - / u u / - trochee (choree) followed by iamb
· paeon – 4 syllables – in the following of 1 stressed, 3 unstressed combinations:
· / u u u
· u / u u
· u u / u
· u u u /
· epitrite – 4 syllables – in the following of 1 unstressed, 3 stressed combinations
· / / / u
· u / / /
· / u / /
· / / u /

Be very careful though, I spent a good deal of time calling four syllable feet which were actually two! (Also because, as we all know, I am "challenged" in the particulars of meter).

I bought the Turco book. My library had it and it seems a great resource. I don't even have a cheat sheet built yet for the pauses in a piece: enjambment, caesura, stuff like that.

Check out the Sister Bear thread in Blurbs for other great books. I'm getting 'em in from my library first before I decide if I want to buy them.

Your lighter note has now just polluted my brain for Emily Dickenson. Thank you. Now I'll have to go try that out & see if I can ever look at her the same way as before.

What did you think of Oliver's crit of "Bereft"? That opened up the world of scansion for me. The intention of the sounds... I am envious. I want to be able to manipulate a reader as badly as Frost manipulated me. I had no idea before I read her crit that the intention of the sounds could be that powerful. No wonder I didn't like the poem - until Oliver showed me how to appreciate it.

Off to the woods now! Thanks for giving me an excuse to look up from the rewrite!
-a


[This message has been edited by Andrea345 (edited 05-13-2001).]