English Poetry Versification - Part I

Versification is the poets’ backpack they trek with through the mountains, valleys, streams, plains and moor in a cognitive environment. These poetry chefs search for the right ingredients to clean and season the poetry they cook for us to consume. Ever mindful that their poetry must have the right taste and texture for folks still growing baby teeth, those with all their natural adult teeth and those who must wear dentures. Ever mindful of this, poets select the best spices and condiments to add flavor to their poetry dishes. In advance, they set the weight and measurement then blend them well into the stuffing that goes into the poetry. When completed the poetry is placed on the serving tray with the presentation pleasing to the eyes in a manner that complements the poetry being served.

How is that appetizer above I’ve whipped up for you? Now here is a sample from poetry dish in the form of an acrostic rhyming ababcdeedebcb in non-standard iambic pentameter.

Versification

Very well, measure verses as you should
each word, or sound that has fallen from lips;
run as you like under the old stave wood;
stressed and unstressed feet, this way the voice dips
in musing, rhyme as you please on the verse;
for feet brake sharply, for a strong road mark;
in time, those pentameter lines will rhyme
catalectic scanning is not a crime;
acatalectic gives foot a stretch mark;
take time to sway with cadence every time;
inside rhymes and caesura solve conflicts;
omitted vowels make lines roll with terse;
now, those omissions are metrical tricks.

The purpose of it was to lead you on to the main thread, that persons who prepare poetry for consumption are called poets. What poets bring to the table to feed our senses are their thoughts they weave through the process of Versification.

In order to versify, poets use versifier tools which perform specific task but working together in unison to produce the end product known as poems. These six versifier tools are listed below and with comments on each of them.

1. Content
Words = facts, ideas, impressions

2. Form
Content Structure

3. Style

Poetic diction

4. Measurement
scansion
meter

5. Sound Effects

Alliteration

Assonance

Cacophony

Consonance

dissonance

Euphony

Onomatopoeia

Rhymes

Rhythm

Sibilance

6. Elements of poetry
literal meaning
imagery
figurative language
symbolism
rhythm and rhyme
tone

Content for poems is made up of facts, ideas and impressions which poets creatively weave together. The arrangement of content is dictated by the particular form and genre which poets use. In order to present this content to the audience or readers the poet provides a voice. In other words, the poet assigns someone who will speak the words written in the poem. The person who elucidates the content of the poem is called the voice. Voice can also mean the aura. The aura that is created from the element in the artistic production that induces a perception by the audience or reader of the moral qualities of the speaker or character, Aristotle called this the ethos. In narrative poetry, the persona is the “I” or the implied speaker as in the case of lyrical poems. Sometimes the poet would identify a created character as the speaker. However, in the absence of such a specific attribution, the term persona is applied. What good does this do? It allows for no automatic assumption that the creative work done is the expressed experiences or views of the poet. The identification of a character or characters by poets prevents any potential ambiguity. It also enables poets to give expression to things they would prefer not to have attributed to themselves.

Form is the arrangement of the meter, rhythm, lines, verses, stanzas in poems. When predetermined meter, rhymes and stanzas become the structural blocks for poems we have what is known as fixed form (sometimes referred to as closed form, classical form, traditional form). The poetry styles that fit into this mold are the epic, ode, sonnet, ballad, limerick, pantoum, sestina, triolet, villanelle, rondeau, ghazal, elegy, tanka, cinquain, haiku, senryu, octtava rima, terza rima, paradelle. When the structural blocks in traditional poetry are ignored as often done by modernist and postmodernist poets, we refer to such a structure as a non-compliant form also known as unstructured poetry or open form poetry. Non-compliant poetry styles are free verse, reportage, pose poems, language poetry, performance poetry, computer-generated poetry, egoless poetry, beat poetry, blank form, open form.

Style has a way of tagging traditionalist, modernist and post-modernist poets . Style is synonymous with poetic diction which is all about the choice of words, phrases, sentence structure and figurative language in literary work; the manner or mode of verbal expression, particularly with regard to clarity and accuracy. We know that poetry is one of the genres of literature. So the aforementioned holds true. Poets weave their style into content for the expressed desire to captivate the audience or readers. Hence, style has to do with the manner, in which individual poets say, do, express or perform their poetic works. In the western world, Aristotle remains the originating plank for thinking about the use of language in poetry and prose; so according to the English translation by Ingram Bywater (1920) of Aristotle’s Poetics, Aristotle asserted that the perfect style for writing poetry was one that is clear and without meanness. He defined meanness of style as the deliberate avoidance of unusual words, but warned against over-reliance on strange words as seen in this extract from Poetics.

“The perfection of Diction is for it to be at once clear and not mean. The clearest indeed is that made up of the ordinary words for things, but it is mean… A certain admixture, accordingly, of unfamiliar terms is necessary. These, the strange word, the metaphor, the ornamental equivalent, etc., will save the language from seeming mean and prosaic, while the ordinary words in it will secure the requisite clearness. What helps most, however, to render the Diction at once clear and non-prosaic is the use of the lengthened, curtailed, and altered forms of words.”

I greatly admire the style William Wordsworth used in his lyrical poems. In his poetic style, he replaced the lofty and eloquent style used by poets of his era. His style reflects his use of clear and simple language of the people as he bonded intensely with nature.

(to be continued in Part II of this blog)

Poetry and the Entrepreneur

What are the commonalities between poetry and the entrepreneur? No doubt, the initial response to this question may well be that if there are any, the commonalities are not worth mentioning. Such a nonchalant reaction could be the result of a conditioned mind set into thinking that business is about the profit motive and the myriads of ways to do so. Whereas, poetry is an emotional avalanche and more than not, creates the abstract side of the world. In saying this, think of the many emerging poets who say that they write from the heart thus giving credence to the aforementioned statement. Some folks are also led falsely into thinking that poetry deals strictly with emotions whether real or surreal and not the bottom line in business.

However, I share a different perspective on the issue at hand as you continue to stay with me on this matter. As a person engrossed deeply in the poetic world, it is with surety to say that there is a fair amount of poetry-driven businesses around. Poems range from the whimsical about business and an explosion of poems found in advertisements. During my career life in academia, poetry became part of the learning tool in the interdisciplinary teaching lessons. Such great blessings flowed from students to students and from students to teacher and vice versa. Now that I have become an educator emeritus, poetry both structured and unstructured remains my passion. The added pleasure is the ability to write in many forms and styles. The entire environment is my daily muse and not once has there been a writer’s block that many poets of the day seem to be experiencing. The commonalities between the entrepreneurial spirit and poetry are there, weilding much importance. Essentially they are creators.The entrepreneurs, like poets invent new ways to connect people, ideas and organizations. Entrepreneurs and poets make great strides on intuitive behaviour. They create meaning where it didn’t seem to exist, with their head, heart and hands to the plough, as it were. They communicate this to their audience. They make the vision real, so to speak. No apologies required therefore, in saying that starting up a business equates with writing a poem. Poetry is like NISE (National Initiative on Service Excellence) for improving business writing. The rules for good poetry writing are applicable to good business prose as verse. These two communication devices must rely on good content, be concise, be organized and must have style. Go into any established business entity and tour the various offices and you are bound to come across types of poems hanging from the walls or being perched on the work station serving as motivators for those who read them.

Poetry is invigorating in so many ways. Perhaps because of this, it is not unusual to find a significant portion of business persons delving into poetry either as readers, writers or reviewers. No doubt, they will say that poetry helps them to maintain equilibrium as they sort through challenges which come with the daily activities of business. The paradigm shift that is sweeping the 21st Century commercial world at unprecedented haste is engendering greater creativity in the life of the working masses. The organizational structures are increasingly relying on the input not only from management but from non-managerial employees to the lowest level. The organization is as strong as its weakest link so everybody’s input is a source of organizational strength, growth and wealth. Thus, the acknowledgement of input from all levels of the organization is a means of helping employees to overcome habitual fear and reticence of expressing themselves through nurturing the “soul” within the enterprise. This nurturing of the “soul” is developed through dramatic groups and poetry writing as a way to express deeper emotions.

The goal of contemporary business leaders worth their salt is not hooked solely on the profit motive (the bottom line) but as a matter of grave concern, the provision for new avenues to look at life in business whereby helping employees find greater satisfaction. In saying this, the collaboration is seen in the many poetic statements that have found their way into the organizations’ mottoes, slogans and mission statements. You can believe this as well, poetry has become the blood of any nation’s cultural milieu. Check out the national cultural foundations of your country and tell me this is not so, my challenge to you. The next point worth mentioning in this discourse is how businesses use poetry in advertising their products.

Advertising is a method whereby consumers are made aware of the various product lines on sale. Poetry and sound lyrics are increasingly being used to draw the public in with the goal of getting the public to see the goodness of their product lines and purchase them. If this were not the case, why do we see and hear advertisements laced with poetic utterances. The jingle is at best and example of this. So what is a jingle?

A jingle is usually an unbridled pleasant sounding verse flowing with catchy words and phrases with lots of rhymes and rhythm that somehow stay in the mind for a very long time. Its rhythm is captivating as a result of the alliterative nature of the sounds. Most people tend to label a jingle as nonsensical but it really does drive advertising in a sort of hypnotic way. Just think about the many jingles you hear, so there must be some profitable inducement worth pursuing.

If I may say so myself, I think that the poem, "The Nest" could very well serve as an advertisement for bloggers of poetry with google accounts. It has five stanzas with a rhyme scheme aabbb and each verse is made up of six syllables. A closer examination at the stanzaic lines reveals that they are Trimeter verses.

A trimeter is a line of verse consisting of three metrical feet or three Dipodies.

A Dipody is a double foot; a unit of two feet.

©Paterika Hengreaves
December 2008/Barbados