Avian Christmas Dish
Three
days before Christmas of twenty ten;
Strolling
as usual under cherry tree;
I was
on my wild hunting regimen;
Feline
behavior really sets me free.
Killer
instinct does dwell in feline mind;
Predatory
drives hunting daily sport;
Regardless
of how well fed, teeth must grind,
Domesticated
in home at Bridgeport...
On
boughs my four padded feet stood supreme;
Among
wet leaves and rising of the sun;
Birds
among the green, I plotted my scheme;
Poultry
dish wish my fearless plot was spun.
Through
cherry boughs I scaled through early morn,
With
every climb my wish grew out of sight;
"Come
down Ginger, you are no leprechaun";
That voice in my head was stern and polite.
A Whiskas
cat I am; I love to prey;
But
church bells bellowed time for midnight mass;
Trees
sang “Silent Night” and I had no sway;
Those
black-birds chirped cherry-berry Christmas.
“Avian Christmas Dish” is
structured around the terza rima. The terza rima
consists of tercet verses in iambic pentameter in English poetry. The Italian
poet Dante Alighiere invented the Terza Rima in the late 13th Century. Its
inventor offered a series of five options on how to conclude the Terza Rima poem as
follows:
1. Use a
one-line verse after each stanza in which its end-rhyme, rhymes with the second
verse of the preceding tercet;
2. Use a
one-line verse at the end of the last stanza with its end-rhyme rhyming with
the end-rhyme of the second verse of the preceding tercet;
3. Use a
rhyming couplet at the end of each stanza with their end-rhymes rhyming with
the second verse of the preceding tercet;
4. Use a rhyming couplet at the end of the last stanza, with the end-rhymes rhyming with the end-rhyme of the second verse of preceding tercet.
5.Use a rhyming couplet at the end of the last tercet, with the rhyming couplet not rhyming with the end-rhyme of the second verse of the preceding tercet. The rhyming of this couplet is independent, as it were.
4. Use a rhyming couplet at the end of the last stanza, with the end-rhymes rhyming with the end-rhyme of the second verse of preceding tercet.
5.Use a rhyming couplet at the end of the last tercet, with the rhyming couplet not rhyming with the end-rhyme of the second verse of the preceding tercet. The rhyming of this couplet is independent, as it were.
“Avian
Christmas Dish” uses option 1 which uses a one line verse after each stanza in which its end-rhyme, rhymes with the second verse of the preceding tercet. The rhyme scheme
for this poem is aba b cdc d efe f ghg h iji j. As is evident in its rhyme
scheme, the poem has five tercet stanzas (a stanza of three verses is called a
tercet).
The substance, the impressions,
facts and ideas contained in poem “Avian Christmas Dish” or any other poem is
called content. The content of this poem falls in the category of a dramatic
monologue, dramatic poem as well as a narrative poem. Here are the reasons to
support the various categories into which the poem falls:
The poem reveals a one-way
conversation by the persona to a second person, or an imaginary audience
(dramatic monologue). Persona refers to the speaker or voice of literary work.
Persona is the “I” or implied speaker of narrative and lyric poetry. Narrative,
dramatic and lyric verses are the three main groups of poetry. It is possible
for a poem to combine the characteristics of narrative, dramatic and lyric
verses. “Avian Christmas Dish” is a dramatic poem because it portrays a story
of life, with a persona steep in conflict and emotions, in a miniature plot
evolving through action and dialogue. The poem is a narrative poem, because the
story keeps on evolving throughout the five stanzas and codas. Coda is a noun
and the singular form for codas. Coda refers to the additional section at the
end of the stanza. It is somewhat lyrical because the poem’s mood is emotional
and rhythmical.
Poets are limited in materials they
can use in their poems. All they have are words to express their ideas and
feelings. These words need to be precise on several fronts at once. Words
selected “must sound right; must have meaning which might have been unanticipated,
but seem to be the perfectly right one; must be arranged in a relationship and
placed on the page in ways that are at once easy to follow and assist reader in
understanding; they must probe the depths of human thought, emotions and
empathy, while appearing simple, self-contained, and unpretentious. The English
language contains a wide range of words from which to choose for almost every
thought, and they are numerous methods of arrangement of these English words,
called poetic devices” (Chaparral poets.org).
Chaparral Poets.Org arranged poetic
devices into four broad areas with headings like arranging the words, the
meaning of words, the images of words and the sound of words. The details of
headings arranged in alphabetical order are shown as follows:
Poetic devices are many and don’t
expect to find a poem depicting all them. Poets know this and only select those
poetic devices that assist in the development of cogent expressions pleasing to
readers and which are appropriate for shaping the imagery of the poem so essential
for the understanding of the poem’s content and message. To point this fact
out, the poem “Avian Christmas Dish” is revisited for the purpose of location
poetic devices used in the poem. Of significance in this probe is that the poem
utilizes all the four categories but shows only a few poetic devices taken from
each category as shown in these examples:
Various ways of arranging the words
in poems are to be found in certain terms poets apply to the process of
creating poetry. Here are examples taken from “Avian Christmas Dish”;
enjambment, form, fixed form, stanza form, stanza, verse, line, rhyme scheme,
point of view.
Enjambment
allows words to flow from verse to verse or stanza to stanza without any sort
of end-verse punctuation.
Example:
Three days before Christmas of twenty ten
Strolling as usual under cherry tee
I was on my wild hunting regimen;
On boughs my four padded feet stood supreme
Among wet leaves at the rising of the sun;
Form is the arrangement or method
used to convey content. It also means the details within the composition of the
poem. Generally, it is used in reference to the structural characteristics
shaping the poem as it compares to or differs from established modes of
conventional arrangements in poetry. This definition is incomplete without
giving examples in the following; open form, closed form, blank form, free
verse, the couplet, heroic couplet and the quatrain.
Fixed Form poetry is when the
structure of poems follows an established pattern of meter, rhyme scheme,
stanza form and refrain, if there is a refrain. Examples of poetic structures
which adhere to this definition are the ballad, ballade, concrete poetry,
epigram, epitaph, haiku, limerick, lyric verse, ode, pantoum, rondeau, sestina,
sonnet, terza rima, triolet and the villanelle.
The poem, “Avian Christmas Dish” is
an example of a fixed form poem in stanza form. Stanza Form is the name given
to describe poems composed on the number of verses in a stanza. The stanza form is a factor in the
categorization of whole poems describes as following a fixed form structure. Examples
of stanza form types of poems are:
Couplet
(2 verses in a stanza)
Tercet
(3 verses in a stanza)
Quatrain
(4 verses in a stanza)
Quintet
(5 verses in a stanza)
Sestet
(6 verses in a stanza)
Septet
(7 verses in a stanza)
Octave
(8 verses in a stanza)
The poem “Avian Christmas Dish” is
also a stanza form type of poem because its stanzas are made of tercet verses. Stanza
is a division of a poem established by arranging lines into a unit (free
verse); arranging verses in metered poetry, in the same pattern of meter and
rhyme throughout the poem . So, a stanza in metered poetry is a group of
verses.
Verse is a single line of a poem
arranged in a metrical pattern. In free verse there is no such thing as
stanzas, this is replaced by units. Arranging lines in free verse is called a
unit. Units are separated by blank lines. Stanzas within a poem are separated
by blank lines as shown in “Avian Christmas Dish”, for example.
Line, therefore, is fundamental to
the perception of poetry, marking an important visual distinction from prose.
Poetry is arranged into a series of units or stanzas that do not necessarily
correspond to sentences, but rather to a series of metrical feet and cadences
as in the case of free verse or prose poetry.
Rhyme Scheme arranges rhyming words
at the end of verses in each stanza in
an established pattern .This arrangement uses letters of the alphabet, as shown
in this rhyme scheme aba b cdc d efe f ghg h iji j of
the Terza Rima stanza form for poem “Avian Christmas Dish”.
When rhyming words are repeated in
a rhyme scheme, capital letters are used. When words in a rhyme scheme do not
rhyme, the alphabet letters x and y are used.
Here is an example taken from the poem “Bajan Conkies” shown below:
In quatrains, the popular rhyme scheme abab is called alternate rhyme or cross rhyme as seen in poem “Angie” shown below:
Point of View is where the poet concentrates on the vantage point of the speaker or teller of the poem. The speaker of teller of the poem is referred to as the poem’s “voice”. Point of View is where the poet decides on whether to use a persona as the 1st person, the 3rd person limited or 3rd person omniscient. The 1st person is the speaker in the poem who tells it from the “I” perspective. The 3rd person limited is the speaker in the poem who tells about the other characters through the limited perceptions of one other person. The 3rd person omniscient is the speaker in the poem who is not part of the story, but is able to know and describe what all characters are thinking.
In poem “Avian Christmas Dish” it
is clear that the persona is the 1st person because of the many
references to the pronoun “I” as seen in these examples:
Three
days before Christmas of twenty ten;
Strolling
as usual under cherry tree;
I
was on my wild hunting regimen;
Feline behavior really sets me free.
On
boughs my four padded feet stood supreme;
Among
wet leaves and rising of the sun;
Birds
among the green, I plotted my scheme;
Through
cherry boughs I scaled through early morn,
With
every climb my wish grew out of sight;
"Come
down Ginger, you are no leprechaun";
That voice in my head was stern and polite.
A Whiskas
cat I am; I love to prey;
But
church bells bellowed time for midnight mass;
Trees
sang “Silent Night” and I had no sway;
Most words in the English Language
convey several meanings or shades of meaning. This is why poets search for
words in relation to other words to convey their innermost thoughts. Here are
examples; allusion, ambiguity, apostrophe, contrast, personification, and pun found
in poem “Avian Christmas Dish”:
Allusion
is a brief reference to some person, historical event, work of art, biblical or
mythological situation or character.
Example:
“Come
down Ginger, you are no leprechaun”;
Ambiguity
is a word or phrase that has multiple meanings, even in the surrounding
conditions in which it is used.
Example:
That
voice in my head was stern and
polite.
Apostrophe
occurs when the persona speaks directly to a real or imagined listener or
inanimate object, by calling out the name of the person or thing.
Example:
“Come down Ginger, you are no leprechaun”;
Contrast
is about things arranged closely, but with strikingly different features.
Example:
That
voice in my head was stern and polite.
Personification
accords human characteristics to objects, to non-humans and abstract ideas.
Example:
But church
bells shouted time for midnight mass;
Trees sang
“Silent Night” and I had no sway:
Pun
also refers to as paronomasia is all about word play in which words with different
meanings have similar or identical sounds.
Example:
A Whiskas
cat I am, I love to prey;
The imaging of words relies on such
techniques as imagery, mood, tone and synesthesia; these techniques provide
strong visual and sensory impact for poets when writing their poetry. In any
poem, you are bound to come across imaging techniques in all types of poems
read. Imagery is the language of the senses. Imagery allows poets to add depth
and understanding of their creations. Imagery allows poets to use objects not
really there to create comparison between one that is, usually evoking more meaningful experiences
for readers as readers retrieve physical experiences which they may have from
sensory images. Imagery is a lot of things to a lot of different people;
through the senses, poets draw in readers by painting mind pictures in their
heads. What good is poetry without imagery? One would say a mere sounding brass
and a tinkling cymbal.
Synesthesia is a condition in which
one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another. Chaparralpoets define this condition as the
fusing of different senses by describing one kind of sense impression in words
normally used to describe another. As a poetic device, synesthesia attempts to
express a linkage between imagery sensors such as; visual, auditory, olfactory,
kinesthetic, organic, gustatory and tactile. An example of synesthesia taken
from “Avian Christmas Dish” is shown below:
Example:
Killer
instinct does dwell in feline mind;
Predatory
drives hunting daily sport;
Regardless
of how well fed, teeth must grind,
Through
cherry boughs I scaled through early morn,
With
every climb my wish grew out of sight;
It is amazing how these five verses
as shown above depict four imagery sensors (kinesthetic, organic, tactile and
visual) out of the seven types of imagery sensors.
Tone is about the attitude, feeling
or emotion one gets after reading poems. A poem’s tone points in three
directions; to the audience being addressed; he subject of the poem, and to the
general emotional climate of the poem;
In order to extract the tone of the
persona on the audience, the poem must be read as a whole. The persona’s
feeling or attitude is a combination of the poem’s structure, meter, images,
imagery, cadence, rhythm, figurative language, explicit meaning, implicit
meaning, symbolism, content, subject matter and the topic. Take for example;
poem “Avian Christmas Dish” the tone of the persona is polite and concise.
Obviously, this is very important because the persona’s goal is that of keeping
the audience motivated and not to drive away the audience. However, this does
not mean that the tone in poems is static. On the contrary, tone has a way of
shifting throughout the poem. The tone in the first stanza of a poem can shift
to a different tone in any of the remaining stanzas. Now let’s test this theory
on all the five stanzas of the poem, “Avian Christmas Dish” the results are
shown below:
Tone can also refer to the overall mood of the poem aimed to influence the readers’ emotional response and reactions to the poem’s content. However, tone and mood are two separate qualities. That said; how is mood defined?
Mood is created by the tone of the
poem filtered through the state of the mind. I like to say that it is the
atmosphere or feeling and is like a blanket cozily wrapped around tone. If the
tone is aggressive, the mood or state of mind is to attack or do harm. If the
tone is optimistic, then the mood will portray a positive attitude. If the tone
is low-spirited then mood will present an atmosphere of discouragement. The
overall mood of a poem is aimed at influencing readers’ emotional response and
reactions to the contents of the poem. Mood is influenced by the structure of
the poem; such as its imagery, words chosen, punctuations used, sound of words,
images of words, meaning of words and arrangement of words. If you have read
the poem “Avian Christmas Dish”; do you share this similar mood? I felt like a
weight had been lifted off my shoulders; for common sense had one the day; no
wanton killing was unleashed, and the joyous feeling of Christmas filled the
air.
Poets shape their creations around
imagery drawn from such broad areas as sound of words, meaning of words, the
arrangement of words and images of words. However, only a few poetic devices
from these broad areas are woven in each poem. This has been highlighted in
previous discourse with respect to the arrangement of words, the meaning of
words, and the images of words. Attention now is drawn to the sound of words
which is achieved when portions of words are clustered or juxtaposed to achieve
specific kinds of effects when they are spoken. Their sounds can be clever,
pleasing or soothing. Words that are not pleasing to the ears, poets often
avoid them. Of course, dark poetry writers cherish such words.
Poets of all persuasions draw from
the sounds of words by using poetic devices like; alliteration, assonance,
consonance, cacophony, euphony, onomatopoeia, repetition, rhyme and rhythm and
sibilance. Not all of these poetic devices associated with the sounds of words are to be found all at once in poems;
for there is the tendency for poets to select some of these poetic devices deemed
appropriate for each new poem created and is best suited for what the poem is
to achieve. Take for example in “Avian Christmas Dish” seven out of the ten
poetic devices are used such as; alliteration, assonance, consonance, sibilance,
rhyme, rhythm and scansion are shown below:
Alliteration repeats the same consonant
in any part of adjacent words.
Example:
With
every climb my wish grew out of sight;
But church bells bellowed time
for midnight mass;
Those black
birds chirped cherry-berry Christmas.
Assonance repeats vowel sounds in
stressed words placed near each other rather than in vowel sounds that are
unstressed.
Example:
Strolling
as usual under cherry tree;
Feline behavior really sets me free.
Regardless
of how well fed, teeth must grind.
Poultry
dish wish my fearless plot was spun.
Consonance repeats consonant sounds
at the ending of words that are stressed rather than in vowel sounds that are
unstressed.
Example:
Poultry
dish wish my fearless plot was spun.
But
church bells bellowed time for
midnight mass;
Trees
sang “Silent Night” and I had no sway;
We associate rhyme with poetry. It
is about words that have different beginning sounds but whose endings sound
alike, including the final vowel sound and everything following it.
Example:
Three
days before Christmas of twenty ten;
Strolling
as usual under cherry tree;
I
was on my wild hunting regimen;
Feline
behavior really sets me free.
Killer
instinct does dwell in feline mind;
Predatory
drives hunting daily sport;
Regardless
of how well fed, teeth must grind,
Domesticated
in home at Bridgeport...
On
boughs my four padded feet stood supreme;
Among
wet leaves and rising of the sun;
Birds
among the green, I plotted my scheme;
Poultry
dish wish my fearless plot was spun.
Through
cherry boughs I scaled through early morn,
With
every climb my wish grew out of sight;
"Come
down Ginger, you are no leprechaun";
That voice in my head was stern and polite.
A
Whiskas cat I am; I love to prey;
But
church bells bellowed time for midnight mass;
Trees
sang “Silent Night” and I had no sway;
Those
black-birds chirped cherry-berry Christmas.
Rhythm helps distinguish poetry from
prose. It is the metrical pattern mixed with rhymes fuelling the rhythmic beat
of poems. In order to provide examples of the rhythmic beat in poetry, it is
necessary to conduct to scan of verses in a poem as shown in the examples below
taken “Avian Christmas Dish”:
Scansion shows where the pattern of
stressed syllables and unstressed syllables occur in verses in a poem. Such
patterns are referred to as meter. Meter organizes voice patterns, in terms of
both the arrangement of stressed and unstressed as marked by ictus (/), the
breve (ˬ) and the meter counter (׀). Poetry is organized by
the division of each verse into “feet” metric units which consist of a
particular arrangement of strong and weak stresses as shown in the above
examples. Scansion, therefore, is the conscious measure of the pattern of
stressed and unstressed syllables in a verse of poetry. As seen in the examples
five metrical feet in English Language poetry is called an iambic pentameter
.If the five feet read only iambs, the meter gives off an unnatural rhythm or
monotonous rhythm. Hence, the reason why metrical feet of any length in English
Language poetry blend in other foot types like the trochee, spondee, dactyl,
pyrrhic and anapest to counteract monotonous rhythm.
References:
Poetic
Devices, Chaparralpoets. Retrieved March 9. 2003, from http://www.chaparralpoets.org/devices.pdf
Poetic
Form: Terza Rima, Poets.org Academy of American Poets. Retrieved March 9, 2013,
from Google search, http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5794
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