The Ode Less Travelled Part 13

Here is another, written by the unfortunately named American poet Adelaide c.r.a.psey: I make my shroud but no one knows,So s.h.i.+mmering fine it is and fair,With st.i.tches set in even rows.I make my shroud but no one knows.In door-way where the lilac blows,Humming a little wandering air,I make my shroud and no one knows,So s.h.i.+mmering fine it is and fair.

W. E. Henley (on whom Stevenson based the character of Long John Silver) believed triolets were easy and was not afraid to say so. He also clearly thought, if his rhyming is anything to go by, that they were p.r.o.nounced English-fas.h.i.+on, probably tree-o- tree-o-let: EASY is the Triolet, is the Triolet,If you really learn to make it!Once a neat refrain you get,Easy is the Triolet.As you see!I pay my debtWith another rhyme. Deuce take it,Easy is the Triolet,If you really learn to make it!

They are certainly not easy to master butas my maudlin attempt suggests, and as Wendy Cope's 'Valentine' rather more stylishly provesthey seem absolutely tailor-made for light love poetry: My heart has made its mind upAnd I'm afraid it's you.Whatever you've got lined up,My heart has made its mind upAnd if you can't be signed upThis year, next year will do.My heart has made its mind upAnd I'm afraid it's you.

One more repeating form to look at before we atrophy.

KYRIELLE.

The chanting of a KYRIELLE KYRIELLETolls like the summons of a bellTo bid us purge our black disgrace.Lord a-mercy, shut my face.Upon my knees, I kiss the rod,Repent and raise this cry to G.o.dI am a sinner, foul and baseLord a-mercy, shut my face.And so I make this plaintive cry:'From out my soul, the demons chaseProstrate before thy feet I lie.'Lord a-mercy, shut my face.There is no health or good in me,Nor in the wretched human race.Therefore my G.o.d I cry to thee.Lord a-mercy, shut my face.Let sins be gone without a traceLord have mercy, shut my face.You've heard my pleas, I rest my case.Lord have mercy! Shut my face.

The name and character of the KYRIELLE KYRIELLE derive from the Ma.s.s, whose wail of derive from the Ma.s.s, whose wail of Kyrie eleison Kyrie eleison!'Lord, have mercy upon us'is a familiar element. For those of us not brought up in Romish ways it is to be heard in the great requiems and other ma.s.ses of the cla.s.sical repertoire.

The final line of every stanza is the same, indeed rime en kyrielle rime en kyrielle is an alternative name for repeated lines in any style of poetry. Most examples of the kyrielle to be found in English are written, as mine is, in iambic tetrameter. As I have tried to demonstrate, quatrains of is an alternative name for repeated lines in any style of poetry. Most examples of the kyrielle to be found in English are written, as mine is, in iambic tetrameter. As I have tried to demonstrate, quatrains of aabB aabB and and abaB abaB or couplets of or couplets of aA, aA aA, aA are all equally acceptable. There is no set length. The Elizabethan songwriter and poet Thomas ('Cherry Ripe') Campion wrote a 'Lenten Hymn' very much in the spirit, as well as the letter, of the kyrielle: are all equally acceptable. There is no set length. The Elizabethan songwriter and poet Thomas ('Cherry Ripe') Campion wrote a 'Lenten Hymn' very much in the spirit, as well as the letter, of the kyrielle: With broken heart and contrite sigh,A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry:Thy pard'ning grace is rich and free:O G.o.d, be merciful to me.I smite upon my troubled breast,With deep and conscious guilt opprest,Christ and His cross my only plea:O G.o.d, be merciful to me.

Incidentally, many kyrielles were written in 1666. Not just to apologise to G.o.d for being so sinful and tasteless as to perish in plague and fire, but because numbers were considered important and the Roman numerals in 'LorD ha haVe M MerCIe V Vpon V Vs' add up to 1666: this is called a CHRONOGRAM CHRONOGRAM.

The kyrielle need not exhibit agonised apology and tortured pleas for mercy, however. The late Victorian John Payne managed to be a little less breast-beating in his 'Kyrielle' as well as demonstrating the scope for slight slight variation in the repeat: variation in the repeat: A lark in the mesh of the tangled vine,A bee that drowns in the flower-cup's wine,A fly in suns.h.i.+ne,such is the man.All things must end, as all began.A little pain, a little pleasure,A little heaping up of treasure;Then no more gazing upon the sun.All things must end that have begun.Where is the time for hope or doubt?A puff of the wind, and life is out;A turn of the wheel, and rest is won.All things must end that have begun.Golden morning and purple night,Life that fails with the failing light;Death is the only deathless one.All things must end that have begun Well, haven't haven't we learned a lot! Bags of French forms beginning with 'r' that repeat their lines we learned a lot! Bags of French forms beginning with 'r' that repeat their lines en kyrielle en kyrielle. To be honest, you could call them all rondeaux and only a pedant would pull you up on it. It is not too complicated a matter to invent your own form, a regular pattern of refrains is all it takes. You could call it a rondolina rondolina or or rondismo rondismo or a or a boundelay boundelay or whatever you fancied. Destiny and a place in poetic history beckon. or whatever you fancied. Destiny and a place in poetic history beckon.

Poetry Exercise 16 Your FIRST FIRST task is to write a less emetic triolet than mine for your true love, as sweet without being sickly as you can make it, your task is to write a less emetic triolet than mine for your true love, as sweet without being sickly as you can make it, your SECOND SECOND to compose a to compose a RONDEAU REDOUBLe RONDEAU REDOUBLe on any subject you please. on any subject you please.

VIII.

Comic Verse The centothe limerick and the clerihewreflections on comic verse, light verse and parody CENTO.

Wordsworth Comes OutMy heart leaps up when I beholdThe pansy at my feet;Ingenuous, innocent and boldBeside a mossy seat.For oft when on my couch I lieUpon the growing boy,A little Cyclops with one eyeWill dwell with meto heighten joy.

CENTOS are cannibalised verse, collage poems whose individual lines are made up of fragments of other poetry. Often each line will be from the same poet. The result is a kind of enforced self-parody. In mine above, all the lines are culled from different poems by Wordsworth. Ian Patterson has produced some corkers. Here are two, one from A. E. Housman, the other a cento st.i.tched from Shakespeare sonnets. Just to emphasise the point: are cannibalised verse, collage poems whose individual lines are made up of fragments of other poetry. Often each line will be from the same poet. The result is a kind of enforced self-parody. In mine above, all the lines are culled from different poems by Wordsworth. Ian Patterson has produced some corkers. Here are two, one from A. E. Housman, the other a cento st.i.tched from Shakespeare sonnets. Just to emphasise the point: all all the lines are genuine lines from the poet in question, panels torn from their own work to make a new quilt. First, his Housman Cento: the lines are genuine lines from the poet in question, panels torn from their own work to make a new quilt. First, his Housman Cento: The happy highways where I wentWarm with the blood of lads I knowHave willed more mischief than they durstA hundred years ago.Clay lies still, but blood's a roverSafe through jostling markets borne;The nettle nods, the wind blows over,With hurts not mine to mourn.When you and I are spilt on air,What's to show for all my pain?Duty, friends.h.i.+p, bravery o'er,And Ludlow fair again.

Extraordinary how much sense it seems to make. This is Patterson's Shakespeare Cento: When in the chronicles of wasted timeThat thy unkindness lays upon my heart,Bearing the wanton burthen of the primeTo guard the lawful reasons on thy part,My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lieThe perfect ceremony of love's rite,And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eyeTo change your day of youth to sullen night,Then in the number let me pa.s.s untoldSo that myself bring water for my stain,That poor retention could not so much holdKnowing thy heart torment me in disdain:O cunning love, with tears thou keep'st me blind, Since I left you my eye is in my mind.

They are, I suppose, no more than a game, but one which can be surprisingly revealing. If nothing else, they provide a harmlessly productive way of getting to know a particular poet's way with phrase and form. Centos that mix completely dissimilar poets' lines are another harmless kind of comic invention.

THE C CLERIHEW.

ELIZABETH B BARRETTWas kept in a garret.Her father resented it bitterlyWhen Robert Browning took her to Italy.ALFRED, LORD T TENNYSONPreferred Victoria Sponge to venison.His motto was 'Regina semper floreat'And that's how he became Poet Laureate.OSCAR W WILDEHad his reputation defiled.When he was led from the dock in tearsHe said 'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at two years.'D. H. LAWRENCEHeld flies in abhorrence.He once wrote a verse graffitoDeploring the humble mosquito.TED H HUGHESHad a very short fuse.What prompted his wrathWas being asked about Sylvia Plath.

The CLERIHEW CLERIHEW is named after Edmund Clerihew Bentley, father of Nicolas, that peerless ill.u.s.trator who always signed his work 'Nicolas Bentley Drew the pictures'. The rules state that clerihews be non-metrically written in two couplets, the first of which is to be a proper name and nothing else. The best-known originals include: is named after Edmund Clerihew Bentley, father of Nicolas, that peerless ill.u.s.trator who always signed his work 'Nicolas Bentley Drew the pictures'. The rules state that clerihews be non-metrically written in two couplets, the first of which is to be a proper name and nothing else. The best-known originals include: Christopher WrenSaid 'I am going to dine with some men,'If anyone callsSay I am designing St Paul's.'Sir Humphrey DavyAbominated gravy.He lived in the odiumOf having discovered sodium.John Stuart Mill,By a mighty effort of will,Overcame his natural bonhomieAnd wrote 'Principles of Economy'.

Metrical clumsiness is very much a desideratum; indeed, it is considered extremely bad form for a clerihew to scan. Properly done, they should tell some biographical truth, obvious or otherwise, about their subject, rather than be sheer nonsense. Sir Humphrey's dislike of gravy, for example, may well be whimsical tosh, but he did discover sodium: I have tried to cleave to this requirement in my clerihews on the poets. Clerihews have therefore some utility as biographical mnemonics.

THE L LIMERICK.

There was a middle-aged writer called FryWhose book on verse was a lie.For The Ode Less Travelled The Ode Less TravelledSoon unravelledTo reveal some serious errors in its scansion and rhy...

Unlike clerihews, LIMERICKS LIMERICKS, as we discovered when considering their true metrical nature (we decided they were anapaestic, if you recall), do and must scan. I am sure you need to be told little else about them. The name is said to come from a boozy tavern chorus 'Will you come up to Limerick?'. Although they are popularly a.s.sociated with Edward Lear, anonymous verses in the 'There was an old woman of...' formulation pre-dated him by many years: A merry old man of Oporto,Had long had the gout in his fore-toe;And oft when he spokeTo relate a good joke,A terrible twinge cut it short-O.Said a very proud Farmer at Reigate,When the Squire rode up to his high gate 'With your horse and your hound,You had better go round,For, I say, you shan't jump over my gate.'

That pair was accompanied by Cruikshank ill.u.s.trations in a children's 'chap-book' of around 1820 when Lear was just eight or nine years old. Oddly, these examples accord more closely to the modern sense of what a limerick should be than Lear's own effusions, in which the last line often lamely repeats the first.

There was an Old Man of the West,Who wore a pale plum-coloured vest;When they said, 'Does it fit?'He replied, 'Not a bit!'That uneasy Old Man of the West.

Rather flat to the modern ear, I find. We prefer a punchline: Girls who frequent picture palacesSet no store by psychoa.n.a.lysis.And although Sigmund FreudWould be greatly annoyed,They cling to their long-standing fallacies.

Or phalluses phalluses, ho-ho-ho. It was W. S. Baring-Gould's collection The Lure of the Limerick The Lure of the Limerick that really understood the base (in both senses) nature of the form. I remember owning a Panther Books edition (an imprint known for publis.h.i.+ng risque but cla.s.sy works, Genet and the like) and finding their scabrous and cloacal nature hilarious, as any unhealthy ten-year-old would. This anonymous (so far as I can tell) limerick puts it well: that really understood the base (in both senses) nature of the form. I remember owning a Panther Books edition (an imprint known for publis.h.i.+ng risque but cla.s.sy works, Genet and the like) and finding their scabrous and cloacal nature hilarious, as any unhealthy ten-year-old would. This anonymous (so far as I can tell) limerick puts it well: The limerick packs laughs anatomicalInto s.p.a.ce that is quite economical.But the good ones I've seenSo seldom are cleanAnd the clean ones so seldom are comical.

When I began collecting the works of Norman Douglas I was delighted to find a copy of his 1928 anthology, Some Limericks Some Limericks, which remains deeply shocking to this day. Most of them are simply disgusting. Hard to believe that an antiquarian belle-lettriste belle-lettriste like Douglas (you may remember his 'Wagtail' anacreontics) would dare risk attaching his name to them at a time when like Douglas (you may remember his 'Wagtail' anacreontics) would dare risk attaching his name to them at a time when Ulysses Ulysses was being impounded by customs officers on both sides of the Atlantic. Please do was being impounded by customs officers on both sides of the Atlantic. Please do not not read these four examples of Douglas's literary excavations. Skip to the next paragraph instead. read these four examples of Douglas's literary excavations. Skip to the next paragraph instead.

There was an old fellow of Brest,Who sucked off his wife with a zest.Despite her great yowlsHe sucked out her bowelsAnd spat them all over her chest.There was a young man of NantucketWhose p.r.i.c.k was so long he could suck itHe said, with a grinAs he wiped off his chin:'If my ear were a c.u.n.t, I could f.u.c.k it.'There was an old man of Corfu,Who fed upon c.u.n.t-juice and spew.When he couldn't get this,He fed upon p.i.s.sAnd a b.l.o.o.d.y good subst.i.tute too.There was an old man of Brienz,The length of whose c.o.c.k was immense.With one swerve he could plugA boy's bottom in ZugAnd a kitchen-maid's c.u.n.t in Koblenz.

Reflections on Comic and Impolite Verse Comic forms such as the limerick and the clerihew are the pocket cartoons of poetry. Often they fail dismally to provoke the slightest smilealthough those collected by Norman Douglas can certainly provoke cries of outrage and s(t)imulated disgust. It seems to me that the City of Poesy, with its a.s.sociations of delicacy, refined emotion and exquisite literacy is all the richer for having these moral slums within its walls. No metropolis worth visiting is without its red-light district, its cruising areas and a bohemian village where absinthe flows, reefers glow and love is free. W. H. Auden wrote obscene comic verse which you will not find anthologised by Faber and Faber,14 and even the retiring Robert Frost had the occasional reluctant (and unconvincing) stab at being saucy. Obscenity is a fit manner for comic verse; without it the twin horrors of whimsy and cuteness threaten. There is surely no word in the language that causes the heart to sink like a stone so much as 'humorous'. Wit is one thing, bawdy another, but and even the retiring Robert Frost had the occasional reluctant (and unconvincing) stab at being saucy. Obscenity is a fit manner for comic verse; without it the twin horrors of whimsy and cuteness threaten. There is surely no word in the language that causes the heart to sink like a stone so much as 'humorous'. Wit is one thing, bawdy another, but humorousness humorousness...Humorousness is to wit what a suburban lawn is to either Sissinghurst or or a rubbish-heap, what an executive saloon is to an Aston Martin a rubbish-heap, what an executive saloon is to an Aston Martin or or a cheerful old banger. Wit is either a steel rapier or a lead cosh, rarely a cutely fas.h.i.+oned paper dart. Wit is not a cheerful old banger. Wit is either a steel rapier or a lead cosh, rarely a cutely fas.h.i.+oned paper dart. Wit is not nice nice, wit is not affirmative or consoling. Jonathan Swift describing how 'A Beautiful Young Nymph Goes to Bed' is unafraid of being disgusting in his disgust: CORINNA, Pride of Drury-Lane,...Returning at the Midnight Hour;Four Stories climbing to her Bow'r;Then, seated on a three-legg'd Chair,Takes off her artificial Hair:Now, picking out a Crystal Eye,She wipes it clean, and lays it by.Her Eye-Brows from a Mouse's Hide,Stuck on with Art on either Side,Pulls off with Care, and first displays 'em,Then in a Play-Book smoothly lays 'em.Now dexterously her Plumpers draws,That serve to fill her hollow Jaws.Untwists a Wire; and from her GumsA Set of Teeth completely comes.Pulls out the Rags contriv'd to propHer flabby Dugs and down they drop.Proceeding on, the lovely G.o.ddessUnlaces next her Steel-Rib'd Bodice;Which by the Operator's Skill,Press down the Lumps, the Hollows fill,Up hoes her Hand, and off she slipsThe Bolsters that supply her Hips.With gentlest Touch, she next exploresHer Shankers, Issues, running Sores,Effects of many a sad Disaster;And then to each applies a Plaster.But must, before she goes to Bed,Rub off the Daubs of White and Red;And smooth the Furrows in her Front,With greasy Paper stuck upon't.She takes a Bolus e'er she sleeps;And then between two Blankets creeps....CORINNA wakes. A dreadful Sight!Behold the Ruins of the Night!A wicked Rat her Plaster stole,Half eat, and dragged it to his Hole.The Crystal Eye, alas, was miss'd;And Puss had on her Plumpers p.i.s.s'd.A Pigeon pick'd her Issue-Peas;And Shock her Tresses fill'd with Fleas.The Nymph, tho' in this mangled Plight,Must ev'ry Morn her Limbs unite.But how shall I describe her ArtsTo recollect the scatter'd Parts?Or show the Anguish, Toil, and Pain,Of gath'ring up herself again?The bashful Muse will never bearIn such a Scene to interfere.Corinna in the Morning dizen'd,Who sees, will spew; who smells, be poison'd.

Heroic verse indeed. Even more scabrous, scatological and downright disgraceful was the seventeenth-century's one-man Derek & Clive, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester: She was so exquisite a wh.o.r.eThat in the belly of her motherShe turned her c.u.n.t so right beforeHer father f.u.c.ked them both together.

Mm, nice.

Light Verse It is revealing that in polls to find the most popular poets, names like Shel Silverstein, Wendy Cope, Spike Milligan, Roald Dahl, Roger McGough, Benjamin Zephaniah, John Betjeman, Glyn Maxwell and Langston Hughes consistently appear high in the charts (not that all their work is comic, of course). Certainly Emily d.i.c.kinson, Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath and Pablo Neruda feature too (not that all their work is serious, of course). There seems to be an inexhaustible appet.i.te for verse whose major rhetorical instrument is wit or lightness of touch. It is notable also that long long poems seem a great deal less appealing to the public. Perhaps this is something to do with our culture of immediacy: fast food verse for fast food people. Whatever the reason, it seems to me self-evident that if you wish your poetry to make a noise outside the world of academia, poetry magazines and private poems seem a great deal less appealing to the public. Perhaps this is something to do with our culture of immediacy: fast food verse for fast food people. Whatever the reason, it seems to me self-evident that if you wish your poetry to make a noise outside the world of academia, poetry magazines and private Gesellschaften Gesellschaften, your chances are greatly increased by their possession of an element of esprit. Perhaps the description that best fits the work of the more popular poets is not comic, but light light. 'Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly,' said Chesterton.

LIGHT V VERSE does not need to be comic in intent or witty in nature: it encourages readers to believe that they and the poet share the same discourse, intelligence and standing, inhabit the same universe of feeling and cultural reference, it does not howl in misunderstood loneliness, wallow in romantic agony or bombard the reader with learning and allusion from a Parna.s.sian or abstrusely academic height. This kind of poetry, Auden argues in his introduction to does not need to be comic in intent or witty in nature: it encourages readers to believe that they and the poet share the same discourse, intelligence and standing, inhabit the same universe of feeling and cultural reference, it does not howl in misunderstood loneliness, wallow in romantic agony or bombard the reader with learning and allusion from a Parna.s.sian or abstrusely academic height. This kind of poetry, Auden argues in his introduction to The Oxford Book of Light Verse The Oxford Book of Light Verse, was mainstream until the arrival of the romantics. With the exception of sacred verse, Miltonic epics, drama and the more complex metaphysical poems of the seventeenth century, almost all poetry was, more or less, light. It was adult, it could be moving, angry, erotic and even religious, but it was digestible, it was not embarra.s.sed by the idea of likeability and accessibility. A poem could be admired because it was prettily made and charming to read, Mozartian qualities if you like. Modernism appeared to drive lightness out of poetry for ever. These popularity polls, irksome as they be, seem to indicate that it is far from dead, however. In the knowledge that Gravity will destroy us in the end, perhaps Levity is not so trivial a response.

Parody Neither are parody and pastiche an unfit manner for the poet. Chaucer began the trend in English with a scintillating parody of badly versified epical romance called Sir Thopas Sir Thopas. Shakespeare parodied Marlowe, as did Donne (in praise of angling in the style of 'The Pa.s.sionate Shepherd'); Byron parodied and was parodied, Dryden, Johnson, and Swift parodied and were parodied and so it went on. Trends in the actual nuts and bolts of versification were ruthlessly guyed by Pope in the Dunciad Dunciad: George Canning and John Hookham Frere (the former of Castlereagh, the latter of Whistlecraft Whistlecraft fame and the pair of them high Tory 'Anti-Jacobins') made great sport of the democrat Southey's experiments in dactylics: fame and the pair of them high Tory 'Anti-Jacobins') made great sport of the democrat Southey's experiments in dactylics: Wearisome Sonnetteer, feeble and querulous,Painfully dragging out thy democratic laysMoon-stricken sonneteer, 'ah! for thy heavenly chance!'Sorely thy Dactylics lag on uneven feet:Slow is the syllable which thou would'st urge to speed,Lame and o'erburden'd, and 'screaming its wretchedness'.

They had a go at his Sapphic verse too: Needy Knife-grinder! whither are you going?Rough is the road, your wheel is out of orderBleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in 't, So have your breeches.

Byron was always savage at the expense of the 'Lakers'. It is fair to observe that he, silver-spoon n.o.bleman as was, remained a true radical all his life, while both Southey and Wordsworth accepted the King's s.h.i.+lling and b.u.t.t of malmsey as Poets Laureate, ending their lives as comfortable establishment grandees. Byron seemed to detect an air of fraudulence early on. Here is his parody of Wordsworth's 'Peter Bell'.

There's something in a stupid a.s.s:And something in a heavy dunce;But never since I went to schoolI saw or heard so d.a.m.ned a foolAs William Wordsworth is for once.

They say the modern literary world is full of squabbling hatred and simmering resentments, but it is as nothing to the past.

The individuality and restless stressed energy of Hopkins makes him ripe for pastiche. Anthony Brode was inspired to write a perfect Hopkins parody after reading this on his cereal packet one morning: 'Delicious heart-of-the-corn, fresh-from-the-oven flakes are sparkled and spangled with sugar for a can't-be-resisted-flavour.'

Parenthesis proud, bracket-bold, happiest with hyphensThe writers stagger intoxicated by terms, adjective-unsteadiedDescribing in graceless phrases fizzling like soda siphonsAll things crisp, crunchy, malted, tangy, sugared and shredded.

Parodies are rife in popular culture, a staple of television comedy, but literary and verse parodies seem to have fallen from fas.h.i.+on, Wendy Cope being one of the few practising poets who plays happily and fruitfully with the style of other poets. Now it's your turn.

Poetry Exercise 17 I am sure you have a favourite poet. Write a parody of their style and prosodic manner. Try and make it comically inappropriate: if you like Ted Hughes, try writing a fearsome, physically tough description of a Barbie doll or something else very un-Hughesy. I know this is a bit of a Spectator Spectator Compet.i.tion sort of exercise, but it is a good way of noticing all the metrical, rhyming and formal mannerisms of a poet. If you are really feeling bold, try writing a cento. You will need the collected works of the poet you choose, otherwise a cento mixing different verses from an anthology might be worth trying. Surprise yourself. Compet.i.tion sort of exercise, but it is a good way of noticing all the metrical, rhyming and formal mannerisms of a poet. If you are really feeling bold, try writing a cento. You will need the collected works of the poet you choose, otherwise a cento mixing different verses from an anthology might be worth trying. Surprise yourself.

IX.

Exotic Forms15 Haiku-senryutankaghazalluc battanaga HAIKU.

Five seven and five: Seventeen essential oils For warm winter nights.

The HAIKU HAIKU, as you may already know, is a three-line poem of j.a.panese origin whose lines are composed of five, seven and five syllables. There is much debate as to whether there is any purpose to be served in English-language versions of the form. Those who understand j.a.panese are strong in their insistence that haikus in our tongue are less than a pale shadow of the home-grown original. English, as a stress stress-timed language, cannot hope to reproduce the effects of syllable syllable-timed j.a.panese. I define these terms (rather vaguely) in the section on Syllabic Verse in Chapter One.

Just so that you are aware, there is a great deal more to the haiku than mere syllable count. For one thing, it is considered de rigueur de rigueur to include the season of the year, if not as cra.s.sly as mine does, then at least by some other reference to weather or atmosphere, what is known as a to include the season of the year, if not as cra.s.sly as mine does, then at least by some other reference to weather or atmosphere, what is known as a kigo kigo word. A reverence for life and the natural world is another apparent sine qua non of the form, the aim being to provide a kind of aural, imagistic snapshot (a word. A reverence for life and the natural world is another apparent sine qua non of the form, the aim being to provide a kind of aural, imagistic snapshot (a shasei shasei or 'sketch of nature'). The senses should be engaged and verbs be kept to a minimum, if not expunged entirely. The general tenor and thrust of the form (believe me, I am no expert) seems to be for the poet ( or 'sketch of nature'). The senses should be engaged and verbs be kept to a minimum, if not expunged entirely. The general tenor and thrust of the form (believe me, I am no expert) seems to be for the poet (haijin) to await a 'haiku moment', an epiphany or imaginative inspiration of some kind. The haiku is a distillation of such a moment. In their native land haikus are written in one line, which renders the idea of a 575 syllable count all the more questionable. They also contain many puns (kakekotoba), this not being considered a groan-worthy practice in j.a.panese. A caesura, or kireji kireji, should be felt at the end of either the first or second 'line'.

Haiku descends from haikai no renga haikai no renga, a (playful) linked verse development of a shorter form called waka waka. The haikai's first stanza was called a hokku hokku and when poets like Masaoka s.h.i.+ki developed their new, stand-alone form in the nineteenth century, they yoked together the words and when poets like Masaoka s.h.i.+ki developed their new, stand-alone form in the nineteenth century, they yoked together the words haikai haikai and and hokku hokku to make to make haiku haiku. We now tend to backdate the term and call the short poems of seventeenth-century masters such as Mats...o...b..sho haikus haikus, although they ought really to be called hokkus hokkus. Clear?

A haiku which does not include a kigo kigo word and is more about word and is more about human human than than physical physical nature is called a nature is called a SENRYU SENRYU which, confusingly, means 'river willow'. which, confusingly, means 'river willow'.

Those who have studied the form properly and write them in English are now very unlikely to stick to the 575 framework. The j.a.panese on on (sound unit) is very different from our syllable and most original examples contain far fewer words than their English equivalents. For some the whole enterprise is a doomed and fatuous mismatch, as misguided as eating the Sunday roast with chopsticks and calling it sus.h.i.+. Nonetheless non-j.a.panese speakers of some renown have tried them. They seemed to have been especially appealing to the American beat poets, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Corso and Kerouac, as well as to Spanish-language poets like Octavio Paz and Jorge Luis Borges. Here are a couple of Borges examples (it is possible that haikus in Spanish, which like j.a.panese is syllabically timed, work better than in English)my literal translations do not obey the syllabic imperatives. (sound unit) is very different from our syllable and most original examples contain far fewer words than their English equivalents. For some the whole enterprise is a doomed and fatuous mismatch, as misguided as eating the Sunday roast with chopsticks and calling it sus.h.i.+. Nonetheless non-j.a.panese speakers of some renown have tried them. They seemed to have been especially appealing to the American beat poets, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Corso and Kerouac, as well as to Spanish-language poets like Octavio Paz and Jorge Luis Borges. Here are a couple of Borges examples (it is possible that haikus in Spanish, which like j.a.panese is syllabically timed, work better than in English)my literal translations do not obey the syllabic imperatives.

La vasta nocheno es ahora otra cosaque una fragancia.(The enormous night is now nothing more than a fragrance.)Callan las cuerdas.La musica sabialo que yo siento.(The strings are silent.The music knewWhat I was feeling.) Borges also experimented with another waka waka-descended j.a.panese form, the TANKA TANKA (also known as (also known as yamato uta yamato uta). I shall refrain from entering into the nuances of the form, which appear to be complex and unsettledcertainly as far as their use in English goes. The general view appears to be that they are five-line poems with a syllable count of 5,7,5,7,7. In Spanish, in the hands of Borges, they look like this: La ajena copa,La espada que fue espadaEn otra mano,La luna de la calle,Dime, acaso no bastan?(Another's cup,The sword which was a swordIn another's hand,The moon in the street,Say to me, 'Perhaps they are not enough.') The form has recently grown in popularity, thanks in large part to the publication American Tanka American Tanka and a proliferation of tanka sites on the Internet. and a proliferation of tanka sites on the Internet.

GHAZAL.

The lines in GHAZAL GHAZAL always need to always need to run, run, IN PAIRS IN PAIRS.They come, like mother-daughter, father-son, IN PAIRS IN PAIRSI'll change the subject, as this ancient form requiresIt offers hours of simple, harmless fun, fun, IN PAIRS IN PAIRS.Apparently a Persian form, from far-off daysIt needs composing just as I have done, done, IN PAIRS IN PAIRSAnd when I think the poem's finished and completeI STEPHEN F FRY, p.r.o.nounce my work is un- un-IMPAIRED.

My version is rather a b.a.s.t.a.r.dly abortion I fear, but the key principles are mostly adhered to. The lines of a GHAZAL GHAZAL (p.r.o.nounced a bit like (p.r.o.nounced a bit like guzzle guzzle, but the 'g' should hiccup slightly, Arab-stylie) come in metrical couplets. The rhymes are unusual in that the last phrase last phrase of the opening two lines (and second lines of each subsequent couplet) is a refrain ( of the opening two lines (and second lines of each subsequent couplet) is a refrain (rhadif ), it is the word ), it is the word before before the refrain that is rhymed, in the manner shown above. I have cheated with the last rhyme-refrain pairing as you can see. Each couplet should be a discrete (but not necessarily discreet) ent.i.ty unto itself, no enjambment being permitted or overall theme being necessary. It is usual, but not obligatory, for the poet to 'sign his name' in the last line as I have done. the refrain that is rhymed, in the manner shown above. I have cheated with the last rhyme-refrain pairing as you can see. Each couplet should be a discrete (but not necessarily discreet) ent.i.ty unto itself, no enjambment being permitted or overall theme being necessary. It is usual, but not obligatory, for the poet to 'sign his name' in the last line as I have done.

The growth in the form's popularity in English is largely due to its rediscovery by a generation of Pakistani and Indian poets keen to reclaim an ancient form with which they feel a natural kins.h.i.+p. As with the haiku, it may seem to some impertinent and inappropriate to try to wrench the form out of its natural context: like taking a Lancas.h.i.+re hotpot out of a tandoori oven and serving it as Asian food. I see nothing intrinsically wrong with such attempts at cultural cross-breeding, but I am no authority.

LUC B BAT.

LUC B BAT is rather is rather cute cuteIt keeps the mind astute and and pert pert.i.t doesn't really hurt hurtTo keep the mind alertly keen keenYou'll know just what I mean meanWhen you have gone and been been and and done doneYour own completed one oneIt's really rather fun fun to to do doFull of subtlety too too,I hope that yours earn you you re repute.

This is a Vietnamese form much easier to do than to describe. LUC B BAT is based on a syllable count that alternates 6, 8, 6, 8, 6, 8 and so on until the poet comes to his final pair of 6, 8 lines (the overall length is not fixed). The sixth syllables rhyme in couplets like my is based on a syllable count that alternates 6, 8, 6, 8, 6, 8 and so on until the poet comes to his final pair of 6, 8 lines (the overall length is not fixed). The sixth syllables rhyme in couplets like my cute/astute cute/astute but the eight-syllable lines have a second rhyme ( but the eight-syllable lines have a second rhyme ( pert pert in my example), which rhymes with the sixth syllable of the next line, in my example), which rhymes with the sixth syllable of the next line, hurt hurt. When you come to the final eight-syllable line, its eighth syllable rhymes with the first line of the poem (re pute pute back to back to cute cute). I don't expect you to understand it from that garbled explanation. Here is a scheme: maybe that will be easier to follow.

Luc bat is the Vietnamese for 'six eight'. The form is commonly found as a medium for two-line riddles, rhyming as above.

Completely round and white whiteAfter baths they're tight tight together. together.Milk inside, not a yak yakHairy too, this snack snack is fleshy is fleshy Plates and coconuts, in case you hadn't cracked them.16 Proper poems in Vietnamese use a stress system divided into the two pleasingly named elements Proper poems in Vietnamese use a stress system divided into the two pleasingly named elements bang bang and and trac trac, which I cannot begin to explain, since I cannot begin to understand them. Once more the Internet seems to have been responsible for raising this form, obscure outside its country of origin, to something like cult status. It has variations. SONG T THAT L LUC B BAT (which literally means (which literally means two sevens, six-eight two sevens, six-eight, although it begs in English to have the word 'sang' after it, as in 'The Song That Luc Bat Sang') consists of a seven-syllable rhyming couplet, followed by sixes and eights that rhyme according to another scheme that I won't bother you with. I am sure you can search Vietnamese literature (or van chuong bac hoc van chuong bac hoc) resources if you wish to know more.

TANAGA.

The TANAGA TANAGA owes its genes owes its genesTo forms from the Philippines.To count all your words like beansYou may need adding machines.

The TANAGA TANAGA is a short non-metric Filipino form, consisting of four seven-syllable lines rhyming is a short non-metric Filipino form, consisting of four seven-syllable lines rhyming aaaa aaaa, although modern English language tanagas allow abab, aabb abab, aabb and and abba abba.17 I am not aware of any masterpieces having yet been composed in our language. But there it is for your pleasure. I am not aware of any masterpieces having yet been composed in our language. But there it is for your pleasure.

Poetry Exercise 18 Four haikus in the usual mongrel English form: one for each season, so do not forget your kigo kigo word. word.

X.

The Sonnet PETRARCHAN AND S SHAKESPEAREAN.

I wrote a bad P PETRARCHAN S SONNET once, once,In two laborious weeks. A throttled streamOf wordssure following the proper schemeOf Abba Abbaoh, but what a dunceI was to think those yells and tortured gruntsCould help me find an apt poetic theme.The more we try to think, the more we dream,The more we whet our wit, the more it blunts.But give that dreaming part of you release,Allow your thras.h.i.+ng conscious brain a break,Let howling tom become a purring kittenAnd civil war dissolves to inward peace;A thousand possibilities awake,And suddenly your precious sonnet's written.

The sonnet's fourteen lines have called to poets for almost a thousand years. It is the Goldilocks form: when others seem too long, too short, too intricate, too shapeless, too heavy, too light, too simple or too demanding the sonnet is always just right. It has the compactness to contain a single thought and feeling, but s.p.a.ce enough for narrative, development and change.

The sonnet was, they say, invented in the thirteenth century by Giacomo da Lentini in the Sicilian court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Dante and d'Arezzo and others experimented with it, but it was Francesco Petrarca, Petrarch Petrarch, who shaped it into the form which was to have so tremendous an impact on European and English poetry. In the papal court of Avignon he composed his cycle of sonnets to Laura, a girl he always claimed was flesh and blood, but whom many believed to be a conjured ideal. His sonnets made their way over to G.o.d-fearing medieval England and lay there like gleaming alien technology: dazzling in their sophistication, knowledge, mastery and promise, frightening in their freedom, daring and originality.

Chaucer knew of them and admired them but their humanism, their promotion of personal feeling and open enquiry, the vigour and self-a.s.sertion of their individual voice would have made any attempt on his part to write such works, if indeed he had that desire, a kind of heresy or treason. We had to wait two hundred years for the warm winds of the Renaissance truly to cross the channel and thaw us out of our monkish and feudal inertia. In the hundred and twenty or so years between the Reformation and the Restoration the sonnet had, like some exotic plant, been grafted, grown, hothoused and hybridised into a flouris.h.i.+ng new native stock, crossbred to suit the particular winds and weather of our emotional and intellectual climate. This breeding began under Wyatt and Surrey, great pioneers in many areas of English verse, and was carried on by Sidney, Shakespeare, Drummond, Drayton, Donne, Herbert and Milton. The next century saw an equally rapid decline: it is hard to think of a single sonnet being written between the death of Milton in the 1670s and the publication of Wordsworth's first sonnets a hundred and thirty years later. Just as Wren and the Great Fire between them redesigned half-timbered, higgledy-piggledy Tudor London into a metropolis of elegant neocla.s.sical squares and streets, so Dryden, Johnson and Pope preferred to address the world from a Palladian balcony, the dignified, harmonious grandeur of the heroic couplet replacing what they saw as the vulgar egoism of the lowly sonnet and its unedifying emotional wrestling matches. Those very personal qualities of the sonnet were precisely what attracted Wordsworth and the romantic poets of course, and from their day to ours it has remained a popular verse forum for a poet's debate with himself.

The structure of the PETRARCHAN S SONNET, preferred and adapted by Donne, Milton and many others, is easily expressed. The first eight lines abba-abba abba-abba are called the are called the OCTAVE OCTAVE, the following six lines cdecde cdecde (or (or cddccd cddccd or or cdccdc cdccdc) the SESTET SESTET.

The ninth line, the beginning of the sestet, marks what is called the VOLTA, VOLTA, the turn. This is the moment when a contrary point of view, a doubt or a denial, is often expressed. It is the sonnet's pivot or fulcrum. In mine at the top of this section the ninth line begins with 'But', a rather obvious way of marking that moment (although you may recall Donne uses the same word in his 'At the round earth's imagined corners' cited in Chapter Two). In Wordsworth's 'The world is too much with us' below, the volta comes in the middle of the ninth line, at the 'en dash': it is precisely here, after 'It moves us not' that, overlooking the sea, having pondered the rush of the modern Christian world in its commerce and cra.s.sness and its blindness to nature, Wordsworth as it were draws breath and makes his point: he would rather be a pagan for whom at least nature had life and energy and meaning. A volta can be called a the turn. This is the moment when a contrary point of view, a doubt or a denial, is often expressed. It is the sonnet's pivot or fulcrum. In mine at the top of this section the ninth line begins with 'But', a rather obvious way of marking that moment (although you may recall Donne uses the same word in his 'At the round earth's imagined corners' cited in Chapter Two). In Wordsworth's 'The world is too much with us' below, the volta comes in the middle of the ninth line, at the 'en dash': it is precisely here, after 'It moves us not' that, overlooking the sea, having pondered the rush of the modern Christian world in its commerce and cra.s.sness and its blindness to nature, Wordsworth as it were draws breath and makes his point: he would rather be a pagan for whom at least nature had life and energy and meaning. A volta can be called a crisis crisis, in its literal Greek sense of 'turning point' as well as sometimes bearing all the connotations we now place upon the word.

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;For this, for everything, we are out of tune;It moves us not.Great G.o.d! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Within the Petrarchan form's basic octavesestet structure there are other sub-divisions possible. Two groups of four and two of three are natural, two quatrains and two tercets if you prefer.

Here now is Shakespeare's twenty-ninth Sonnet.

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,I all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,And look upon myself and curse my fate,Wis.h.i.+ng me like to one more rich in hope,Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,With what I most enjoy contented least;Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,Haply I think on thee, and then my state,Like to the lark at break of day arisingFrom sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

This contains one of the strongest voltas imaginable: it arrives in the breath between Haply Haply and and I think of thee I think of thee in line 10, pivoting from the very first word of the sonnet, in line 10, pivoting from the very first word of the sonnet, When When. The whole first part of the poem is a vast conditional clause awaiting the critical critical turn. But the difference in rhyme-scheme and lack of octave and sestet structure will already have shown you that, volta or no volta, this is far from a Petrarchan sonnet. turn. But the difference in rhyme-scheme and lack of octave and sestet structure will already have shown you that, volta or no volta, this is far from a Petrarchan sonnet.

For the Tudor poets one of the disadvantages of the Petrarchan form was that abba abba abba abba requires two sets of four rhyming words. While this is a breeze in Italian where every other word seems to end - requires two sets of four rhyming words. While this is a breeze in Italian where every other word seems to end -ino or - or -ella, it can be the very deuce in English. Drayton, Daniel and Sidney radically reshaped the rhyme-scheme, using a new structure of abab cdcd efef gg abab cdcd efef gg. This arrangement reached unimaginable heights in the hands of Shakespeare, after whom it is named. His great sonnets stand with Beethoven's piano sonatas as supreme expressions of the individual human voice using and fighting the benign tyranny of form, employing form itself as a metaphor for fate and the external world. Sonata and sonnet share the same etymology, as it happens'little sound'. Little sounds that make a great noise.

The SHAKESPEAREAN S SONNET offers, aside from less troublesome rhyming searches, twelve lines in its main body, three quatrains or two sestets and a couplet and other permutations thereoftwelve is a very factorable number. The cross-rhyming removes the characteristic nested sequence of envelope rhyming found in the Petrarchan form ( offers, aside from less troublesome rhyming searches, twelve lines in its main body, three quatrains or two sestets and a couplet and other permutations thereoftwelve is a very factorable number. The cross-rhyming removes the characteristic nested sequence of envelope rhyming found in the Petrarchan form (bb inside inside aa aa and the following and the following aa aa inside inside bb bb) but the reward is a new freedom and the creation of a more natural debating chamber.

For this is primarily what the Shakespearean sonnet suits so well, interior debate. I have mentioned before the three-part structure that seems so primal a part of human thinking. From the thesis, ant.i.thesis, synthesis of the earliest logicians, the propositions, suppositions and proofs of Euclid and the strophe, antistrophe and epode of Greek performance and poetic ode to our own parliaments and senate chambers, boardrooms, courtrooms and committee rooms, this structure of proposal, counterproposal and vote, prosecution, defence and verdict is deep within us. It is how we seem best to frame the contrary flows of thought and feeling that would otherwise freeze us into inaction or propel us into civil war or schizophrenic uncertainty. The sonnet shares with the musical sonata a rhetorical fitness for presentation, exploration and return. While the Petrarchan sonnet's two divisions separated by a strong volta suit a proposition and a conclusion, the nature of the Shakespearean form allows of three quatrains with a final judgemental summing up in the trademark final couplet. Do bear in mind when I talk of a 'dialectical structure' that the sonnet is, of course, a poetic form, not a philosophicalI oversimplify to draw attention to the internal movement it offers. Clearly a closing couplet can often seem glib and trite. The romantics preferred the Petrarchan sonnet's more unified scheme, finding the Shakespearean structure of seven rhyme pairs harsh and infelicitously fractured compared to the Petrarchan's three.

In modern times the sonnet has undergone a remarkable second English-language renaissance. After its notable health under Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Sonnets from the Portuguese) and Hopkins ('The Windhover', 'All Nature is a Herac.l.i.tean Fire'), Daryush wrote some syllabic sonnets ('I saw the daughter of the sun' is very fine) and the form was 'rediscovered' by Auden, Berryman, c.u.mmings, Edna St Vincent Millais, Elizabeth Bishop, Carol Ann Duffy and many others, including Seamus Heaney whose superb sonnets in The Haw Lantern The Haw Lantern are well worth exploring. In this century it is more popular than ever: you will find one written every minute on the profusion of websites devoted to it. are well worth exploring. In this century it is more popular than ever: you will find one written every minute on the profusion of websites devoted to it.

SONNET V VARIATIONS AND R ROMANTIC D DUELS.

There are as many arguments about what const.i.tutes a sonnet as there are arguments about any field of human activity. There are those who will claim that well-known examples like Sh.e.l.ley's 'Ozymandias' are anamorphic, not true sonnets but types of quatorzain quatorzain, which is just another way of saying 'fourteen-line poem'. This is an argument we need not enter. There are those who recognise poems of less than fourteen lines as being CURTAL SONNETS CURTAL SONNETS (Hopkins's 'Pied Beauty' reproduced in full in Chapter One being an example and perhaps Yeats's 'The Fascination of What's Difficult' is another). (Hopkins's 'Pied Beauty' reproduced in full in Chapter One being an example and perhaps Yeats's 'The Fascination of What's Difficult' is another).

There is also a seventeen-line variant. These are called CAUDATE SONNETS (from the Latin for 'tail', same root as 'coda') which feature a three-line envoi or (from the Latin for 'tail', same root as 'coda') which feature a three-line envoi or cauda cauda. The convention here is for the first line of the cauda to be trimetric and to rhyme with the last line of the main body of the sonnet, and for the next two lines to be in the form of a rhyming couplet in iambic pentameter. Milton's sonnet 'On the New Forcers of Conscience Under the Long Parliament' is an example: here are its final couplet and cauda, with line numbers, just so that you are clear: May with their wholesome and preventative shears

13.

Clip your phylacteries,18 though baulk your ears, though baulk your ears,

14.

And succor our just fears,