Poetics as Pulse

What is it about poetry,

trochees and spondees and dactyls and iambs

and iambs and dactyls and spondees and trochees

and spondees and trochees and iambs and dactyls

and dactyls and iambs and trochees and spondees

that matters?

Pulse; the regular beat of blood as it is sent around the body, that can be felt in different places.[1]

Glyn Maxwell was right when he said that ‘Poetry is creaturely’.[2] And it is true that in order to be creaturely, one must have ‘the heartbeat and the pulse, the footstep and the breath’.[3] Reading poetry is a multi-sensory experience in which we are visually led while sounds form in our ears and mouths; we can feel the rise and fall of poetics as they pulsate from the page and flow through us, creaturely, pulsing a beat that becomes one with our own. The rhythmical experience of poetic language and style is attractive to us because it reflects the vitality within us.

Rhythm is compelling. As rhythmic beings we eat and sleep and breathe and pulse, and so the lure of the regular and the irregular, the strong and the weak, the silences and stutters of the patterns of beats we experience in poetics, is a naturally satisfying physical experience. But just as a baseline does not a song make, poetry relies on more than meter for significant impact. In Sharon Olds’ poem, Material Ode, we can feel, along with the pulsing crescendo of rising despair through the repetitive ‘O’, the power of the emotive language to unsettle through emotion and uncertainty;

My husband

had said he was probably going to leave me – not

for sure, but likely, maybe – and no, it did not

have to do with her. O satin, O

sateen, O velvet, O fucking velveeta[4]

It is language that brings melody to poetics and also gives us a variety of tones that can deliver feeling, meaning, understanding and transformation. Poetic language is language at its most powerful.

What is life, without pulse?

Consider a world of textbooks and long streams of factual prose, literal writing and instruction, where language is void of allusion, metaphor, rhythm, simile… void of heart. The Russian Formalists were correct when they stated that ‘sjuzhet significantly modifies fabula’.[5] Poetics are, for language, as vital as pulse is for life. In A Defence of Poesy, Sir Philip Sydney claims that ‘even historiographers… have been glad to borrow both fashion and perchance weight of the poets’; because history and philosophy cannot communicate knowledge as effectively as poetic language can when it comes to rousing the individual in enthusiasm for learning and understanding.[6] Many great educators of the past have ‘encouraged and delighted’ by giving life to their teachings ‘under the masks of poets’.[7] Language that draws attention to itself can achieve impact through sublimity. Milton understood the power of poetics as he revitalised the standard biblical story of creation in his great work, Paradise Lost. Through exhilarating poetics using grand elevated metaphorical language, Milton breathed new life into an age-old story that had begun to lose its effect. Note the lacklustre text of the Biblical version;

Then God said, ‘Let great lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night.’[8]

And now relish Miltonic poetics with its elaborate extended metaphor and personification;

God saw the Light was good;

And light from darkness was the Hemisphere

Divided: Light the Day and Darkness Night

He nam’d. Thus was the first Day Ev’n and Morn:

Nor past uncelebrated, nor unsung

By the Celestial Choirs, when Orient Light

Exhaling first from Darkness they beheld;[9]

The contrast is stark and the power of poetics to persuade and arouse, intrigue and excite is evidence that poetic language is the pulse and heartbeat that brings literature to life.

Pulse; the regular expansion of arteries caused by contractions of the heart.

What pulse and poetics have in common is that they both originate in the heart. Poetry carries the weight of human emotion and feeling, which is why Sydney and Milton deemed poetic language necessary for, not only captivation of reader, but also the deepest expression. Who doesn’t relate to language that conveys the human condition? As Virginia Woolf implores, ‘Come pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. I sob, I sob’, we are drawn into her immediate moment of anguish, almost feeling the piercing of our own flesh, as she invites us to sob along with her as we follow the changing pitch of the words.[10] Poetic words and phrasing articulate emotion by giving us language that connects us to universal issues of the human heart, and thus, to ourselves. Oscar Wilde wrote bare his own torment as he disturbed us with language that simultaneously reveals the heart and momentarily stops it beating;

Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.[11]

The pulsing rhythm and sensitive assonance of Wilde’s writing is confirmation of poetics as giving life to not only literature but also the delicate subjects of human vulnerability, in a way that gently touches, creating connection between heart of reader and heart of poet. Without the pulse of poetics, how can the heart speak through language?

Pulse; for we are each born of, and connected by, the gift of pulse.

In the melting pot of individuals, that was the undergraduate environment, in a place where disparate temperaments and persuasions dwelled, it was poetic language that united the most diverse of characters. English Literature students united in their love of The Bell Jar. Plath’s confessional novel spoke of identity, loneliness, expectations and transformation in a way that made self-contemplation accessible to readers of varied academic ability and from diverse background and culture.

I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.[12]

Plath unites us all with the repetitive throb of that which connects us; our humanity. There is no denying that Plath’s poetic rhythmic simulation of the beating of the heart, ‘I am, I am, I am’, is a grounding pulse that transcends gender, sexuality, colour and creed.[13] This is language at its most beautiful; language that demands attention; language that speaks directly to the reader; because it is language that is so purely concise, offering only that which it communicates. The Bell Jar is my book, your book, everybody’s book, making perfect sense of complex issues through the essential use of stunning poetics; literature that offers connection.

Pulse; a validation of life.

‘When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke round me I am in darkness—I am nothing.’[14]

As Virginia Woolf expresses so personally her own feelings of worthlessness as she isolates, ‘I am nothing’, she not only purges herself as a means of self-therapy but offers her readers solidarity and validation- me too, me too, me too.[15] Adrienne Rich similarly hooks in the destitute reader with the exploration of self and past trauma through the imagery of a ship wreck in Diving in the Wreck;

I came to explore the wreck.

The words are purposes.

The words are maps.

I came to see the damage that was done

And the treasures that prevail.[16]

Without connection we are in darkness, lonely as bodies in a morgue. Without expression we are isolated inside our cocooned minds, inside our own shipwreck. That poetics can communicate emotion on the page is a gift to all struggling with the human condition, and searching for validation of their thoughts and confirmation of their right to feel. Poetics also allows us to inhabit psyches we may have no experience of ourselves. Li-Young Lee gifts us insight into the world of other as he explores transcultural poetics in the poem Persimmons;

Other words

that got me into trouble were

fight and fright, wren and yarn.

Fight was what I did when I was frightened,

Fright was what I felt when I was fighting.[17]

Lee’s confusion over words reflect his confusion of cultural identity. Shared language creates space for empathy and can move, motivate and reassure in the most intimate of ways, through the privacy of reading, through the anonymous relationship between writer and reader. As pulse validates life, poetics validates self, for both writer and reader.

Pulse; a moment in time

For the poet, grasping the right language to convey the internal landscape and the physical world, in order to connect to self and other, is not simply a matter of writing things down. There is deep thinking involved in poetic expression, requiring intelligent response and configuring of consciousness. Li-Young Lee said, ‘language keeps exceeding me, and I keep trying to catch up with it’.[18] He went on to explain that ‘a sentence is a rhythmic frequency and words are like birds that come to perch along that sentence. We see the birds.’.[19] And, of course, the trouble with birds is they have the freedom to fly off at any moment. Poets may think and feel deeply and be highly observant individuals but the right words are tangible gifts, pulses of clarity, that can be transient and elusive. As Susan Mitchell says, ‘The world is wily and doesn’t want to be caught’.[20] The world being the conscious and unconscious way we perceive our lives; the world that writers yearn to convey. Yet Mark Doty feels he must persevere ‘finding the words’ and in submission to his calling says, ‘It’s what I do, the nature of my attention, the signature of my selfhood’.[21] And like birds on a wire, if we aren’t specifically looking for them, we won’t see them; if we aren’t striving to grasp the words that shape the thoughts as they come then we lose that moment in time and the words often… vanish.

Pulse; a variable rate of vibration

While we are united by pulse, each of us a beating heart, it is not the case that all individuals experience the same pulse rate; it is not the case that the individual pulse rate stays the same. Pulse varies in tempo and force, as language varies in, not only rhythm and word choice, but form and style, bringing infinite possibility to poetics offering huge scope for creativity. If a thought cannot be captured in the first creative attempt, it is certainly not the case that those thoughts can never be written. In Difference Mark Doty gifts us several stunning metaphors for the jellyfish claiming ‘every one does something alike’ but describing them completely differently;

This one a balloon

Open on both ends

But swollen to its full expanse,

This one a breathing heart,

This a pulsing flower.

This one a rolled condom,

Or a plastic purse swallowing itself,

That one a tiffany shade,[22]

By taking the common image of the jellyfish and relating it to other simple visuals, Doty demonstrates the power of metaphorical language. That a jellyfish can be a condom, a purse, a balloon, is proof that metaphor can give fresh understanding and new perception of thoughts and images that were previously rigid. And there we have confirmation of Sir Philip Sydney’s assertion that knowledge ‘standeth upon all dialogue’.[23] By using poetic language, we can learn more, understand more and visualise better, that which we don’t know and that which we thought we knew.

As Doty was alluding to with his ‘jellyfish’, the endless potential for creativity in poetics is perhaps the most exciting aspect of language.[24] That literature continues to stretch, shift shape and evolve into new forms is an electrifying prospect for the writer. It is difficult to become complacent as a reader when we are presented with fresh poetics as alluring as found in The Winged Seed by Lee young Li. This most interesting form of memoir examines the complex and subjective psychological history of Li’s psyche whilst exploring new frontiers of poetic prose.

It takes one bird to write the central action of the air, lending its wings to gravity, in order to be aloft.

But Wait, says the seed in my hand, It is not time to fly.

Tell me a story.[25]

We are never quite sure of reality or dreamscape as we try to decipher voice and place throughout Lee’s dense and hypnotic language. Another author to push the boundaries of memoir is Jennifer Clement with her exhilarating poetic prose triumph, Widow Basquiat. Through thrilling and disjointedly staccato recollections, Clement offers us a unique experience of the troubled artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, by using language tailored to fit the incomprehensible man she strives to convey;

He smells of leather, oil, tobacco, marijuana and the faint metallic smell of cocaine. He wears handmade wool sweaters and long Mexican ponchos. He never walks in a straight line. He zigzags wherever he is going. Suzanne follows behind him. She feels like a Japanese woman.

Jean-Michel can never get a taxi to stop for him. Not even later when he wears an Armani suit and has five thousand dollars in his pocket. Jean-Michel hides behind a car and Suzanne hails the taxis.

He has the scar of a knife wound on his buttocks. He says his mother is in an insane asylum and his whole world spins around her.

He moves in with Suzanne.[26]

Poetic prose, like pulse, is variable and we are richer for it.

What is the point of pulse, if not propulsion?

The pushing of creative boundaries brings new literary movements, allowing for influence and inspiration and, thus, rejuvenation of poetics, as poets find not only their individual voice, but their collective voice in place and time. Consider the subject matter of literature over the years and you’ll see that writers are still focused on the most significant elements of life- love, death, religion, self. In the era of Metaphysical poetry Donne and his contemporaries put the spotlight on these curious topics and quite often related all of them in the one poem. In The Good Morrow Donne plays with poetics to convey the physical love with the spiritual;

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.[27]

What is this room to which Donne refers? The body, bedroom, the world, the self, the spiritual landscape? By exploring meaning through poetics, the Metaphysical movement gave us the metaphorical conceit that allowed for more abstract ideas be played with through the experimentation of literature of the era. Employing the use of new poetic devices, the Metaphysical poets found a collective voice, bringing a progressive energy to poetics. Donne, was at the forefront of these new frontiers, deviating from traditional form with his rogue approach to rhythm and rhyme. His jarred meter was at the cutting edge of the progression of poetics and in A Valediction: Of Weeping, Donne has us stumble over language to accentuate the trials of the separation of two lovers;

Let me pour forth

My tears before thy face whilst I stay here,

For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,

And by this mintage they are something worth,[28]

In contrast to the predictable meter of traditional form, the jolting rhythm Donne employed paved the way for further experimentation of poetics. Despite going out of fashion for many years, Donne is hailed as a truly innovative poet showing that language that draws attention to itself can propel literature forwards into new and exciting territory, offering permission for other writers to do the same.

Far removed from the poetry of the 17th Century is the simplistic poetic style of Raymond Carver. Using language that has been stripped of ornamentation and ambiguity, Carver propels the short story into new minimalist territory of dirty realism by using hauntingly honest prose;

You know what? I think if you were on fire right now, if you suddenly burst into flame this minute, I wouldn’t throw a bucket of water on you.[29]

The variables of language endow the writer with opportunity for vast exploration and when creative borders are crossed and others follow suit, we see exciting new eras that can bring a collective voice to literary movements and a collective voice to humanity. Poetics can propel literature forwards, and with the recent decline in reading, where language will go next is open to exciting discussion.

What is it about poetry,

as it beats through the body, pulsing life, from the heart, connecting, validating, by thoughts caught in words, in myriad variants, that contributes to language, to our lives,

to my life,

that matters?

Words- 3055

Bibliography

Carver, Raymond, Elephant& Other Stories (GB: Collins Harvill, 1988).

Clement, Jennifer, Widow Basquiat (Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2000).

Donne, John, ‘The Good Morrow’, in The Norton Anthology of Poetry (New York: Norton, 1983).

Doty, Mark, The Art of Description (Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2010).

Doty, Mark, ‘Difference’, My Alexandria (Illinois: University Illinois Press, 1995).

Genesis 1, 14.

Lee, Li-Young, ‘Persimmons’, in Rose (Rochester: BOA Editions, 1986).

Lee, Li-Young, https://bombmagazine.org/articles/li-young-lee/ [accessed 25 November 2019].

Lee, Li-Young, The Winged Seed (Rochester: BOA Editions, 2013).

Lennard, John The Poetry Handbook (New York: Oxford Press, 2005).

Maxwell, Glyn, On Poetry (London: Oberon Books, 2017).

Milton, John, Paradise Lost (New York: Penguin Books, 1968).

Olds, Sharon, ‘Stag’s Leap’ (London: Cape Poetry, 2012).

Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/pulse_1 [accessed 25 November 2019].

Plath, Sylvia, The Bell Jar (Faber and Faber, 2005).

Plath, Sylvia, Selected Poems (London: Faber & Faber, 1985)

Rice, Philip & Waugh, Patricia, Modern Literary Theory (New York: Arnold, 1996).

Rich, Adrienne, Blood, Bread and Poetry (London: Norton House, 1994).

Rich, Adrienne, Diving into the Wreck, in The Norton Anthology of Poetry (New York: Norton, 1983).

Sydney, Sir Philip <https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Defense_of_Poesy>

Wilde, Oscar, The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde (London: Wordsworth Editions, 2007).

Woolf, Virginia, The Waves (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993).

[1] Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, <https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/pulse_1 > [accessed 25 November 2019]. [2] Glyn Maxwell, On Poetry (London: Oberon Books, 2017), p. 88. [3] Glyn Maxwell, On Poetry (London: Oberon Books, 2017), p. 88. [4] Sharon Olds, ‘Stag’s Leap’ (London: Cape Poetry, 2012), p.7. [5] Philip Rice & Patricia Waugh, Modern Literary Theory (New York: Arnold, 1996) p. 26. [6] Sir Philip Sydney, The Defence of Poesy, <https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Defense_of_Poesy> [accessed November 30 2019] line 30. [7] Ibid., lines 21 & 23. [8] Genesis 1, 14. [9] John Milton, Paradise Lost (New York: Penguin Books, 1968), p. 164. [10] Virginia Woolf, The Waves (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993) p. 110. [11] Oscar Wilde, The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde (London: Wordsworth Editions, 2007), p. 205. [12] Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (Faber and Faber, 2005), p. 233. [13] Ibid. [14] Virginia Woolf, The Waves (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993) p. 132. [15] Ibid. [16] Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck, in The Norton Anthology of Poetry (New York: Norton, 1983), p. 1315. [17] Li-Young Lee, ‘Persimmons’, in Rose (Rochester: BOA Editions, 1986). [18] Li-Young Lee, https://bombmagazine.org/articles/li-young-lee/ [accessed 25 November 2019] [19] Li-Young Lee, https://bombmagazine.org/articles/li-young-lee/ [accessed 25 November 2019] [20] Mark Doty, The Art of Description (Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2010), p. 3. [21] Mark Doty, The Art of Description (Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2010), p. 7. [22] Mark Doty, ‘Difference’, My Alexandria (Illinois: University Illinois Press, 1995). [23] Sir Philip Sydney, The Defence of Poesy, <https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Defense_of_Poesy> [accessed November 30 2019] line 26. [24] Mark Doty, ‘Difference’. [25] Li-Young Lee, The Winged Seed (Rochester: BOA Editions, 2013), p.171. [26] Jennifer Clement, Widow Basquiat (Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2000), p.31. [27] John Donne, ‘The Good Morrow’, in The Norton Anthology of Poetry (New York: Norton, 1983), p. 205. [28] Ibid., p. 210. [29] Raymond Carver, Elephant & Other Stories (GB: Collins Harvill, 1988), p. 49.