Sunday, March 29, 2009

Sestina: Operation Memory

For my sestina poem, I chose Operation Memory by David Lehman, which you can find here.

A sestina is a poem in which the initial six end-words of the first stanza are repeated (in different order) as the end words of the five following six-line stanzas. The seventh and final stanza is a three-line envoi which includes all six words. Lehmen altars the form a little by making one of the six end-words a number which changes to a different number in each stanza, but the general concept is still there.

In Operation Memory, the speaker recounts being drafted into the military and the ultimate effects of his experience. The poem has a melancholic, defeated tone that emphasizes and often augments the loss of faith felt by the speaker. It utilizes extensive enjambment, which seems to be an inherent part of a poem with such restrictive form. Enjambment is the continuation of a sentence or clause over a line break. This can lend a heightened sense of excitement or anticipation and create a greater effect. An example of this from the second stanza: "All my friends had jobs / As professional liars." The first part of this phrase is a statement on its own, but as it continues on the next line, it furthers its meaning and provides greater insight into the speaker's purpose. In this way he demonstrates the bleak emotional numbness inflicted by the "war that had never been declared."

Dramatic Monologue: [American Journal]

For my dramatic monologue, I chose [American Journal] by Robert Hayden, which you can find here.

A dramatic monologue is a poem in which the poet, through an assumed voice (through a certain voice, fictional character, etc), speaks to an assumed audience. The poem provides just the speaker's perspective and leaves interpretation up to the reader.

[American Journal] is interesting because the speaker is an alien sent to earth to observe Americans. It sounds a little out there, but Hayden does it in an effecting and unexpected way. The poem is set up somewhat like a journal, but more of a stream-of-consciousness with disconnected thoughts and fragmented sentences. Hayden does a good job of detatching himself and providing an outside view of Americans and presenting an "alien" persona.

The poem points out many flaws in Americans, from our "intricate waste left behind" to our "cruelties to one another." It even goes as far to as to comment on the American value of freedom, questioning "what do / they fear mistrust betray more than the freedom / they boast of in their ignorant pride." While some of the speaker's comments and observations of the "enlightened primatives" in America may seem disparaging, I think this is an ultimately patriotic poem. Even though the speaker immerses himself among Americans and his "skill in mimicry is impeccable," there is some intrinsic quality, "some constant amid the variables / [that] defies analysis and imitation," that one cannot pinpoint but that is undeniably American. The reader can see this most clearly in the envoi (a short stanza at the end of a poem that addresses an imagined or actual person or comments on the preceding body of the poem) at the end. Despite all of the faults the speaker has found with the Americans, he is "attracted nonetheless" to "their elan vital and that some thing essence / quiddity i cannot penetrate or name."

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Spenserian sonnet: Sonnet 75

For my Spenserian sonnet, I chose Sonnet 75 by Edmund Spenser, an audio reading of which you can find here.

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize!
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name;
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

A Spenserian sonnet is characterized by the rhyme scheme ababbcbccdcdee. The carrying of a rhyme from one quatrain to the next lends itself to a 12-line "body" which develops 3 related ideas (one in each quatrain) and a final couplet that presents a different idea or commentary.

The first quatrain of this poem depicts the speaker trying to write out his beloved's name, just to have it washed away by the ocean. Nature steps in to prevent him from doing this, an idea which continues in the next quatrain. The speaker's lover reprimands him for wanting "in vain...a mortal thing so to immortalize." She tells him that both she and her name will eventually die, as is the way the world works, and they will go away so there is no use in his actions. The third quatrain gives the speaker's response, that though she will die, she will live on in reputation and in the poems he has written about her. The final couplet summarizes and generalizes the main point of the poem: even in death, love survives and brings life.

To support the romanticism of the subjects' philosophical musings, Spenser utilizes euphony. Euphony is a sound pattern that creates a pleasant, smooth quality by using vowels and semi-vowels like l, m, n, r, y, w.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Pantoum: Stillbirth

For my pantoum poem, I chose Stillbirth by Laure-Anne Bosselaar, which you can find, along with a reading of the poem by the author, here.

A pantoum is a poem of any length made up of four-line stanzas, in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and third lines of the next stanza. Often, the first line of the poem is also the last line of the poem.

What is interesting about a pantoum (and other poems that repeat lines, such as a villanelle) is that when a line is repeated, small changes can affect the way that line is read and give it a different meaning. The first time the line "no longer an infant. A woman now, blond, thirty-two, appears it seems to speak of Laetitia, the speaker's stillborn daughter, saying that if she saw her now she would not longer be an infant, but a woman. In the next stanza, there is a colon at the end of the line which leads into the next line "I sometimes go months without remembering you," suggesting that the speaker is the 32-year old blond woman, who has matured and is not as haunted by the memory of Laetitia.

This poem does not exactly display anaphora (emphasizing words or phrases by repeating them at the beginnings of clauses), but it obviously employs repetition (not one of our devices, but a rhetorical device nonetheless). A pantoum in general would do this. However, I think that a pantoum was a particularly effective choice for this topic, because the repetition of each line shows that though now the memory of Laetitia is "not asking much space," that experience has lived with the speaker for years and years and is ingrained in her mind and the person she has become.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Villanelle: Do not go gentle into that good night

The villanelle that I chose is called "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas. You can find it, as well as an audio clip of it, here.

In a villanelle, there are nineteen lines divided into five tercets and one quatrain. The first and third lines of the first stanza rhyme and all the first lines of the subsequent stanzas rhyme with those as well. The first line of the first stanza becomes the last line of the second and fourth stanzas, and the third line of the first stanza becomes the last line of the third and fifth stanza and both conclude the last stanza. The second line of each stanza also rhymes.

This poem discusses death and the issue of accepting death. Overall, it is very pensive and mellow. Dylan uses caesura (a short pause within a line of poetry, often but not always signaled by punctuation) in almost ever stanza to give the poem a slow, calm feeling. He also refrains from using the actual word "death," instead using a euphemism (the substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that might offend or suggest something unpleasant), "night."

He does not want to induce the fear that the word "death" may cause, because although each group of people he speaks of shrinks from death, does "not go gentle into" it, and even "rage[s]" against it, it is more important to see why each group reacts the way it does to death. For example, the wise men, though they understand that "dark is right," that death is inevitable and must be faced, they resist it because "their words had forked no lightning." I took that to mean that they had not yet utilized their thoughts and intelligence to create or prove anything noteworthy and felt they needed more time to live up to their potential.

Comment on this, por favor.
Questions to consider:
How does Thomas characterize each group and their reaction to death?
How does the tone (mode of expression perhaps?) change when the poem shifts to the speaker's father?