The Ways Poems Come to Me

THE WAYS POEMS COME TO ME

by a Traditional, Verse Poet (Rhyme & Meter)

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The ways poems come to me (or any poet)

Aren’t always easy to articulate.

The words below might serve to demonstrate

Through verse, in rhyming lines one way to show it.

How, from idea’s seed a way to grow it —

Avoiding in these lines the great debate —

Verse versus Free Verse: which can best relate

A poet’s vision? This is how I do it.

I am a follower of the traditions

Of metered verse and, most often, rhyme;

Of forms fixed through the ages: “Tried and True.”

For me, this choice brings with it some conditions

Of regulated rhythms and sound chime.

What follows works for me. Perhaps for you?

I

Often, a key line will inspire my poem:

It might be first, but usually it’s the last;

Rarely this verse will end up in the middle.

Once phrased, its something that I do not fiddle

With — its fixed. Once that creation’s passed,

I work toward or from it as I roam

Over the rhymes. My mind’s ear’s dictionary

Of chimes and echoes is listed down the page,

At the bottom, of course, with ample room above

To rough more lines, as I find the sounds I love

That must fit theme and context and engage

The reader’s ears. I’m also being wary

Not to diverge too often from iambic —

The meter natural to my native tongue —

(We speak them from the time we’re very young).

I find in seeking rhyme, slant rhyme, or metric,

Figures of speech or echoes, the poem grows

Through gifts from Serendipity. The throes

Of birthing poems, successful and emphatic,

Is ALWAYS touched with Magic no one knows;

One never FULLY sees whence it has sprung.

II

At other times, I decide to fit a form,

A framework of tradition — or my own,

A tried and true task to fill up the norm,

Tinker with it, or invent one yet unknown.

For example: take the English sonnet frame

That Henry Howard came up with long ago

(Even though Shakespeare wrote the form to fame).

Howard felt that English needed room to flow

In fewer rhymes than Petrarch’s closed fourteen.

Alternate lines made room for three quatrains

Which end with a clincher couplet as their Queen —

To round the thoughts out of the triad’s strains.

Thus striving to fill a form can free Mind’s Hand

To shape a poem under strict Law’s command.

III

Much like the painter’s is the poet’s task.

“How so?” Dear Reader, you are apt to ask.

If, for example, I choose a sonnet form,

The surface must be made to fit the norm:

The canvas must be stretched out fourteen lines

In depth, and just at five iambics wide.

Then, next, before I put down my designs,

My “palette” must be set; I must decide

On rhymes as “colors.” Yellow, blue, or red.

The mixture of these colors, hues, and tints

Serve to call up and prompt what’s to be said;

Intent’s demands and Serendipity’s hints

Call forth the poem. In painting just the same.

The finished work fits well Tradition’s frame.

IV

Another method when one has a goal:

Plan of a narrative, Task of a mood —

Is to brainstorm key words and connotations:

The shades of meaning, the simple enumerations

Of words of atmosphere, those understood

To form the planned-for Genre’s very soul.

Then contemplate this listing out of Signs —

For Words are magical, quite mystic things —

And see what springs forth from this meditation.

Often the very essence of creation,

Is found within the thoughts this listing brings:

Word-Signs become the seeds; the lines, the vines,

That grow forth from the Poet’s hoard of words,

From past experience, and from books well read,

From poems heard long ago, and from that Well

The Muses keep. Like flocks of calling birds,

Like river’s flow, like sacred sayings said,

Like legions from the realms of Heaven or Hell.

Then to revise: increase or cull the herds

Of first-wrought phrases, fine words in wrong words’ stead,

Work out a poem where every word will tell.

V

I’ve learned the parts of speech are a hierarchy.

The Verbs and Nouns are highest in import:

Subjects and predicates, objects and force

Of action take center stage, of course.

And so, when writing, it’s my first resort

To mull over actions and topicality,

Especially when rough drafts have “to be”

In some form in the line — “is,” “was,” “are,” “were” —

I strive to find an action verb instead

To add power to the line that’s to be read.

Actions are key, and words must strive to stir

Thoughts and emotions, set imagination free.

But if the “to be” verb’s an equal sign,

The copula that says, “this thing IS this,”

Most often I will leave the line alone.

Since that “to be” is not the same benign

Uttering that simply says “this IS.”

Best verbs have work to DO! To LIFT the stone,

To KILL the monster, or to SEEK divine

Aid to DESTROY the demons of Hell’s abyss.

Strong action verbs best DO what’s to BE DONE.

Nouns have strong power because they’re NAMES of things —

All MAGES and POETS know what’s in a NAME —

In knowing that, one has CONTROL over

The SPEECHES, ACTS, IMAGES the POEM will cover.

And CHOICE of perfect NOUNS in VERSE’s GAME

Avoids the SIN OVERMODIFYING brings.

Yet Adjectives and Adverbs are the next

In importance as we descend the orders.

Use SPARINGLY — and ONLY if one will it —

As Twain said, “If you catch an adjective, kill it!”

But these are also POWER words. Within the borders

Of the Land of Verbs and Nouns in our poem’s text,

These qualifiers focus meanings BRIGHT:

To SLOWLY reveal the secrets DEFTLY HIDDEN,

To FINELY tune the GROWING poem to be,

To shout out LOUDLY, whisper in DARKEST night,

Find words MOST APT to serve what we have bidden

Them to do in the imaginings we see

In our MIND’S eye. To bring these to the sight

Of reader’s eye, to hearer’s ears be ridden

On steeds of THUNDERING, or PRANCING poetry.

Next come the Prepositions. These words have power

OVER both place and action; they imply

Position or motion as they do their task:

Run villains THROUGH, delve INTO mysteries,

Travel ACROSS strange lands, come FROM the tower

That held the princess captive, give IN reply

To questions raised, an answer. They may ask

Readers or hearers to sail UPON strange seas,

Travel TO worlds undreamt WITHIN their ken,

Seek OUT new things, yearn TO move ON TOWARD Art.

Conjunctions next. They’re apt for service when

A line start’s needed, OR a series start —

AND parallels work well in such a cause,

AND true iambs can flow by Meter’s laws.

AND series, of themselves, are power revealed:

“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Pronouns and Articles next then take their place.

Soft words that are well suited to begin

THE line in English Poesy. They serve to grace

HER majesty, and hold the line to ten

(At least if verses are pentameter —

Or other counts by two if we prefer).

For nouns are often multi-syllable

And HE, SHE, IT, THEY, THEM

And HIS, HERS, ITS, THEIRS, THEY’LL,

And also HE’LL and SHE’LL and HER and HIM

Are blessings if we wish to keep to form;

They help US when WE want a meter’s norm.

“A jug of wine, A loaf of bread, and THOU…”

A melody birds sing along THE bough.

And finally, we must have some affection

For that emphatic thing — the Interjection!

Ouch! Wait! No! Help! Ah! Look Out! Halt! and Please!

Our quick attention these things grab with ease.

But grabbing and keeping are quite different things.

Skilled blending of all these parts — How the true poet sings.

VI

I also know the poet need not close

Each line. A line need not be a complete

Sentence or clause. But it can be “enjambed”

To flow on to the next. Yes there are those

Times when it’s apt to stop at end. Quite neat

To do this stoppage, nor is such a poet damned.

If meter, rhyme, or thought demand an end,

Then close the couplet off — my poet friend.

For lines or couplets closed have their effect.

Memorability comes as we reflect.

If the line ends in a phrase or clause or sentence,

In some sort of a caesura or pause,

With minor punctuation or full stop —

There is no need for regret or repentance.

In meter’s need there are no exact laws

To bind us as the stresses rise and drop.

VII

Stock words or lines have been used through the ages —

Not merely tricks of oral poetry.

And though Vers Libre needs be read off pages,

Verse is the base for poems one need NOT see.

Of course end rhyme and meter play their part,

Making strong lines that hearers can recall.

Long ages since the poet’s craft or art

Has moved in steady rhythm’s rise and fall,

Or long or short of vowels, or basic count

Of syllables or accents in a line.

In fitting forms the flow from Muses’ Fount —

Though trickle or flood — allows one to refine

The words that come: the phrase, the line, the clause,

Full periods and sentences spring to thought.

And it should not be banned, nor give us pause

If we repeat what somescop else has brought

To light before. For words are ever present —

And, nowise new, the apt phrase used of eld

Does not lose aptness, and it may be pleasant

For those who hear to hear again what’s held

As aphoristic Truth or well-wrought phrase.

It’s true, through overuse of such a stock

Of words strung out as they’ve been strung before,

Mere versifiers will — like the clock’s tick-tock —

Rhyme “trees” with “breeze.” But we must not ignore

The facts that breezes DO move through the limbs

And swaying branches, that drifts of newdown snow

Remind us of the snows of yesteryear,

That clouds do shroud the sun as oft before,

That images that grace our favorite hymns

And poems wake human things in us that we foreknow

In ways not fully known or fully clear.

VIII

Fault not the well-worn word or phrase or thought

Nor claim that we create — for we do not.

We take the world we’re given, we have combined —

“In living shapes that move from mind to mind” —

In Sub-creative acts our human arts,

Recombinative blends of the true parts

We’re given in this wondrous universe.

And so we craft with elements diverse

Things but seeming new, and with the lamp or mirror —

Either to shine upon or to reflect —

To strive to come close (or at least get nearer)

To what is True, to know what to reject

As False — things Life allows for us to find..

We see the colors of refracted light,

But not the verity of starkest White.

Success is leaving the umbrageous shade,

Finding the dim light with penumbra’s aid,

Finding that when quite all is done and said,

“We make still by the Laws in which we’re made.”

Cycles and Seasons spin Lives and Worlds around,

What’s gone around will come around I’ve found.

The best reason for opening up the mind

Is to close it when you something solid find.

“What the Heart knows as Truth IS Truth as far

As we may know it.” Though the star

That shines tonight on us may be years dead

[At least that’s what astronomers have said],

Still it shines down on us, and no less bright

Unto our vision. These musings led

To that wondrous day I saw to my delight

That New is Old and Truth is always Trite.

NOTES

While the second and third “parts” — fitting the imitation of my methods into a pre-planned form, the English/Shakespearean sonnet in part 2 or, in the third part, a variant sonnet — ( to make the example fit the tactic being discussed) the other parts (specifically parts I, IV, and V have ended up as what I call “megasonnets” based upon the Italian/Petrarchan form.

These three parts (I, IV, and V) have variant “duodecades” [the basic rhyme plan is ABCCBAABCCBA for the first 12 lines]. These have ABCCBADEFFED rhyme patterns, proving, I hope, that I’m not an absolute slave to pattern. While the “megasonnets” in parts IV and V use what I would call the standard “nontet” of CDECDECDE (in this case GHIGHIGHI), the first part uses a variant group of 9 rhyming, in this case, GHHGIIGIH.*

The other sections are decidedly free-form, but formed, allowing the thoughts and rhymes to lead where they would, while still keeping to what I wanted to say.

Random rhyme (and very occasionally/rarely random line lengths) are about as unstructured as my verses tend to be. I do NOT find the restrictions of meter and rhyme to be in the least confining. On the contrary, I believe that working to fit traditions (emphasis on the “working”) is the way most “inspiration” happens. The poet is a worker skilled in craft, an artist who has worked at developing his or her art — not some mystical mage or channeling seer or prophet. I breathe on my own, and I don’t need a Muse to speak through my mouth. My poems are “autospired.

Of course there are quotes and a paraphrase embedded in my text. A couple lines from Tolkien’s “On Faerie-Stories” (actually from the sonnet he wrote to help re-convert C.S. Lewis to Christianity) one from Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” a couple from Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat, and a paraphrase about closing the mind on something solid from the writings of one of my favorites (and IMHO the greatest prose stylist in English of the 20th c.) G. K. Chesterton.

*Regarding the “megasonnet,” I’ve worked both on and with two different forms as I’ve envisioned them. In each case, they are “expansions” of the original Italian/Petrarchan and English/Shakespearian forms:

· The Italian-inspired “megasonnet” rhymes ABCCBAABCCBA (the “duodecade”) followed by a line break (and, ideally, a “sense” break — the volta). The last nine lines (the “nontet”) rhyme DEFDEFDEF (or any irregular scrambling of 3 or 4 rhyme sounds so long as the final two lines are NOT a couplet — keeping with the rule of the original Italian form).

· The Shakespearian-inspired “megasonnet” rhymes ABCABC DEFDEF GHIGHI in three “hexains” and closes with either a triplet JJJ or with JXJ where the X rhyme is on any one of the rhymes in the third hexain — thus: JGJ, JHJ, or JIJ.

· THEORY: a “Spenserian Megasonnet” could be thus expanded. The rhymes (in a double-interlock) would go: ABCABC BCDBCD CDECDE FFF or FCF, FDF, or FEF. This form would be extremely difficult (as the Spenserian base is) due to the need for 6Cs! 4Bs, 4Ds, 3Fs, 2As, and 2Es. An easier “overlap” or interlock (as it is properly called) would be: ABCABC CDECDE EFGEFG HHH (or HEH, HFH, or HGH). This would be more in true approximation of the Spenserian in some ways, with the interlock working in a similar way to the original.