[Mark McDonnell]

It’s in a gray zone, as Mark says—a place I like on the Non-Met side, not so much in Met. How’s that for double standards...None of this, of course, says anything about whether the poem reads well or not, just that it’s frustrating for chanters and “meterbators” like me.

I think I'm just not a "chanter", Carl, and that could be the root of it. I approach every poem just by reading it slowly and in my natural voice. I don't look for a metre but if one presents itself I will start to go with it. Sometimes the metre raises its head immediately of course. Learning some of the technicalities of metre has been one of the joys of my life and it's all been in the last eight years at the Sphere. Before that, despite being a high school English teacher, I knew very little. It's amazing how little you are required to know to teach literature to teenagers. But I loved poetry. I just didn't know what it was doing a lot of the time. I still have mixed feelings about whether there was something freeing in that innocence. What Yves said about sapphics is fair enough, I think. I bought one of Mary's books very early into my Sphere days and read several of her sapphics without knowing what on earth was happening with the metre (or what sapphic metre even was). But I loved the poems. When I had it explained to me I was fascinated and immediately tried to write one ha.

There's an interesting discussion to be had about your confession of double standards and why a poem can't just be a poem. But that's probably best had elsewhere.

Anyway, John. I really like this. It seems comprised of moments of tension or revelation, moments of sudden existential awareness that can be either thrilling or frightening or both. Each line is a mystery but one that opens up rather than closes off. Except the last line, which does seem like a closing off, something to be avoided maybe.

OK, that's enough outta me

[John Riley]

I never meant for the poem to become a debate about meter. I should have known better. But we are now at the point where the poem is musical on non-met, but not musical on met. That isn’t a double standard. It’s Lewis Carroll.

Thanks for the comments. Mark, I very much appreciate your time and what you say. If now know, and should have known before, that the technical analysis of a poem to make sure the sound comes in a specified metrical pattern isn’t something I care enough about to post on met. This isn’t a pox on your house comment. I’m simply realizing that of all the things I value and love about poetry, that isn’t high enough to post here. Others value it more and this is the board for them. Simple as that.

I hear music throughout this poem. I hear music in all of my best poems. Ignoring music, which far too much contemporary poetry does, diminishes poetry. There are ways to make music without adhering to traditional meter.

Again, I’m not lashing out. Simply stating differences.

Enough said. I’ll send Jayne a message.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by John Riley

we are now at the point where the poem is musical on non-met, but not musical on met. That isn’t a double standard. It’s Lewis Carroll.

John, I simply approach metrical and non-metrical poems with different expectations and have different reactions depending on the approach. I think we all do that to an extent—otherwise there’d be no sense in having different forums—but I’m an extreme case, hooked on meters that get my toes tapping, with a rhythm that sticks in my head even if I’ve lost the words. That’s what I’ve been calling “musical.”

Originally Posted by John Riley

I hear music throughout this poem. I hear music in all of my best poems. Ignoring music, which far too much contemporary poetry does, diminishes poetry. There are ways to make music without adhering to traditional meter.

I’ll stop using the word “music” as I have. You’re right that music is so much more than toe-tapping, and I didn’t mean to imply that your poem is unmusical—just not the kind of beat I can groove to. I doubt I’ll ever kick that habit, but I am pushing out the walls thanks to you and everyone else.

[R. Nemo Hill]

I'm with Mark. I don't approach a poem with my mental calculator, counting it out before I've even read it, before I've allowed it space to work its way into me. I may return later, and count, especially if the rhythm somehow wrenches me. But, like a dream, I need to experience it first on its own terms before I begin to pick it apart and interpret it according to this-or-that externally applied framework. When I first read this, the poem had such a rhythmic integrity that I intuitively thought, "wow, John has really begun to master metrics". I didn't question it, and so I didn't investigate the wheels and cogs turning inside its clockworks. Once the analysis was begun by others on this thread, I became aware of its metrical ambiguities. But I still feel the poem has such a strong overall rhythm that it creates a momentum that carries me along as inevitably as any more stringently metrical poem's patterns. I am reminded that in songwriting, metrical irregularities can often be carried smoothly by the improvisatory nuances of the human voice. That seems, to me, to be going on here, without the singing, which in itself is a remarkable feat. I am puzzled by the focus to find the poem's metrical failings, rather than to surrender to its inherent grasp of what meter does to a reader. The poem seems to have human rather than mechanical meter; and while the study of mechanics is a great tool, it seems to me that such a tool is useful only as means to a more human end. I think it is a tremendous poem, and I am more than willing to pocket my laborious bean-counter and let it forge its own profoundly rhythmical path through my ear-gate.

Nemo

[Carl Copeland]

Nemo, John doesn’t want to talk meter any more, and that’s fine, but if I’m one of those you say focused on “the poem’s metrical failings,” I should clarify that I did nothing of the kind. Nor did I count the meter before reading the poem. I did approach it with my ears open for the meter—a mistake, perhaps, even in Met. When I got bogged down, I used my metrical ruler—as I always do—to figure out why that happened. My rough analysis said the meter was very loose, irregular and ambiguous, but I never put a plus or minus sign on that. I liked Mark’s slightly regularized version, but said that, like him, I wasn’t sure it was needed. What you mean by “human meter” is really rhythm—and music, as John pointed out to me—and I’m quite willing to look in that direction. I find it much harder to talk about, but I’m happy to listen.

[Jayne Osborn]

I've moved John's thread to Non-Met, at his request.

Jayne

[Nick McRae]

Originally Posted by John Riley

Living Will

This is for when you first hear the clink of chains rattling,
or the release and squeeze of wild wind collapsing,
or the words you speak become fast hours,
or the night says to stop, stand tall, and flare,

or a crow turns, flies toward two ravens,
or you are left empty of what was creation,
or you take what you need from the wrong book,
or you are seized by the nose, a fish on a hook.

I'm glad you posted this in Met first as the discussion was definitely relevant for me. I'm trying to figure that forum out. It sounds like, for the most part, there's an expectation of regularity there.

As for my usual non-met critique of your poems. I really enjoyed the first six lines, but the last two don't quite feel as strong, as if you were running out of material. The first six have a kind of complexity and mystique that say something, but don't say it all. Where the final two, it just feels like something's missing. And the final one comes across a bit like a punchline.

I'd add, and I should have added in your last thread, that these are just suggestions for things you can do. This one, and your last one, work as they are, but what I've pointed out are things you could look at.

And at the same time, I'm becoming more sympathetic to the need for rhythmic regularity in non-met. Many of the choices in both met and non-met seem to come down to - this phrase fits in this place, and it's difficult to do better. So it's great for me to make these recommendations, but finding stronger alternatives isn't always easy, or possible.

With your final two lines, they work in the sense that they don't sound too outlandish in reference to the rest of the poem. It'd be great to try to add a little more mystique and style to them, but you'd need to make sure they still fit with the rest of the poem, not an easy task.

[Jim Moonan]

.
Say what you will, this is as lyrical and enchanting a poem as I have read in days, weeks, months. It speaks squarely into my eyes and dares me to come along for a close up look at finality.

My one, ever-so-slight concern is with the blurred imagery in the final line. I realize there are two images at play within it, but it took me a bit to get past the mistaken image of a fish being snagged by the nose it doesn't have. (Would "lip" work instead of nose?).

The final couplet is what hooks me and reels in the entire poem to be a shock of truth. The way the tetrameter and pentameter play off each other in the final two lines is music.

Move this anywhere you want. It still sings.

.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Nick McRae

I'm glad you posted this in Met ... I'm trying to figure that forum out. It sounds like, for the most part, there's an expectation of regularity there.

I’d feel more comfortable over there if what you said was true, Nick. There’s actually a strong faction that like their meter irregular enough that I might miss it if I wasn’t looking. Same with rhyme. My goal, though, isn’t to feel comfortable, but to stretch myself, and form over there gets lots of stretching.

[Nick McRae]

Originally Posted by Carl Copeland

I’d feel more comfortable over there if what you said was true, Nick. There’s actually a strong faction that like their meter irregular enough that I might miss it if I wasn’t looking. Same with rhyme. My goal, though, isn’t to feel comfortable, but to stretch myself, and form over there gets lots of stretching.

Yea, I've picked up on that too. It's interesting as this was one of the questions I asked about metrical poetry a few months ago, but I seem to have landed on my answer.

At the end of the day we're trying to make art, not fit poems into a box, but a poetry forum might not handle that distinction so easily. Maybe if we're looking for metrical critique, we post in met, if we're not, we post in non-met.