So twitter showed me a new article at Harriet today:
Rhyme by Anthony Madrid
In it, Mr. Madrid makes the claim that non-visual rhymes (tough and fluff) are better than visual rhymes (blow and show) because they create cognitive dissonance.
That would be nice if it weren't untrue (indeed, maybe they do on a second, third, fifteenth reading--but that's not what he's getting at in his article).
We "hear" what we read. It's one of the reasons poetry has to "sound good" even if it's "closet verse."
But asking the average poetry scholar to know about cognitive science appears to be a losing battle. I wish it weren't so.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Scholarship in poetics: is it really that hard?
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7 comments:
It seems to me that Mr. Madrid's thesis isn't only wrong as a matter of practice, it's wrong as a matter of theory.
Poetry is in the essential auditory experience of language, not in the accidents of its representation through sequences of glyphs.
English is a mongrel language. Differences in spelling often reflect differences in etymology, e.g., from Madrid's second example, we have aristophasneezes (a portmanteau whose rhyming root "sneezes" is based on misreading the initial f in the Old English word "fnese" as an s), exegesis (Greek), pieces (from Old French via Anglo-Norman), and Jesus (from Hebrew/Aramaic via Latin). [These etymologies via the OED.] English is a linguistic stew, but it's chunkier than that.
My experience is that in natural speech, there's a tendency for the words of emphasis to rely on a single root stock, because each root language has a distinctive texture, e.g., consider shit and piss (German/Old English) vs. defecation and urination (French/Latin). What makes poetry work is not just integrity in rhythm and rhyme, integrity in texture and message matters too.
An artificial goal (seeking "ideal" rhymes that constrast auditory harmony with visual dissonance) will tend to drive poetry away from its roots in natural speech, and tends to undermine integrity in linguistic texture. This is not a beneficial goal, nor even benign. It is septic.
Exactly.
That's the thought I wanted to express but did so without being specific (a problem I have).
Like, man, you're wrong and your theories are wrong.
Haven't heard a word in response though. Ah well.
I have, however, met some incredible new poets. I've got a book coming to me called Pink Elephant and I'll let you know soon how worth reading it is (it has a hell of a poem about love in it--or I hope it's in it--it's by the same author).
Like, man, you're wrong and your theories are wrong.
It's actually worse than that. His theories are wrong because his intuitions are wrong. He's not just thinking wrong thoughts, he's thinking them in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons.
That really is a hell of a poem, BTW. Wow. Thanks.
Innit?
I wish I could write poetry like that for my wife. Best I can do is send it to her.
Yeah, see that's what passes (as far as I can see) for official poetry scholarship these days (remember, that's POETRY MAGAZINE's mothpiece).
No wonder poetry's a whipping boy of the arts.
Would there were a place I could get a PhD without having to move. Conversely would I could sell my house and move to where a PhD exists.
Yeah, see that's what passes (as far as I can see) for official poetry scholarship these days (remember, that's POETRY MAGAZINE's mothpiece).
I had no clue. I approach pretty much everything ab initio, applying my own native brilliance and extraordinary hubris in unequal parts. It seems to me that there are two tricks here: the first is to be absolutely certain that you have a place in the conversation, the second is to be committed to the notion that you're there to learn and discover.
Would there were a place I could get a PhD without having to move. Conversely would I could sell my house and move to where a PhD exists.
I love your use of the subjunctive here. Sometimes I think I'm the only guy left who still uses it. Nice to see a whippersnapper like you using it, it makes me feel somewhat less like a fossil.
But this pretty language begs the question, why the hell not? Why not up stakes, move, and do a Ph.D? That mountain ain't movin'.
It's a logistics problem. First: on campus housing wouldn't be possible with four kids.
Second: like most of America I'm in a house that's worth less than I owe (and I bought in 2001--way before the bubble).
Third: there's not really a third, I don't think.
It's a logistics problem. First: on campus housing wouldn't be possible with four kids.
Reaction #1: Who lives in campus housing?
Reaction #2: It would have been doable in married student housing at Illinois. Not easy, but doable. It helps if the kids are young.
But I think the practical issue here is that housing six in an urban setting is likely to be expensive. The cheapest 3BR apartment in Hyde Park I could locate is is listed at $1200/month, but I can find places for $600/month in Ithaca, NY.
Second: like most of America I'm in a house that's worth less than I owe (and I bought in 2001--way before the bubble).
The housing market is starting to move again, at least hereabouts. I did a quick search for median sales prices in Jacksonville, and they're basically at 2001 values, although volume is half of what it was.
http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Jacksonville-Florida/market-trends/
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