Notes: Dartmouth - 1940

There is an aristocracy of taste
that is not overly selective :

Henri IV

Elizabeth

********

1. Studiously unprepared.

2. Whatever contribution I can # have made to the study and enjoyment of present day verse is gathered for the convenience of speaking of it - under 3 heads.

a. An attitude toward the subject# matter or the materials of which verse is to be made that is inclusive - not selective : based on the importance of form (Römbrandt, Side of Beef)

b. The# use of an auditory language rather than a traditionally written one, that is to say, American-English as I hear it - #based again, on form - Since from that springs :

c. A form that is primarily a metrical pattern which is to be

Notes:

A poem is an object made of
words. It has various forms
and varies in meaning, among
other things, according to its
form.

That is, to be precise, one of
the poem's meanings will vary
in ratio to the form.

Thus the form of a poem can
and does either complete or
defeat a possible meaning.

And if a meaning is to be insin-
uated into a poem above or below
a usual attention it may be by
the manipulation of its form
that this will be attempted.

Thus arises the bitterness
over the matter of change in
form as it touches new poems:
the meaning has been altered.

And so new poems bespeaking a
new order will seek new forms
against the resistance of
those who do not accept the
new meaning.

Notes: (4) (continued)

This is bad for me, bad in every
way unless the lack is replaced
by something in my own mode to
compensate for it.

My work is incomplete, not more
than in the making ( I avoid the
use of the word "laboratory" in
this context as raising unfortu-
nate connotations.)

How to scan my verse or to give
any excuse whatever for my divis-
ions into what seem arbitrary
lines and stanzas? The basis for
completing### what I do is often
lacking.

Well, it is lacking! and must
be built. I get nowhere by say-
ing it is not lacking. The man
working from inside the accepted
pattern will exceed me in his
accomplishment except in one
thing: the plan. I hope, actually
to replace him. We look at each
other obliquely.

But I must say to myself, Why
do I pattern my verse this way?
I must complete, perfect, make

Notes: (4) (continued)

new, but I haven't YET made
good, not yet.

As far as I can see my defects
lie in my excellence : trying
for a new foot I have instinct-
ively divided the verses and #
lines so as to avoid the annul-
ing stasis of the accepted
patterns which put an # in-
correct meaning on what I would
say. That I have refused, without
yet knowing how fully to form
my own new meaning by the new
form.

I am not yet master of the new
form but I must still reject
the old.

Anything, to get bits, moments
of effectiveness instinctively-
a piece that goes well here and
there - for proof, to be more
fully studied.

Yes, if I do that. There's the
direction of movement.

In other words, I need more ####
study, more discovery, more

Notes: (continued)

understanding in my work - of
what I have done and what is
still to do - so that it resem-
bles more the work of men
writing in the well understood
pattern, more like theirs in
every way EXCEPT the one, basic
new plan.

What I must have is a new
MEASURE which I have already
achieved instictively but which
I have not yet found. It will
not be a visual division of
the parts of a poem into units
but must have its basis in
a fuller conception of the
poetic foot - in the SOUND, that
is, of the poem.

This underlies a correct atti-
tude toward "free verse". There
is no such thing. It is in
reality no more than an instinc-
tive perception of a new but
unrealized measure, the same
which I am always seeking.

Auden's success before the
audience as contrasted with the

Notes: (4) (continued)

rest of us was the feature of
the evening. But listen as I
would I could not but find that
he has travelled the world with-
out perceiving a new measure
such as I seek. What he actual-
ly did in his best poems,
his best successes with the au-
dience, was to give an able ex-
position of new materials upon
the accepted basis. So at least
my perceptions said to me.

Peter Monroe Jack, in intro-
ducing me, missed the point en-
tirely: I was a physician, a
fact finder, truthful and down-
right. Fair enough but he
appeared to have no inkling of
what my purpose is toward verse.
And how, if at all. I have
succeeded and where and to what
extent.

The young man who came up after
ward with a marked up program,
on which had been mimeographed
two of my short poems, and asked
me on what basis I had divided

Notes: (8) (continued)

What Conrad Aiken does not see is the direction of the change taking place.

It is true, we have abandoned much good that was in the old.

We'll have to come to that again later. But we have had to lighten the load to get forward with an advance the necessity for which he does not seem even to suspect.

Unsatisfactory as the present modes may be we can't go back. Form is imperative to much that seems formless today but only a NEW form that will include much that Aiken speaks of loosely as the anti-poetic.

The battle is defining itself, form is the issue. We have waited a long time for this phase to break. Thank you Aiken.

But take Aiken's own excellent poem, Spain, 1927, spoken of above. Fine as it is it seems stuffy to me, even granting all its virtues & leaves a camphorish

Notes: (8) (continued)

aftersmell in the nostrils. AND
you have a feeling that no matter
how good it is or might have been
made to be it could NEVER in that
form have been as fine as a modern
poem should be since the form
itself is defective : an old mode

It could never, in that form, for
instance, give the enlivening im-
pression, the truth that must
have been latent there in Spain
even in 1927, that flowers in
Picasso's Guernica.

Don't speak to me of the anti-
poetic. There is no such thing.
It all goes in if one could learn
how a poem should be made to
include it, Beaudelaire notwith-
standing.

Much that was poetry in the tone
Aiken uses has gone over into
prose, into the poetic novel - in
France, they say, this is partic-
ularly true.

But poetry, seeking a new form,
has at this stage taken upon it-
self a bare, structural character
at its best - or so I think it
should.

Notes: (9)

And so to conclude: Poetic form
is not casual, to be selected #
at the whim or according to the
mere disposition of the poet, but
intimately related to its day -

as the balad form was related to
Villon in his time -

at its most acute, itself the ex-
pression and greatest fulfilment
of its time, without which no
poem can be at the peak of its
possible excellence.

For reality, that full sense of
conviction, one must write in a
manner and, I add, a form con-
sonant with one's own time.

For richness, overtones, relation
ships with other ages and con-
ditions must be discovered about
the bare structure of the day -
a universal interrelationship.

Without a basic new structure,
however, all these devices are
fruitless to arrest, enlighten
or move us.

Notes: (10) (continued)

order to bring in the word *buried*
at the end of the line. But the
very choice of the word *discon-
tent*, to complete the line within
the meter shows the strain. A
better word might have been chos-
en if it hadn't been for that.
"Now is the winter of our . . . 
Well, what? Is it discontent, is
that all? "All the clouds that
lower'd about our house" means
something more than discontent .
Anger, fury, disappointment,
bitterness - there are fifty words
that might have been chosen. But
discontent fills the line per-
fectly. Discontent is the word.
The meter compels it and the
language supplies it. )

We must discover our own form
and our own meter, our own formal
necessity, if in our day we are
to repeat his process and let our
new form operate on our minds as
his did.

Do not forget the lines "the
poet's eye in a fine frenzy roll-
ing glances from earth to heaven

and bodies for the shapes of
things unseen". It is important
less in itself than as a hint
as to the poet's habit of com-
position, the loosing of the un-
conscious.

Take rhyme, the worst bugbear.
Rhyme precisely the same as meter
forces the conscious among the
subconscious sheaves. If we are
able. S. couldn't manage it
using the language of his place
and day in a long sequence and
abandoned it early. He couldn't
use it and get what he wanted to
into the lines. Only when he
wanted to give an impression of
the archaic as in the Players'
lines in Hamlet did he abandon
his "modern" method.

But if rhyme and rhyme forms have
been rendered static centuries
age# by their limited availabil-
ity in English and consequent
overuse what will the effect be
of these terrifying hammers?

Rhyme will not force the resour-
ces of the language end of the
mind, it breaks them. Trying to

Notes: (10) (continued)

- as S. english blank verse -
  the iambic pentameter, Villon
  the polite ballad of his day
  and Dante the sonnet. After use
  by such summative masters the
  form is largely dead. It has
  been taken!

"Form" here is used in the broad-
est, most comprehensive sense. I
am conscious of not always using
the term in that way but of speak-
ing of metrical form only.

However the metrical form of the
verse must always be the bones
of complete work. So a new metric-
al form will be the basis for the
fullest development of any new #
work. The complete definition of
form must await the performance.

Minimally it must be consonant
-con sonant- with our age and the
range of our physical understand-
ing. It must sound with our age
and sound new and vigorously.

Speaking a language which is
as different in pace and modu-

Notes: (10) (continued)

lation as ours is from English
we should be aware more than
others of pending changes in the
verse forms.

When we have projected it, then
and then only can we trust our #
minds to be led into the new
word associations which the new
form will induce.

Thus the form becomes the basis
of the meaning, truly tuned and
not off key to our knowledge -
when all the music in the world
will not make it right.

We know that verse has made one
great technical shift in the
change from quantity to stress.
It may make another.

These things illustrate what I
MEAN by composition as an aid to
thought.

The form compels the mind to
invent but the major job of the
writer is to make a form -

Notes: (10) (continued)

flexible but imperious - that
will give with the words generous-
ly but force the choice to compel
its pattern. This is our business
the serious business of the poet.

And that form must be discover-
ed in our speech. Not otherwise.
Discovered. My part has been to
listen and try from what I hear
to choose the parts of such a
form. That I haven't succeeded
doesn't bother me greatly.

A structural change, a change
in the poetic foot, is the likely
outcome to be expected.

What follows is an exhibition of
the efforts I have been put to
to map and use - for these things
are inseparable - a form to com-
pel my age.

PORTO RICO TALK

1. A statement as to the modern basis of poetic form (informal)

2. Read some illustrative verses

3. Spanish (Portugese) and American-English. Our profitable interrelationship in developing a new poetic form: EXAMPLE - Lope de Vega vs Shakespeare as a model (form) for America : What we might profit etc etc

********

Preamble

The difficulty is to keep such a talk as this informal.

After all, there is no great point at issue. We are here for the most part to look at each other, to recognize in each other - that curious complexity called a writer, to encourage and to learn. But most to try to find a means, through the art which we practice, to communicate with each other - for what may come of it.

PART I

The study of poetry is based
still largely on metaphysical
criteria. This makes for as
many approaches to any given
poem as there are schools or
attitudes of thought in the world

This richness may have its
rewards but it is likely to cause
a great confusion in the mind of
the student. What should be our
basic attitude toward a poem,
any poem, there, lying on the
page? Is it acceptable, repell-
ant? Is it a work of art or a
sub-mental impertinence or
both?

Upon what shall a judgement be
based? If we can get to that
we can get to something we can
understand together.

A beginning is made toward a
clarification among this swarm-
ing mixture of approaches by
cutting across all categories
and declaring flatly :

Every poem either is or is not
related to the structural
character of its own age. Then I

3

would go on to say : that unless
a poem is so related it has
already lost its primary oppor-
tunity and significance.

Drop that there and let me make
another statement:

The arts are really the history
of the mind. If they are cramped
or inadequate the mind will be
found to have been deformed - as
much so as were the feet of
Chinese women, formerly, to in-
dicate their aristocracy.

Thus we have two statements -
the poem is or is not related to
the structural character of its
own age and the poem in itself
constitutes the history of the
mind.

To carry the argument still
further let me insist that the
poem presents the history of the
mind in any age primarily by its
structure - which, if the poem
is to matter at all, will repre-
sent in some particular the true
structure of that age which
produces it.

4

What we need in verse today is
a great technician.

We need one who can hear the
"normal" language and who knows
the patterns of the past to
forget them. Then to invent, that
is, to rediscover in the vernac-
ular about him, as a fresh in-
sight, the simple elements that,
also, made up the old rigidities
- and reintegarte them among the
living material into adequate
modern forms expansive enough to
include the whole armamentarium
of the mind as we know it today,
- forms uncramped, unclipped,
uncompressed structurally into
those past "aristocracies" which
are today damnable in their
deforming limitations.

The language is the thing. The
language must not be deformed
to fit the pattern of the verse.
The verse must be transformed
to fit the exigencies of the
language.

By debased rigidities of pattern,
if we are not careful, our
vehicle of communication, our

5

language, will be falsified and
if in its structure, you may be
sure in its meaning also. We are
likely to be made to say what
we do not intend and to come off
brutalized thereby.

Let us remember, the elements of
composition are always free and
available - if we have the genius
to find them; it is only in their
outworn entanglements of past
usage that they tyrranize over
us and need breaking down and not
in their essence.

The cleansing and rehabilitation
of the language gives the poet
much of his seriousness of
purpose facing the world.

********

So, before reading a few poems
by way of illustration - let me
go back a moment for emphasis,
here and there, and the elabor-
ation of one or two points:

1. There are many ways of looking
at a poem, all of them misleading
unless founded upon structure.

(6)

2. A poem is a use of <u>words</u> (as emphasized by Gertrude Stein) which when taken with the <u>structure</u> together comprise its <u>form</u> - the elements of form being : the <u>line</u> (What is it to be?) and the <u>word</u>, its selection, position and sequence in the line

But now something extraordinary takes place - which is the essence of poetry : the form achieved, becomes itself a "word", the most significant of all, that dominates every other word in the poem.

Note: Imagism, which had a use in focusing the attention upon the importance of concrete imagery in the poem, lost its ## place finally because as a form it completely lacked structural necessity. The image served for everything, so that the structure a weaker and weaker free verse, degenerated finally into a condition very nearly resembling in meaninglessness that of the sonnet.

The "objectivists" attempted to

Kenneth Burke :

7

remedy this fault by fusing with
each image a form in its own
right - but there were few
successes - or have been few so
far.

The *structural approach* has two phases, the first, the selection of forms from poems already achieved, to restuff them with metaphysical and #other matter, and, the second, to parallel the inventive impetus of other times with structural concepts derived from our own day.

The first is *weak* and the second *strong*.

*Note:* This does not imply that the men who take the positions one way or the other are either weak or strong. The thing to remember is that weak and strong are both phases of the structural approach.

The *weak approach* ( to the intricacies of poetic form ) is typified by the teaching attitude. Teaching - that is, the academy -

8

is predominantly weak in this
respect. It can't be otherwise
and this, in fact, is its
strength. It is the throne of
precedent. But because of this
it tends to arrogate to itself,
mistakenly, prerogatives which,
sometimes it does not deserve.

The *strong* approach - made through the vernacular by attention to its modulated character, inventing from that - is relegated too often to the services of outlaws. Over long periods the weak approach tends to culminate in the strong, establishing the peaks of literature.

**Note:** The validity of this entire proposal (that structure is of such preeminent importance in a poem) has been questioned, by the academy, the point being raised that Villon did not invent but took over the ballad, a form hackneyed by court use in his day, almost a popular game. But Villon dignified it to such powerful advantage that his use of it constitutes in itself a unique meaning, an excellent example of just that strong approach through the vernacular which I wish to show.

## Part III

If, in a work of art, it is by the rascent form that the fullest and most timely significance is expressed - what function might not Latin America exercise toward the United States and Canada in this respect? To introduce us to Spanish and Portugese literature-pure and simple. And if to that literature, to make us familiar with its forms as contrasted with our own.

For instance: What influence can Spanish have on us who speak a derivative of English in North America? To shake us free ###### for a reconsideration of the poetic line.

You can suggest to us that we are not English. That the Elizabethan triumphs, except for their magnificence, concern us not at all. That is, in their formal quality they do not concern us.

Specifically, by showing us a shorter, four stressed line rather than the pentameter; by showing us a great dramatic

12

talent, Lope de Vega, who did not use the iambic pentameter – give that hint which will tend to free us to our own uses.

For in many ways 16th and 17th century Spain and Spaniards are nearer to us in the U.S. today than, perhaps, England ever was. It is a point worth at least taking under consideration. We in the United States are climatically as by latitude and weather much nearer Spain than England, as also in the volatility of our spirits, in racial mixture – much more like Gothic and Moorish Spain.

Even more specifically, we have a problem before us in the U.S. to find a verse form that will be suitable for the theatre. We know it can never be blank verse. It may very well be that hints from the romancero or at least Lope's shorter, swifter line will finally discover something more acceptable to our temperament, manner of thought and speech.

We know what we should have but

(2)

which to construct their verses:

That is, to build into the body
of their verse the formal ele-
ments of the speech which they
hear about them, uniquely signi-
ficant in its day.

For holding and following con-
cepts of this nature I have
found myself accused of many sins
(1) disorganization in my work
(2) of lack of intellectual
content
(3) and finally of being a menace
to the American campus!

What we were up against in 1902
to '05 was a body poetic -
romantic for the most part and
almost absolutely fixed.

There were certain topics as there
were certain objects proper to
employ in a poem and there were
certain objects and certain
topics which one was not to use.

Every line began with a capital
and the sonnet was the dominant
form.

(2)

increased amplitude of opportu-
ity, greater, more varied
expression to suit a more complex
time. At least out time, here.

We must make new forms if we are
to live - if we are to have
anything to return to after the
international adventure of war.
New forms, if we do not wish to
die of ennui and lonliness. It
is the imagination that creates
all that we see and all that we
are. This is not figurative
speech, this is cold truth. Poets
are its journeymen.

The poet of consequence employs
the formal ( there's that word
again) the formal opportunities
of his vernacular, when he is
on the make - hasn't it always
been so? - to form his new
realizations of the time he lives
- the only real time he will
ever know -its character and its
amplified significance as
contrasted with former times.

Now you begin to see what a poet
means, what his form means and
why he must be continually
working at it, making it.

A CORONAL

New books of poetry will be written
New books and unheard of manuscripts
will come wrapped in brown
paper
and many and many a time
the postman will bow
and sidle down the leafplastered
steps
thumbing over other mens' busi-
ness.

But we ran ahead of it all.
One coming after
could have seen her footprints
in the wet and followed us
among the stark chestnuts.

Anemones sprang where she
pressed
and cresses
stood green in the slender
source-

And new books of poetry
will be written, leather colored
oakleaves
many and many a time.

SPRING AND ALL

By the road to the contagious
hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast - a cold wind. Beyond,
the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing
and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding,
twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under
them
leafless vines -

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish-
dazed spring approaches -

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about
them

the cold, familiar wind -

TO ELSIE

The pure products of America
go crazy -
mountain folk from Kentucky

or the ribbed north end of
Jersey
with its isolate lakes and

walleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves
old names
and promiscuity between

devil-may-care men who have
taken
to railroading
out of sheer lust of adventure-

and young slatterns, bathed
in filth
from Monday to Saturday

to be tricked out that night
with gauds
from imaginations which have no

peasant traditions to give them
character
but flutter and flaunt

sheer rags- succumbing without

emotion
saved numb terror

under some hedge of choke-cherry
or viburnum-
which they cannot express-

Unless it be that marriage
perhaps
with a dash of Indian blood

will throw up a girl so desolate
so hemmed round
with disease or murder

that she'll be rescued by an
agent -
reared by the state and

sent out at fifteen to work in
some hard pressed
house in the suburbs -

some doctor's family, some
Elsie -
voluptuous water
expressing with broken

brain the truth about us -
her great
ungainly hips and flopping
breasts

THE RED LILY

To the bob-white's call
and drone of reaper

tumbling daisies in the sun-
one by one

about the smutting panels of
white doors

gray shingles slip and fall-
But you, a lovliness

of even lines
curving to the throat, the

crossroads is your home.
You are, upon

your steady stem
one trumpeted wide flower

slightly tilted
above a scale of buds-

Sometimes a farmer's wife
gathers an armful

for her pitcher on the porch-
Topping a stone wall

In a well guarded arena of open
water surrounded by
lesser and greater craft which,
sycophant, lumbering
and flittering follow them, they
appear youthful, rare

as the light of a happy eye, live
with the grace
of all that in the mind is feck-
less, free and
naturally to be desired. Now the
sea which holds them

is moody, laoping their glossy
sides, as if feeling
for some slightest flaw but fails
completely.
Today no race. Then the wind comes
again. The yachts

move, jockeying for a start, the
signal is set and they
are off! Now the waves strike at
them but they are too
well made, they slip through,
though they take in canvas.

Arms with hands grasping seek to
clutch at the prows.
Bodies thrown recklessly in the
way are cut aside.

THE POOR

It's the anarchy of poverty
delights me, the old
yellow wooden house indented
among the new brick tenements

Or a cast iron balcony
with panels showing oak branches
in full leaf. It fits
the dress of the children

reflecting every stage and
custom of necessity -
Chimneys, roofs, fences of
wood and metal in an unfenced

age and enclosing next to
nothing at all: the old man
in a sweater and soft black
hat who sweeps the sidewalk -

his own ten feet of it -
in a wind that fitfully
turning his corner has
overwhelmed the entire city

1909

Close

SONNET: THE WARTBURG

Alone today, I mounted that
steep hill
On which the Wartburg stands.
Here Luther dwelt

Within these walls a year
through, here he spelt
The German Bible out by God's
good will.

The birds piped ti-ti-tuh! and
as I went
I thought how Katherine von
Bora knelt

At Grimma, idle she, waiting to
melt

Her surpliced heart in folds
less straitly meant.

As now, it was March then. Lo!
he'll fulfill

Today his mighty task. Sing for
content

Ye birds! Pipe now! for now 'tis
Love's wing's bent.

Work sleeps! Love wakes! Sing!
and the glad air thrill!

with a companion, to halt
watching where the edge of water
meets and lies upon
the unmoving shore -
Flood waters rise, and will
rise,
rip the quiet valley
trap the gypsy and the girl.
She clings drowning to
a bush in flower.

Remember, now, Lawrence dead.
Blue squills in bloom-to
the scorched aridity of
the Mexican plateau. Or baked
public squares in the cities of
Mediterranean islands
where one waits for busses and
boats coms slowly along the
water
arriving.

But the sweep of spring over
temperate lands, meadows and
woods
where the young walk and talk
incompletely,
straining to no summer,
hearing the frogs, speaking of
birds and insects -

-Firewood, all lengths
and qualities stacked behind
patched
out-houses. Uses for ashes.
And a church spire sketched on
the sky,
of sheet-metal and open beams,
to resemble
a church spire -

These Wops are wise

-and walk about
absorbed among stray dogs and
sparrows.
pigeons wheeling overhead, their
feces falling -

or shawled and jug in
hand
beside a concrete wall down
which,
from a loose water-pipe, a stain
descends,
the wall descending also, hold-
ing up
a garden - On its side the pat-
tern of
the boards that made the forms
are still
discernable - to the oil streak-
ed
highway -