I love reading and writing poetry. In the early 1990’s, I self published (often called vanity publishing) a small book of around 100 of my poems and continued to write poems in various bursts since then in response to numerous situations – personal, the voice of others, spiritual, social and global events. I had written poems to illustrate points in a book, a reply to an email , to illustrate a teaching or a moment that touched the heart.
I searched around my desktop and laptop computer and found numerous poems written since 1992. I then edited these poems down to around 160 poems, sometimes fusing two poems into a single poem, or keeping a verse from one poem and scrapping the rest, often due to a certain repetition of theme. I then wrote an introduction and, added at the beginning, a couple of lines to give the reader a little background to the poem.
Once I had prepared all the material, plus a title for the new book of poetry, and photo and text for cover and back jacket, I passed it all over to Rick Lawrence in Totnes, a graphic designer and long standing Dharma friend. He then began work on the preparation of the book for publication. In December 2009, Jenny Wilks in Totnes gave me a book to read “The Ode Less Travelled” by Stephen Fry, a much-loved writer, broadcaster and actor in Britain. With consummate skill, he explains the significance of metre, rhyme and verse.
While reading his introduction, I came to a point that leapt out of the page. Stephen Fry strongly emphasised the value of learning the craft of poetry like learning the keys and notes of a piano.
“How many of us have ever been shown, how to write our own poems?
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to rhyme. Don’t bother with metre and verse. Just express yourself. Pour out your feelings…
“Suppose you had never played the piano in your life.
Don’t worry, just lift the lid and express yourself. Pour out your feelings.”
It was an eye opening moment.
|I realised poetry requires the combination of creative practice AND skilful use of technique as with the other arts and dharma teachings, too. To play and create music on the piano requires a real knowledge of the notes as the foundation for the music. Short responses of the heart to events are not enough.
I picked out a handful of some of the nation’s favourite verses in English poetry. Without exception, our great poets have employed the discipline of metre, often but not always, very strictly. They have employed mostly 10 syllables (pentameter) or eight syllables (tetrameter) and iambic (unstressed, stressed syllables) – ti-tum, ti-tum, ti-tum, ti-tum, ti-tum. The beat is rather like the heartbeat. Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, Yeats, Elliot, Wilfred Owen, Philip Larkin, Dylan Thomas and others employed such forms to great effect.
I realised that iambic pentameter and iambic tetrameter gives a rhythm and pulse to the poetry especially when read aloud. There is a certain beat that arises with the form – a meeting of the form and formless – along with appropriate use of rhyme for some poems. Poetry has the power to touch upon a great truth in a few carefully chosen words especially when those words have a beat to them. “To be or not to be: that is the question” asked Hamlet (Act 3. Scene 1) in Shakespeare’s play – one of the most beloved lines (it is in iambic pentameter) in world literature. It is also the question that dwells in the very heart of the Buddha’s teachings.
Here are four of the much-loved verses known to many in Britain. These poems follow a tradition of such form that dates back around 800 years. You can see the disciplines of the metre.
IAMBIC PENTAMETER
If… (1896) by Rudyard Kipling.
If you can dream and not make dreams your master
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same.
BASICALLY IAMBIC PENTAMETER BUT WITH SOME VARIATIONS
The Second Coming (1920) W.B.Yeats.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loose upon the world
IAMBIC TETRAMETRE
She Walks in Beauty (1814) byLord Byron.
She walks in beauty; like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
And all that’s best of dark and bright
IAMBIC TETRAMETER
Daffodils (1804) by WilliamWordsworth.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils.
Back to the drawing board, Christopher
I have been taking notes from Stephen Fry’s book, practising some of his exercises and started the gradual practice of putting many of my poems into iambic pentameter or tetrameter with some variation. Jenny, who has a deep love for poetry and its forms, kindly looks over my efforts. She offers very helpful feedback on syllables, metres and unstressed/stressed rhythmn.
It is quite a task to examine every line, every word, every syllable and the unstressed/stressed flow.
Is there a real development in my poems having made a shift from free verse to the disciplines of form? Yes. Undoubtedly. Of course, there is real place for free verse, and the current fashion in poetry carries much free verse.
With around 250 poems on the computer written over the past 25 years, there is a lot of work ahead. I regard it as a Poetry Vinaya – a poetry discipline. I love the practice and the discipline.
I had a latte with Rick last week. I told him he will have to wait for at least a few months before 100 crafted poems are ready to publish.