If only all Poetry could be read by Alan Rickman

One of the key rules that Stephen Fry insists on in “The Ode Less Travelled” is that all the poetry in the book, and all that is created during the exercises must be read out loud. Fry is of the opinion that poems are meant to be read out loud, certainly poems that use traditional meter are. I find myself agreeing with him on this point. The obvious analogy is with sheet music. You might be able to read the notes, understand the beat and even ‘hear’ the music in your head, but it will never be the same as hearing the music performed. Poetry, as was touched on in the last post, is all about beat and rhythm and it is therefore feels much more alive when read aloud. A good example is with enjambment. While you may have continued the sentence across two lines of a poem it has the effect of creating a small, sometimes imperceptible additional pause when read out loud. Try it in your head then out loud:

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 dancing Daffodils;
Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: —
A poet could not but be gay
In such a laughing company:
I gazed — and gazed — but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.

Of course, we’re not used to reading things out loud, we get self-conscious. However, reading privately is relatively modern behaviour, up to the early Eighteenth Century it would actually be a little odd to read exclusively on your own. In his diary it is clear that Samuel Pepys often read out loud to his household, in Alehouses and outdoors.

This brings me to the thing I wanted to share, which is the ‘The Song of Lunch’ by Christopher Reid. Watching this is what jolted me back into thinking about poetry again. It was on the BBC back in October. I wasn’t sure whether to watch it when it was on the box, I think the phrase ‘narrative poem’ put me off a little (as all labelling inevitably does). In actual fact the poem, the direction and the performances of Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson are sublime. If poetry performed out loud can lift the spirits as much as this, even when the main character is an utterly unsympathetic arse, then count me in. Someone has rather illegally managed to sneak it onto YouTube. Sadly the second part is now missing, but this first part is worth watching anyway.

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Meter Made

Iambic Pentameter, so simple, so effective. Five pairs of stressed and unstressed beats (or Iambs) to a line. Of course it is harder than it sound. Mr Fry reminds us in the opening to this chapter that it is not just about pairs of syllables (jump to 10:00), there must be a natural stress or beat present, the beat is all important and the words you choose must work. Once you get acclimatised to finding where the beat falls in a word then it is easy to manipulate it. So our Trochees and Pyrrhic substitutions are just moving the beat around. We’re not just poets, we’re flipping musicians as well. In this chapter Teacher Fry looks beyond five beats to the other Meters that are regularly used in poetry.

3 beats in a line – Trimeter

4 beats in a line – Tetrameter

6 beats in a line – Hexameter

7 beats in a line – Heptameters

8 beats in a line – Octometer

12 beats in a line – Dodecohedronemeter… (ok I made that one up)

Each of these have their own pedigree in English poetry. The effect that a different Metre can have on the tone of the poem is very interesting. Trimeter (3) for example makes for a pacy little number:

The rank and file will march

To War in Foreign fields

Tetrameter (4) feels oddly familiar as soon as you start reading or writing it. This is because four beats is so ingrained in popular culture, most pop music is written in common time. If you sat down to write a little poetic ditty, perhaps for a birthday card or a love poem, you’d probably end up writing it with four beats, it just feels good (like spaghetti on naked flesh… um… just me?).

What got my attention was the alternating combination of Tetrameter (4 beats) and Trimeter (3 beats), which are familiar to us in the form of  ballads. I regularly come across these in my other life as a romancer of the historical as they were incredibly popular in the Seventeenth Century. The English seem to turn to ballads by default in this period and they crop up in all sorts of texts. The popularity of this poetic form made them particularly useful as catchy propaganda during the English civil war. I guess they were the jingles of their day. Here is an example of a pre-civil war ballad:

God prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safeties all!
A woeful hunting once there did
In Chevy Chase befall.

To drive the deer with hound and horn
Earl Percy took his way;
The child may rue that is unborn
The hunting of that day!

Read it out loud and you’ll see that it trips along at a familiar pace. The ballad is entitled ‘Chevy Chase a National Lampoons Hunting Vacation’, or possibly not.

As well as alternating the metre between lines our teacher introduces us to the idea of alternating the Iambic beat, so a line of pure Iambic (ti-TUM) could be followed by a line of Trochaic (TUM-ti). Again this really does have a noticeable effect on the poem, and it is surprising how your brain picks up on the shift. This is not included in the exercise, but I thought I’d have a go to illustrate it

That Cat again, it shat upon my soil

Catch it Cook it save the precious Plants

Ok sleuths, you might notice something odd about the second line. I’ve utilised my Fry’s final lesson of the day, which is to drop the final unstressed beat from the second line. This has the effect of taking a trochaic line and giving it a definitive ending, where normally it would end weakly. It works quite nicely, and you don’t miss that final weak beat.

To the exercise! This was a forced quickie (ahem), choose a topic then take 45 minutes maximum to  come up with:

1. Two sets of four line poems using Iambic Tetrameter.
2. Two sets of four line poems using alternating Tetrameter and Trimeter (like a ballad).
3. Two sets of four line poems using Trochaic Tetrameter with alternating pure and shortened lines.

The theme is transport.

1. Tetrameter

The waiting game begins again

The bus is late no reason then

To rush so fast to get from bed

asleep for ten or twenty more

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The day in which I choose to sleep

Will surely be that rarity

When speeding round the corner I’ll

See two of them go flying by

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2. Alternating Iambic Tetrameter and Trimeter

Standing at the station waiting

These journeys aren’t for me

The wind and rain goes whipping by

I really need to pee

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The Train is crammed with tired sad souls

I squeeze my carcass in

The destination never worth it

But onward I begin

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3. Trochaic Tetrameter with alternating pure and shortened lines

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Lifting off from Heathrow early

Fearing what the flight may bring

Now they drone of safety training

I just muse on falling Planes

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Staring through the tiny window

Little worlds just spreading out

Endless stretches of the tundra

Caring nothing of above

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I think I managed it ok. I’ve not marked the emphasis, so have a go yourself, did I get it right? The next exercise involves Ternary Feet (?!).

Magnetic Poetry

Grandpa's Poetry for Charlie

A diversion from Stephen Fry for this week’s post. I can’t remember when we got the magnetic fridge poetry, or even who bought it, but it was a stroke of genius. It was also the closest I got to writing poetry for some considerable time. I’m finding, as I write these poetry posts, that having a constraint usually proves to be a boon for creativity. In the case of magnetic poetry you are working with a restricted set of words (indeed a diminishing set as they slowly get dislodged and strewn across the kitchen floor). I guess it helps that kitchen is an informal, social place as well. It’s hard to be too ponderous and deep when you’re arranging little words on a dented, white door, trying to manoeuvre around holiday souvenirs and shopping lists. Thanks to the location guests often find it irresistible to add their own addition to the collection. Discovering that somebody has left a hastily constructed bit of verse, just for us, is always a pleasant surprise.

Although the results are usually frivolous sometimes what you find can be quite moving. In November my first child was born. As the first Grandson in both mine and my wife’s families he was in high demand for visits. As a result we found ourselves exhausted, running only on elation and chocolate, playing host to all the families, often all at once. Events blur into one now, but it was chaotic in our little house for those first few weeks, though I wouldn’t have had it any other way. One day, after the visits had died down and visiting chaos was being replaced by everyday baby chaos, I happended upon this poem on the fridge and it made my weep. It was written by my Dad, Charlie’s Grandpa:

sweet little child

grow up happy

live in peace

for you bring promise

always

I’m not normally one for crying in front of the fridge, well unless I discover we’re out of tonic water for the gin. Goes to show that the simplest poetry can be moving and that it can spring up in the oddest of places.

Aside from my Dad’s poem, my other favourite is one-wot-i-wrote, you’ll agree it’s a modern classic:

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I keep a live puddle monster

here in my dark little garden

I take his moonfire dreams

though never more than it

would like

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Poetry, it flows through my veins really.

Exercise 5 coming up next week.