The men of war in the man o’ war (and the many more) who rode the ship’s bottom where the admirals put ’em would often think this has to stink If we ever sink we’re sunk.
At least that’s what I think they thunk.
*****
Edmund Conti writes: “I guess I was thinking if there is a Man O’ War, then there have to be Men O’ War. And where would they be put to be kept out of the way until called on. One idea led to another, one simple rhyme led to more, and voila!”
Poets do tricks with words, play games, weld rhyme, but we don’t do this nicely all the time– we’ve also anger at unfairness, anger hot-white at wasteful power, at greed and spite, where fear meets selfishness, drives right and left to persecution, torture, war and theft.
Each trick sticks bricks, fixed and unfixed, into an apartheid verbal wall that warbles claims to separate sense from nonsense–though we appreciate all’s one, all’s all the same, word walls are just a Jenga game, and all bricks fall.
We can play games with words, thread and unthread them in a silly tangle, loom and illuminate light warp, dark weft, wrong them and wring them ringing through a mangle as sometimes the only way to find a new way to say things said ten thousand times before: how brightness has a rightness, whether in the sky, the sea, a face or an idea.
So cook with words, mix, bake, packing in raisins, nuts, half cherries for a cake with flour just enough for a pretence that it’ll hold together and make sense.
*****
Formal? Free? The arguments about the appropriate structure for poetry in English never seem to end. The semi-formal compromise has been around for a long time: take the rhythmic, rhyme-rich ramblings of Arnold’s ‘A Summer Night’ from 170 years ago, or Eliot’s ‘Prufrock’, written in 1911. To me, the test of good verse is that it is easy to memorise and recite: the ideas and imagery have to be memorable, but so does the expression, word for word. The tricks may vary by language and culture, but whatever tricks the poet can manage to achieve memorableness are legitimate.
‘A Summer Night’ was in my English A Level curriculum <cough> years ago, and the middle section which I still know by heart encouraged me to run away from school. (I was found trying to sleep in a phone booth while waiting for a morning train, and brought back to school at 2 in the morning.) The poem’s semi-formal structure has always appealed to me with its rhetorical power, and over the years I’ve often used that freedom when writing about poetry, as in ‘Some Who Would Teach‘ and ‘Inspiration 2‘ and ‘Memorableness‘.
‘Poets Do Tricks With Words’ has just been published in Orbis, edited by Carole Baldock.
To say that only I am fat, To say that I am only fat, To say only that I am fat, To only say that I am fat, Is not to say, however, that They equally are definitive.
One statement says fat’s mine alone, One says no other trait I own, One just has a plaintive tone, And–overlooked and overblown– One just splits the infinitive.
*****
Edmund Conti writes: “I guess this began with the observation that ‘only I am fat’ and ‘I am only fat’ have different meanings depending on the placement of one word. Which made me wonder if placing ‘only’ in other parts of the sentence would change it again. Which it did. Why did I use ‘fat’ as a trait? Well, it’s an easy rhyme and people can relate to it—in themselves or others. Also, it gave me a good excuse for the title. I thought writing the second stanza would be trickier, but the rhymes just fell into place. And noticing the split infinitive and using it saved the poem. Assuming it was worth saving.”
A visionary dies an ignoble death; prophets arise who transmute his tale to a fairytale, uplifting, wise, and establish themselves to receive as on his behalf, cash from pilgrims, believers– all of it lies.
One of the new believers rashly tries to challenge the powers the fairytale calls Evil, strikes at the Powers That Be, is caught and dies, dies an ignoble death… Prophets arise and transmute the events into a new fable, glory surpassing the skies. At a cost, of course, they spread out a table for all to gather and feast. They, the deceivers, live yet again from the wealth of the true believers; one of whom…
*****
I love seekers after Truth, Knowledge, the Meaning of Life, no matter where they are led in belief or unbelief. I loathe those who come after them to distort the message and extort innocent followers. But it’s all an old, old story.
This semi-formal poem was first published in Snakeskin – thanks, George Simmers!
Demonic nurses, finding little sin, all leave my bedside. Doctor Death comes in. He looks around, “I’m only here To get a rough sense of the atmosphere. ” “Please, don’t get up…” He sits. “Not healing with your usual speed, Eh, you young pup? You’ve got a few years left still, don’t you worry. Take all the time you need. I’m in no hurry.”
*****
I wrote this in mid-2020; I think Doctor Death was in all our minds at that point, though I didn’t catch Covid myself for another couple of years. The poem was published in the current issue of Rat’s Ass Review – thanks, Rick Bates!
“The trouble with this growing old,” he said, “You lose so much . . . and you get what instead? If you can hang a bath towel on your tool it’s wasted when you’re in an all-boys school. Time was, I’d come — as you’d expect — with just a look, a touch. Now, not so much. The only thing that gets me full erect is feeling flesh firming from kiss and grasp; so all my work is trying to make her gasp! I need her climax if I’m to get sated.” He looked at her. She looked at him. He waited.
*****
This semi-formal poem was published in the Lighthearted Verse subsection of Formal Poetry in that wonderfully rich and varied magazine, Better Than Starbucks. Where else could you find such a variety of areas of expression as BTS’ Regular Feature Pages? Free Verse Haiku Formal Poetry Poetry Translations Poetry for Children International Poetry African Poetry Experimental, Form, & Prose Poetry Poetry Unplugged Fiction Flash Fiction & Micro Fiction Better Than Fiction (creative nonfiction) The Interview Interviewee Poems … and From The Mind of Alfred Corn
And tolerant enough to put up with my verse on occasion! Unfortunately they have announced they are going on hiatus… hopefully they will be back in 2023, as they have been a truly excellent outlet for all manner of poetry and prose.
I went round to Sarah’s flat one night: “Hi man,” she said, “Yeah, you can come in, sure,” apologising as she shut the door – “but not for too long, you know how it is – I’ve got two essays still to write and then exams start – I’m in quite a tizz.” She yawned and laughed, said “I’ve just changed Sam’s nappy, and now he’s fast asleep – at last!” she smiled – “Wow, but he keeps me busy!” “Also happy,” I put in. “Yes, but not all the while – he’s got a weak chest, coughs, cries with the pain, I get so uptight we both end in tears… his dad got sentenced, over drugs, eight years… that’s long: I guess we won’t get back again; I’ve got my Finals coming up, and then, after, who knows? I’ve hardly time for dreams: with Sam and studying, sometimes, it seems my life’s nappies and essays, nothing more.” She changed the record, sat to roll a joint, and said “First thing I do, even before I take Sam to that Nursery up the road – he’s bigger every day! He’s quite a load! But anyway, that’s not the point – first of all, I get stoned, and stay that way, or else I’d never make it through the day.”
A new cloud added to her soft rich room a further depth of blue, a silent pause.
She spoke again, her thoughts already gone back to her work: “And then, they seem such fools, dividing all Philosophy in schools. You know my option is the Indian course; I know so much of what the old books mean: things of which lecturers can’t conceive, think guff, I understand, they’re places where I’ve been… I’m always trying to turn the lecturers on: if they’d drop acid, or just smoke some stuff, they’d see so much… but they’re not brave enough. So Transcendental just remains a trendy course which their students can take if other courses can’t keep them awake. But still they try their worst,” she said, nonplussed, and read “The Bhaghavad Gita retains relevance for our century. Discuss. Christ, aren’t they boring!” she said, biro poised. I let myself out, while she found her page, and Briggs, her hamster, woken by the noise, went streaming up the rat-race in his cage.
*****
This poem dates to the time after I had dropped out of the University of Dundee, but still came back to it in the years that saw most of my 25,000 miles of hitchhiking. I feel I learned more by wandering in and out of jobs, countries, languages and religions than I would have if I’d stayed on Sarah’s path. But then, I have no idea how life worked out for her, so who knows.
The poem is semi-formal – rhymed but without a rhyme scheme, in iambic pentameter with some occasional liberties taken with metre… but those liberties are comparatively acceptable, even beneficial, in a longish poem as they break up the metrical monotony. That’s my excuse anyway, and I’m sticking with it. The poem was published decades later in Snakeskin – thanks, George Simmers!
O it is a wide winter, windy with gales, Hard, harsh and horizonless, cold, And I can do nothing more this year But sharpen the swords, mend the gear, Mend cloth, patch sails, Listen to tales told by the old, Listen to horses stamp in stalls. Feel the blood in my veins going nowhere, Feel the river halt, the bay iced in, The sun brief and thin The food dried, smoked, salt And no fresh fruit, fresh meat, No fresh lands, fresh goods, No fresh deeds, fresh girls, No seas running and blood running And people running and tales running… For what is the good of inaction Save to prepare for fresh action; And what is the good of fresh action Save for fresh tales; And what is the good of fresh tales Save for the glory and the name And the fame that lives past the death rattle For the sword singer, Word winger, The Bard of Battle?
*****
I feel the same fascinated connection to my Viking ancestors that I feel to my even earlier chimp-like forbears and modern chimp and bonobo cousins. All have social networks, hierarchies, politics, violence and ways of overcoming violence, cherished families, a sense of fairness and ways of cheating. I suspect the Viking gods would be far easier for chimps and bonobos to accept than modern scientific understanding could ever be. I greatly enjoy Vikings, chimps and bonobos, recognise that a lot in me comes from them, and am thankful to have outgrown much of their limitations. (And to neo-Nazis who think they are Vikings, I say this: “You’re not; don’t be so stupid.”)
This rambling semi-formal poem was first published in Snakeskin; thanks, George Simmers!
Life on the earth is thin as dust on an apple. 25,000 miles round the planet, and if we go 2 miles high we struggle to breathe, claw at the air, fight it, grapple. 25,000 miles round the planet, mostly sea and if sea levels rise a foot, whole communities are lost and if a storm gives 10 foot waves, houses and lives are lost. We live on the thin thin skin of the earth. Is the soil three inches deep, or a foot, or five? Can we grow enough to survive? We live on that thin thin skin of dirt. And people too are fragile, their bones, organs, held in by their thin thin skin. A knife, a bullet, even too much sun, will break the thin thin skin and drain the life. And society too is fragile, with too many knives and guns, too little respect for sun, ocean, climate change; too many people with a thin thin skin leading their ignorant people into the razorwire of unpredicted change.
*****
This poem was originally published in Lighten-Up Online (or LUPO) last year – thanks, Jerome Betts! It’s not really a formal poem, though there are some rhymes. As for the subject matter, all I can say is: If you haven’t run across the delightful XKCD graphic of the past 12,000 years of temperature change, please click here!
Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages: A middle school science teacher explains a lesson on climate change using a SMART board. Copyright CC BY-NC 4.0
Which is the worst – Is it the loss, or memory of loss, Or loss of memory? Who gives a toss When the brain’s banks have burst And all we valued yesterday Is washed away?
*****
The above is a short poem, semi-formal (i.e. it’s in iambics, it rhymes, but it lacks formal structure) published in this month’s Snakeskin No. 298. I like semi-formal because it allows natural expression in a way that formal structure often prevents. Contrast these examples from Matthew Arnold of the formal (from The Scholar-Gipsy) and semi-formal (from A Summer Night):
Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, Returning home on summer-nights, have met Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe, Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet…
The inversions of adjectives and phrases were used to fit rhyme and metre to line length. Drop the line length requirements and, even retaining the “thee”s and “thou”s, the expression is more naturally conversational:
And the rest, a few, Escape their prison and depart On the wide ocean of life anew. There the freed prisoner, where’er his heart Listeth will sail…
Poor Matthew Arnold! With his father a famous Headmaster and himself an Inspector of Schools, there is a sad irony in so much of his poetry being about escaping the tedium of regimented Victorian life.
Form in Formless Times 