"... never in the history of poetry have poets had so little interest in or knowledge of the arterial systems through which the lifeblood of poetry flows." – John Frederick Nims
Jackie van Oostrom's "Poetry - Consistency in Theme, Style & Subject Matter Poetry" is refreshing since it comes from a basically Objectivist point of view and argues in favor of free verse and against metered verse. Objectivists typically argue for the opposite – against free verse and totally in favor of metered or formal poetry. Many poets who claim to be Objectivists (or vice versa) write strictly formal verse. They also extol poems that are clearly formal. It's good to see someone in that movement breaking from the pack.
Even though van Oostrom opposes this view, she still fits in that ambit. As they completely reject free verse, she almost totally rejects formal verse – except for "light or frivolous subject matter." There's dualistic thinking afoot here; a "false dichotomy" in need of dialectical resolution. She also shares other views with them, such as that clarity is to be preferred over its opposite, that the artwork should be independent of extraneous elements, and organicism (that the work should be an integrated whole).
Some might argue with some of these other congruencies. For instance, independence of extraneous elements can at best be a guide and can only be achieved to a limited degree. I do not mean something trivial by this such as that one must be able to understand English to appreciate English poems, though that is true enough. More importantly, quite a few metaphors require more than just an understanding of the language. For instance, Tennyson's "Ulysses" contains the phrase "follow knowledge like a sinking star." Not only must we see this as not literal in terms of plain English – stars don't sink! – but our appreciation is enhanced if we know how much meaning is invested in celestial events by most cultures. The image of sunset, of decline is important here. Ulysses is old and tired, yet still he goes on. There's a bit of celestial orderliness, of the eternal in his character.
This view detaches poetry from its past in attempt, that has been tried so many times before that it is a tradition in itself, to get rid of all the ornaments of formalism. Free verse, in particular, has arisen many times before and will no doubt continually arise again to do battle with formalism of any stripe. (Kirby-Smith, p55ff) This also links up to organicism, but that's a matter I won't treat here.
On the subject of free verse itself, she conflates the term with one species of free verse, the prose poem. Some (e.g., Kirby-Smith, p255-6) consider the prose poem the weakest form of free verse. Regardless, she neglects other forms and her own poetry on the web seems to border more between prose and what is called phrase-breaking free verse. She also uses standard poetic devices such as the anaphora present in section two of her "Roar." (Some might accuse her of hypocrisy here. I believe it's a good practice to pick and choose which devices work where in art.)
Her case is made harder to examine because she does not give examples of poetry – save her work. This is a serious fault since she relegates all formal verse to the artistic dustbin because, to her, the "rhyme and metre style encourages the reader to focus on the form to the detriment of the meaning." (Note: she's making rhyme part of formal verse. It's not true that free verse has no rhymes. Early free verse often did rhyme and rhyme is sometimes used in free verse today.)
Elsewhere she states a "poem's form should be consistent with the subject matter and thus with its meaning. Form should enhance the meaning, and not detract from it." This is her main argument. By the meaning of the poem, she is talking about what would be called the semantics of the poem's words.
For instance – and I'm using an example from another poet both because she gives no examples at all and this example is well known – William Blake's "The Tyger" means that tigers are dreadful creatures and Blake wonders if God could have created them. To the extent, then, that the poem's meaning in this sense has to compete with the form (meter, rhyme, etc.) of the poem, the poem fails. This particular example is a good one since it is a metered poem, specifically trochaic meter, and it rhymes. (Gioia, p90) Do these formal aspects distract the reader from the meaning? I think not! It is more truthful to say that the trochaic meter draws attention to the both the subject matter and the meaning since it is so regular. This stylization that occurs in all art forms heightens our awareness of the tiger's qualities, regardless of our religious beliefs. The rhymes set up expectations, but seem less important except insofar as they enhance metrical interest.
This poem seems a counterexample to van Oostrom's thesis. Even so, it might be that this sort of confluence of form and subject is rare. I doubt this, but, again, she does not give any examples on which to base her claim. Imagine if someone rewrote Blake's poem to make it into a prose poem. I won't attempt it here, but unless someone does a major revision of the phrasing the power of the original would likely be lost. It might turn out to be just a list of the tiger's qualities and some speculation on how such an organism could come to be.
Or it might work. After all, there's a lot of powerful free verse out there, from Ginsberg's "Howl" to Amy Clampitt's "Medusa" and beyond. But it would be a different poem all together. It would not, in my opinion, be like "The Tyger" yet cleaned up and full of "clarity." It might instead be dry, antiseptic – in a word: boring. It might not, but it might. I leave it to van Oostrom to prove me wrong here. Even if she does, it does not negate the fact that this poem's formal traits do not stifle its meaning or obscure its subject matter.
There are two more points that should be noted here. One is a matter of composition that I will take up later. The other is about the relation of meaning to prosody – that is, to meter. Thus far, I've been accepting van Oostrom's dichotomy here. However, even from my example, meter and meaning in formal poems – even in free verse, since a lot of free verse depends on tricking metrical expectations to enhance awareness – are closely tied together. I am not the first to make such a claim. Others have said the same with much more scholarship than I: "prosody is a symbolic structure like metaphor and carries its own weight of meaning." (Gross and McDowell, p2)
The problem here is that for poetry the aspects of language which give rise to meter – in English, stress levels – are a large part of the medium of this art form. Meter in poetry is akin to color in visual art. Surely, drawings exist using no color – or, more precisely, two colors – but this is not the same as saying that in drawing somehow we are less distracted from the meaning because of the lack of color. Would anyone claim that Rembrandt 's sketches are somehow more meaningful, more serious than his paintings? It might be better to agree with Kenyon Cox that different "orders of truths" are displayed in each. (Cox, p95) With this, we would recognize that one can by using different types of poetry – one meter, mixed meters, or no meter; rhyme or no rhyme; end stopped lines or enjambment; etc. – one can emphasize certain truths while diminishing others. Nothing is wrong with this and it is to be expected since we have limited consciousnesses (the whole reason for selectivity in art or anything) and poetry must communicate a lot in a very small space.
Meter, rhyme, and other poetic effects also help with memorization, which is not to be disregarded, though, today, with widespread literacy and easy access to printed and recorded works, this is not as big a problem for van Oostrom's argument. After all if strict meter merely helps one to remember a poem, books, tapes, web sites, all minimize the need to memorize at all. I also doubt anyone would argue for bare bones melodies music or simple plots in plays and novels or clean, linear forms paintings merely to make them more memorable.
On the matter of composition, a problem with van Oostrom's view is that it tends toward the "roadmap" view of poetry. This is that the poet already knows where she wants to go and is merely giving us directions on how to get there. Now, after a poem is composed, this might be the case. The poet has by then made the journey whether or not she already knew where she was going when she started. However, I bet the outcome of van Oostrom's view of poetry won't be a vibrant new age of poetic clarity and elegance. Poets who follow her maxims might instead wind up translating whatever ideology they hold into brief bits of prose. They might happen upon new discoveries, but these will be minor and hidden behind mounds of didactic adages.
This might seem an ad hominem attack. I do not intend it to be so. I'm only stating my fear because all too often Objectivist art tends toward narrow formulae. Some might say that many will attempt to create art, but few succeed – which is the case with any movement – yet I think this is not only a matter of statistics. The esthetic platitudes that many would be Objectivist artists adopt stifle their creativity. Instead, the poet should look for things which trigger creative responses to the world. (Richard Hugo, p4) And I'm hardly the first to notice this! (See Peter Saint-Andre's Artist Shrugged.)
Works Cited:
Kenyon Cox. 1988 [1917 [1914]]. "What is Painting?" in What is Painting? "Winslow Homer" and Other Essays. Norton: New York.
Dana Gioia. 1996. "Meter-Making Arguments" in David Baker, editor, Meter in English: A Critical Engagement. University of Arkansas: Fayetteville, AK.
Harvey Gross and Robert McDowell. 1996 [1964]. Sound and Form in Modern Poetry. 2nd. Edition. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor.
Richard Hugo. 1979. The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing. Norton: New York.
John Frederick Nims. 1996. "Our Many Meters: Strength in Diversity" in David Baker, editor, Meter in English: A Critical Engagement. University of Arkansas: Fayetteville, AK.
Henry Tompkins Kirby-Smith. 1998. The Origins of Free Verse. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor.