Venus and the Rain--Medbh McGuckian

It seems like McGuckian's volume is--in many ways--the anthesis of Ryan's work. Instead of obscurring meaning with too few words, Ms. McGuckian uses an abundance of words with complicated, topsy-turvy syntax. Her imagery is ornate and unpredictable. Here's a good example from "Freeze-Up":

The change in your voice when speaking
Is like an orange in a snowdrift, the warmth
Of its pocket.

The unexpected combination of orange, snow, and pocket makes the reader stop and think--but there is not always a conclusion that can be readily drawn. The imagery in "Venus and the Rain" relies a lot on nature to describe romance and femininity, such as in "Aviary":

You call me an aspen, tree of the woman's
Tongue, but if my longer and longer sentences
Prove me wholly female, I'd be persimmon,
And good kindling, to us both.

In "Aviary," McGuckian also includes imagery with roses, gardens, foliage, snow, and birds...I'm not sure that this is always effective, since such images are common symbols for feminine love. I think that her simile with speaking and orange is more effective because it is unexpected. At the same time, the value of being unexpected and fresh has to be tempered with the need to be sensical. From my reading so far, McGuckian has a tendency toward stringing together pretty, lyrical words that don't create real lucid thoughts. Figuring out the occasion/intention is not particularly easy for the reader.

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Ryan's Tone

Tone = the emotional stance of the speaker of the poem toward a particular speaker or object.

One consequence of Ryan's terseness is that the tone becomes distant--the author/speaker does not seem emotionally involved. Ryan seldom uses first person, but often uses second person or the third person "we." I think that makes some of the poems seem accusatory, even, like this excerpt from the poem "Elephant Rocks":

The dirt
rubs away from a treasure
too patient and deep to be lost,
however we've hurt, whatever
we've done to the beasts,
whatever we say.

Using "you" or "we" draws the reader into the poem, but at the same time, it distances the speaker (especially with "you") since none of the events directly involve the speaker. Ryan frequently takes on a didactic tone, which is aided by the direct address. At times, it seems like the speaker does not reveal enough other events/thoughts to make the reader feel that the didactic tone is appropriate.

Insult

Insult is injury
taken personally,
saying, This is not
a random fracture
that would have happened
to any leg out there;
this was a conscious unkindess.
We need insult to remind us
that we aren't always just hurt,
that there are some sources--
even in the self, parts of which
tread on other parts with such boldness
that we must say, You must stop this.

I know that Prof. White said in class one day that the direct address is very difficult to pull off, and I don't know that Ryan is always successful. "Insult" comes across as rather antogonistic, especially because it is abstract: Ryan provides no concrete situation that supports her diatribe against insult. Not only does this remove the speaker from the reader, but it also makes the direct address even more prominant.

Closed Form

Ryan doesn't seem like the type of poet to include closed form poems in her volume--she is entirely to unprecedented for that. So I was surpassed to see a poem entitled "Sonnet to Spring." After reading the poem, though, it seems like Ryan is mocking the traditional feel of sonnets. When we think sonnet, it's usually Shakespearean love sonnets, with lots of flowerly language and superfluous adjectives. Ryan's sonnet is the opposite:

Sonnet to Spring

The brown, unpleasant,
aggressively ribbed and
unpliant leaves of the loquat,
shaped like bark canoes that
something squashed flat,
litter the spring cement.
A fat-cheeked whim of air--
a French vent or some similar affair--
with enough choices in the front yard
for a blossomy puff worthy of Fragonard,
instead expends its single breath
beneath one leathery leaf of loquat
which flops over and again lies flat.
Spring is frivolous like that.

Ryan's diction is unexpected: unpleasant, brown, unpliant, litter, leathery, flat--all of these words don't really conjure up the typical thoughts of spring. The mention of Fragonard is interesting--the "blossomy puff" could be a mention to the French painter Fragonard or the French perfume factory. These are both images that would be similiar to the general image of spring...instead, Ryan uses the image of a leathery loquat (apparently some sort of Asian evergreen tree with yellow fruit). This sonnet has a similiar feel to the Sheakspeare sonnet that we read that described the lover as ugly...Ryan is rebelling from the image of closed-form stodgy-ness. When Ryan uses a closed form, she does include more words, which makes it easier for the reader to recognize the occasion/intention.

Pitfalls of Brevity

Ryan's diction is terse, to say the least. While some of her poems have as many as twenty or thirty lines, they seldom contain very many syllables--in "Chemistry," for example, the lines mainly are three or four syllables. And line 9, "sentiments," is, well, only one word. The short syllabic count makes the poem rhythmic; it also necessitates enjambment---I'm not sure if there's a technical term for this, but in lines 4-8 we see some sort of "quadruple" enjambment, where the thought carries over not just two lines, but FIVE. This also makes the rhyme interesting, since at least in the final 'sentence' (and consequently, six lines), there is rhyme three times: sentiments, sediment, and filament. Usually, rhyme at the end of one complete phrase (and line) rhymes with rhyme at the end of another line. Here, it almost seems like internal rhyme when read aloud since the poem flows so quickly and without pauses at the end of the lines.

Words especially
are subject to
the chemistry
of death: it is
an acid bath
which dissolves
or doubles
their strength.
Sentiments
which pleased
drift down
as sediment;
iron trees
grow from filament.

I do think that Ryan's brevity is at odds with her effectiveness at conveying a message--it's easier to get a point across when you're wordy, and Ryan is SO brief that some of her intent is muddled. This poem, "Swept Up Whole," is just five lines. I think that it could benefit from expansion (it’s only 18 words!):

Swept Up Whole

You aren't swept up whole,
however it feels. You're
atomized. The wind passes.
You recongeal. It's
a suprise.

Ryan's style makes it so that readers have to put a lot more of the puzzle pieces together themselves. I don't know that this is always a bad thing, but I do think that Ryan certainly risks the misinterpretation of her poems. Perhaps the reader is forced to do more thinking, but with so few clues from the author, it's more difficult for the reader to actually grasp Ryan's occasion/intent/message.

Concrete Images = Better Images

Ryan's poetry is effective because it uses so little to say so much. One thing that distinguishes poetry from prose is the ability to read a poem and leave with one specific phrase or image that encompasses much more--I think that these lines from "Outsider Art" are a good example:

Most of it's too dreary
or too cherry red.
If it's a chair, it's
covered with things
the savior said
or should have said--
dense admonishments
in nail polish
too small to be read.

Once again, Ryan takes a very specific image--a red chair with words written on it--and describes it in a memorable way. The contrast of "dense admonishments" and "too small to be read" is especially interesting; usually if something is too small to be read, then no one bothers. When it is placed on an object that usually does not have writing, then suddenly it becomes much more interesting. We've all noticed random (though pithy) writings on everyday objects, but Ryan takes the next step to point them out to the reader. If a poet can use tightly woven images that are very concrete, then portraying the occassion/intent to the reader becomes much easier. Ryan’s repitition of the red/said sounds makes adds rhythm, too.

Even when Ryan addresses abstract themes, she still uses few words and specific, concrete imagery. For example, in the poem "Hope" (a very abstract title), she likens hope to "the almost-twin of making do" and "the isotope of going on." Isotope is a scientific choice--one that usually is not associated when hope. I think this is why the comparison is effective: pairing hope with something unexpected makes it much more memorable and thought-provoking. Ryan certainly uses the unexpected, in syntax and diction, as a means for fresh poetry.

Elephant Rocks-- Kay Ryan

First of all, the volume of poetry Elephant Rocks by Kay Ryan is very different than the Yeats' volume that I previously read in terms of craft elements. Yeats wrote a lot of long poetry where the reader could not help but notice the complexity and intricacy. Ryan's work is quite the opposite--instead of noticing the complexity, rigid form, and overflow of allusions, tropes, etc., the reader notices the simplicity of language. In a way, Yeats attempts to paint a masterpiece while Ryan creates a pencil sketch where the details are left to the viewer's mind. Ryan's simplicity elicits thought.

Perusing the table of contents of Ryan's volume, one quickly notices that the titles are short--often only a single word. Frequently, they are something concrete and everyday: "Crib," "New Clothes," or "Wooden." I think that this lets the reader relate the poetry's themes to their everyday lives; the poetry does not seem "scholarly" or overwrought.

Consider this example:

How Birds Sing

One is not taxed;
one need not practice;
one simply tips
the throat back
over the spine axis
and asserts the chest.
The wings and the rest
compress a musical
squeeze which floats
a series of notes
upon the breeze.

Here, an ordinary event that is usally considered inconsequencial becomes extraordinary with interesting diction and syntax. The poem is written as an address to the reader--as if WE might have a need to know how to sing like a bird. This novel approach is inviting to the reader--usually, if a bird is described, it is not done like the reader is a bird who has trouble singing.

When Ryan uses poetic elements, he does so unobtrusively--they seldom jump out at the reader. Ryan uses slant rhyme instead of full rhyme, and makes it seem as though his use of similies/personification/alliteration/etc. is almost happenchance. Of course, it is effective because it is premeditated.

Yeats & Allusions

One thing that I noticed about Yeats' poetry as a whole is his love of allusions. Yeats uses extensive allusions to fairy tales, mythological creatures/gods, the Bible, and ancient places. In "The Tower," Yeats is focusing on growing older, so I suppose that some of these topics are attractive components since they never grow old--and, in the case of ancient places--have already experienced 'death.' However, in terms of the modern reader, it is difficult to recognize all of Yeats' references. In a lot of the poems, without a lot of knowledge about mythology, the Bible, etc., the poem loses a lot of meaning.

For example, in one poem ("Two Songs from a Play"), Yeats mentions Dionysus, Muses, Magnus Annus, Troy, Argo, Roman Empire, the Galilee sea, Babylonia, Plato, Christ, and Doric. In another, "Leda and the Swan" Yeats depicts the Greek myth about Leda and Zeus...which, if it weren't for my Spanish lit class where we discussed how the swan is a symbol of Spanish modernism, I would not have had a point of reference to draw conclusions about the poem. The question is, at what point should the author be conscious of whether or not the reader has knowledge of included allusions? How immediately accessible does the imagery need to be?

Effective Yeats Poem

The Three Monuments

THEY hold their public meetings where
Our most renowned patriots stand,
One among the birds of the air,
A stumpier on either hand;
And all the popular statesmen say
That purity built up the State
And after kept it from decay;
And let all base ambition be,
For intellect would make us proud
And pride bring in impurity:
The three old rascals laugh aloud.

This poem is interesting because the poem moves in one direction (with a patriotic and abstract feel) until the very last line, where it actually gets to the point. The rhyme scheme that Yeats uses (ABABCDC...) helps create a measured feel that matches with the image of a pompous politician. The way Yeats uses pronouns, too, is effective at creating a patriotic feel--"Our most renowned..." and "they hold their public meeting." Yeats uses so many key patriotic words--ambition, proud, intellect, popular, patriots--that the reader is expecting the entire message of the poem to be a solid endorsement of elected government...that's why it is so fresh when the last line is "the three old rascals laugh aloud." This is a much more accurate picture of politics--and a good example of Yeats' formal structure/style still having modern appeal.

Thoughts on The Tower by W.B. Yeats

The Tower, by W.B. Yeats was published in 1928. Its title is a reference to the castle that Yeats purchased and lived in with his family. One of the main, overriding themes of the collection of poems is confronting old age and the passage of time.

One of the most famous poems that discusses growing old and the passage of time in The Tower is “Sailing to Byzantium”:

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees -
Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.


An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.


O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.


Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Yeats’ poetry certainly is not free-form; in this poem each stanza has eight lines with 10 syllables. Yeats definitely employs rhyme, but there is not a rhyme scheme that is the same from stanza to stanza. All of Yeats’ poems seem to follow a structure, but not necessarily a predictable structure—the rhyme scheme will change from one stanza to the next or repetition will not be in each stanza.

Sailing to Byzantium describes a man’s trip to an Eastern city, through which Yeats explores the relationship between age and immortality from the viewpoint of someone much closer to death than birth. In this poem, like his others, Yeats uses a lot of imagery to describe the cycle of life and death—“salmon-falls,” “sailed the seas,” and “dying animal.” Imagery is very important to Yeats’ poetry, but it is certainly not uncommon for the imagery to be obscure, with lots of references to mythical gods and historical places—this can make it difficult to decipher. Yeats likes to use the ancient as a way to describe the current: “Amid the ornamental bronze and stone / An ancient image made of olive wood / And gone are Phidas’ famous ivories” (from “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen”).

While “Sailing to Byzantium” is not particularly long, several of Yeats’ poems in The Tower are quite long, divided into multiple sections. At times, this long, involved style makes it difficult for the reader to follow the poem. In “Meditations in Time of Civil War,” Yeats employs headings to lend structure. The headings themselves are parallel, which helps the reader stay engaged: “ancestral house…my house…my table…my descendants…the road at my door…the stare’s nest by my window…”

Some of my favorite poems in The Tower are the very shortest ones. It seems like when the poems are shorter Yeats is required to develop his ideas with more clarity, making each line have greater impact. In “The Wheel,” Yeats describes the passage of time, noting that at whatever point we are in life, we are dissatisfied and searching for the next stage. This poem is a little bit unoriginal, though, since using seasons as a metaphor for the passage of time is common.

Through winter-time we call on spring,And through the spring on summer call,And when abounding hedges ringDeclare that winter's best of all;And after that there’s nothing goodBecause the spring-time has not come --Nor know that what disturbs our bloodIs but its longing for the tomb.

This poem has the feel of a child’s song, which is interesting since so much of the poetry in The Tower is about growing old. Most of Yeats’ short poems are very lyrical and omit conjunctions to give a tighter feel.

Youth and Age

Much did I rage when young,
Being by the world oppressed,
But now with flattering tongue
It speeds the parting guest.

Yeats wrote The Tower just nine years before his death, so he clearly identified with many of the frustrations and confusions of growing old.