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“Bob, I Know You Call This Poetry, But…”

By Walter Donway

August 5, 2014

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Awhile back, I got an e-mail message from an acquaintance, Bob, who attached a poem. Several things about the message surprised me. I hadn’t known Bob particularly well; way back, we might have been in a couple of poetry courses in Boston. Back then, Bob wrote conventional verse—meter, rhyme, a story line—and I thought him promising. Here he was, after being out of touch for years, sending me a poem in an entirely different style and asking me to comment.

Here’s the draft he attached:
The City Lane
Stood in the rain. An unearthly, an unwilling sound.
His light and I, by the luminary rain,
acquainted, and acquainted still further.
I have interrupted, walked out.

Call me in, the city proclaimed.
And to my eyes, on the height, one right?
One wrong? Neither one?

Back down? Explain?
The feet have been far away. Came. But not
outwalked the beat of another time.

When was I the saddest? I have looked
at houses. And still, I have
dropped a clock.

I have been to the furthest back street with the night
against the sky. Say I have passed
over, have stopped.
Night watchman, cry good-bye.

Bob’s e-mail was chatty, as befitted our long separation. When he came to the poem, he explained: “I wrote the poem in night-school class at Goddard College. I have to tell you, the professor thought it was excellent—and publishable. My feeling, though, is anything can be improved, maybe from good to great. (That sounds egoistical, I know, but, as I recall, you’re into the egoism stuff.) Anyway, I’d appreciate comments. And Walt: don’t praise everything just because my professor did. I’m serious about your comments.”

Poets who write free verse are giving up an essential tool of their craft

This was tough. I thought that as contemporary free verse went this was good. In fact, I liked it, even though I think poets who write free verse are giving up an essential tool of their craft. And why was Bob writing to me, anyway? I was no poetry professor. Maybe he just wanted to show off the poem, but couldn’t come out and say so. I procrastinated for a couple weeks. But the poem bothered me. I thought Bob had talent, but was heading into the fever swamps of contemporary poetry. (I sure couldn’t say that!)

My e-mail, after some newsy comments, got to the poem. I said:

“I agree with your professor, Bob. There’s a lot here. You convey the feeling of the city’s loneliness, its impersonality. We feel the rain, the night, the broken images that lights cast on houses, streets. Also, I like your use of “acquainted”–the meetings in the city that never become friendships. There is a nice abruptness in “I have interrupted, walked out.” Sometimes, we can’t even sustain an acquaintance.

“By the way, the use of “acquainted”–twice—is part of your easy movement between levels of rhetoric. Much of the language is simple: stood, walked, houses, clock. And yet, when you use another rhetoric (in words such as luminary, unearthly, proclaimed, acquainted) it works.

I especially like the way you return to walking: walked, outwalked, feet, far away. Here, we sense that walking, especially late at night, can be part of the loneliness of the city, when, perhaps, only the “watchman” (God?) is there to see us.

“Your many questions in the poem convey the sense of uncertainty—surely an aspect of loneliness? The same impression is conveyed by the stanza about “right” and “wrong.” I hear the city asking, challenging, the “I” in the poem to decide, to take a stand, and yet, for this person, that is not possible. At the end, of course, there is the suggestion of passing, of permanent loss. Is this the fate of the modern city dweller: to pass through the night, and, ultimately, into the night–with only the watchman (again, God?) to say goodbye?

“Bob, I’ve gone on at length because this poem is full of promising themes, promising images. You have conveyed a remarkable amount in a short poem.

“Having said that, Bob, I must raise some questions, and they aren’t about your poem only, but a trend in poetry that has been growing more dominant and pervasive for half a century. You see, for all the themes I pick up, all the implications I receive, all the feelings I sense: I don’t really know what is going on in this poem. I literally don’t know what you’re talking about.

Across the entire spectrum of modern verbal communication, the minimal standard of competence is to make clear what you mean, avoid vagueness, come out and say it. Why is contemporary verse the sole exception? At no point in your poem am I able to follow the narrative: “His light?” What is right or wrong—or neither? Whose feet “came in”? And so on. Yes, I get an image, I receive a sense of uncertainty, indecision. And someone or something (on feet) has walked a long way. In what writing, in any other medium, would this vagueness, lack of reference, deliberate difficulty, be tolerated? And yet, in poetry, it is supposed to be suggestive, even profound.

“Don’t get me wrong, Bob. There isn’t one word in this poem that’s wrong in itself. You could rewrite the poem in exactly the same words. The issue isn’t the language; the issue is what it means to communicate, even in the arts—especially in the arts. Historically, literature been a bastion of clarity in language and communication, setting the standard.

“Bob, what if we turned contemporary thinking about poetry on its head, and said: The first requirement is to be coherent, intelligible—and after that to deal with the imagery, the metaphors, the ambiguity of thought. But first, say something coherent. Let the fifth—or fiftieth—reading be about the implications of the ideas, the actions, the images, the symbols, the changing moods. And yet, this simple requirement would be a revolution for modern verse, Bob.

“I see you still pay attention to structure, with stanzas of four lines, then three, three, three, then four. But what about meter? I’m sure you’ll point out the pleasing rhythms. There is a nice sense of statement combined with questioning, here, almost an alternation of action and self-inquiry. That is well conveyed by the rhythm. I like the ruefulness tone when you write: “I have looked/at houses. And still, I have/dropped a clock.” Again, the rhythm captures that.

“But that same passage raises the question of line breaks. Why break the lines between “looked” and “at”? I would suggest to you, Bob, that, having abandoned meter, you are searching for other ways to be sure your readers get the point that this is poetry, not prose. You may laugh, but I think many contemporary poets use arbitrary line breaks, sentence fragments, and successions of images with few connectors in order to tip off the reader that this is supposed to be poetry.

“Bob, I’m talking as much, here, about modern poetry as about your poem. I would ask you: Did you adopt this approach to verse to achieve poetic effects you discovered were important to you, and achievable in no other way? Or because this is “the way it’s done” these days?

“I just want to repeat that you have a richness of themes, imagery, idea relationships, and moods that are the stuff of fine poetry. What would happen if you said all this in a way that treated coherence and clarity of meaning as the minimal requirements of a poem? The norm?

“Bob, I wouldn’t write at such length if your poetry, and talent, didn’t impress me. I know you will make your own decisions, as you always have; but, if you revise this poem, I would love to see the new draft.

“By the way, I’m surprised to hear that Goddard College is in Vermont. From what I have heard about it, I assumed it was on the Left Bank, in Paris.

“Keep the faith, Bob.”

After a few weeks, I was sure I wouldn’t hear from Bob. I figured I’d been right that all he wanted was to show off a poem that made such a hit with his professor. And maybe he hadn’t appreciated my Goddard dig.

Then, an e-mail popped onto my screen. Was this a blast from Bob? It wasn’t. He wrote:

“Walt:

“At first, your comments irritated me. I wasn’t going to get back to you. But I kept fretting over what you said, especially your questions about why contemporary poetry is excused from coherence, intelligibility, and all that. Also, I did appreciate your perceptive discussion of my themes and imagery. You really understood that part.

“Anyway, I rewrote the poem. I figured, okay, just think of it as a message to someone, a communication that has to be understood. I was afraid that would squeeze all the life out of the poem, but it didn’t. You aren’t going to believe this, Walt, but my revised version of the poem already has been published! You can read it on the Internet. Let me know what you think—and thanks!

Oh, and Walt: I took what you said literally. This new version is in exactly the same words as the earlier draft—every single word is there, and not one word that wasn’t in the earlier draft!”

My e-mail reply to Bob said it all:

“Wow! That’s my comment on your new poem, Bob. Wow! This is one of the most effective poems I have read in a long time. All the themes are there—loneliness, alienation, the attempt to come to terms with the city—but now there is a coherent narrative. I don’t finish this poem and feel: Jeez, I love the feel and the images and the language, but…ah…what’s it about?

“From the very first word, we’re oriented to who is acting, what they’re doing, and where we are. But do you agree, Bob, that you don’t lose any of the disturbing sense of loneliness, uncertainty, and alienation amid the city crowds? We get all that feeling of the night as both friend and antagonist. And the way you’ve treated the theme of walking, trying to find something (or get away from something, and always coming back to uncertainty) is a tour de force. Your treatment of time, with the reference to the clock, is brilliant. Now, the content and story reinforce the mood, the exploration of feeling, conveyed in the language and images.

“I see you’ve gone back to meter: iambic pentameter, to my ear, but with anapests to convey the constant motion, the walking out and back. You even rhyme, so that the words essential to your themes—“night,” “light,” “right (versus wrong)”—are emphasized by the rhyme.

“Bob, I panicked when I heard that you took literally my comment that there was nothing wrong with the language in your first draft. I didn’t mean you had to use exactly the same words! But the proof is in the pudding (as I guess they still say, in Vermont, don’t they?) You have used exactly the same words and written a poem that, frankly, may outlive us both. I mean that, Bob. You have made a statement about the loneliness of the city, the paradox of isolation among crowds, that will resonate with people as long as there are cities.

“I’m going to tell everyone I know who likes poetry to read your poem at “http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/acquainted-with-the-night/”

“I was wondering, Bob: Do you think you’d have time to comment on some of my drafts?

“Keep the faith,

“Walt.”

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