SpokenVerse | Misgivings by William Matthews (read by Tom O'Bedlam) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded February 2012 | Updated October 2024, 28 minutes ago.
I have a personal problem with this kind of post-modern American poetry . This poem has four stanzas of six lines each, the lines about equal in length - but why?
To me this is "poetry" only because that's what people call it. I don't have the right to impose my own definition on words.
I have a book called post-modern American poetry, a Norton anthology, that my daughter bought me for Christmas because I asked for it. There is hardly anything in it that I can read aloud - post-modern American poetry has no particular audible qualities. There is no rhyme or meter or anything which, when spoken aloud, distinguishes it from, say, a magazine article. On the page, what identifies it as poetry is the arbitrary division into lines and stanzas - which seems to me quite pointless.
And if, when reading it, you heed the line endings they set about you screaming "enjambment". If enjambment is what you want then why not run on the line? What's the point of breaking there? Enjambment is only meaningful when there is prosody, the anticipation of a pause "to play on the expectation of the reader and surprise them".
This stuff looks like poetry but it doesn't sound like poetry. Like this:
When you started
Reading this you
Thought it was
Going to be poetry
Didn't you? Well
It ain't - any fool can
Write stuff like this
And call it vers libre.
I expect you're picking up on how I feel about it. I suppose that what makes it poetry is a certain confessional intimacy, disregard for rules of grammar and obscurity of meaning. It's a kind of verbal conundrum, a musing or an anecdote. "Some writers try to make their waters appear deep by merely making them muddy", said Nietzsche. If that's what post-modern American poetry is, then so be it.
Bukowski's poetry seems to be of the same genre but it is really quite different. Bukowski's poetry has distinguishable audible qualities - you can hear a couple of lines and know that Bukowski is talking to you.
The reason for my reaction must be that I am steeped in English lyrical poetry that, in my idiosyncratic opinion, does have rhyme and meter, alliteration and onomatopoeia, etc. for the very good reason that these devices make it more effective. It penetrates your analytical mind and passes unchanged into your unconscious.
This does not mean that I dislike this poem. It's a good example of free verse. My objection is to postmodern American poetry in general, not this poem in particular. However it is well-named.
Okay, I have finished complaining. I'm all right now. Really, I am.
About the poem.
If love isn't increasing then it's decreasing. Love gets more intense as time passes: its bonds continue to grow stronger. If that's not happening then you need to consider your position carefully. There's an indictor of how your current relationship will end: look what happened to your partner's previous relationships - and what happened to your own. If previous lovers got bored or annoyed with you, then so will your partner...probably.
History will repeat itself, unless you make a mutual pact to prevent it happening again. There is a malicious idea promoted by the media that you will find that one ideal person and love them, and they will love you in return - forget it. Real people aren't ideal and you have to take them as they are. Real relationships need constant maintenance and effort. Try never to give your partner a bad experience.
You have to make up your mind to be happy, faithful and true, each to help the other achieve their own notion of ideal existence. If you have a quarrel only do it once per topic and find a solution: don't keep on having the same row over the same things. I'll stop pontificating now, in case it ruins our relationship
Here's more about William Matthews:
poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-matthews
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Matthews_(poet)
Couple from funtoosh.com (Very amusing, I recommend a visit)
A Man and a Woman by Lana Deym Campbell
deym.com/Painting-man-and-woman.htm
"Perhaps you'll tire of me," muses
my love, although she's like a great city
to me, or a park that finds new
ways to wear each flounce of light
and investiture of weather.
Soil doesn't tire of rain, I think,
but I know what she fears: plans warp,
planes explode, topsoil gets peeled away
by floods. And worse than what we can't
control is what we could; those drab,
scuttled marriages we shed so
gratefully may augur we're on our own
for good reasons. "Hi, honey," chirps Dread
when I come through the door, "you're home."
Experience is a great teacher
of the value of experience,
its claustrophobic prudence,
its gloomy name-the-disasters-
in-advance charisma. Listen,
my wary one, it's far too late
to unlove each other. Instead let's cook
something elaborate and not
invite anyone to share it but eat it
all up very very slowly.
I have a personal problem with this kind of post-modern American poetry . This poem has four stanzas of six lines each, the lines about equal in length - but why?
To me this is "poetry" only because that's what people call it. I don't have the right to impose my own definition on words.
I have a book called post-modern American poetry, a Norton anthology, that my daughter bought me for Christmas because I asked for it. There is hardly anything in it that I can read aloud - post-modern American poetry has no particular audible qualities. There is no rhyme or meter or anything which, when spoken aloud, distinguishes it from, say, a magazine article. On the page, what identifies it as poetry is the arbitrary division into lines and stanzas - which seems to me quite pointless.
And if, when reading it, you heed the line endings they set about you screaming "enjambment". If enjambment is what you want then why not run on the line? What's the point of breaking there? Enjambment is only meaningful when there is prosody, the anticipation of a pause "to play on the expectation of the reader and surprise them".
This stuff looks like poetry but it doesn't sound like poetry. Like this:
When you started
Reading this you
Thought it was
Going to be poetry
Didn't you? Well
It ain't - any fool can
Write stuff like this
And call it vers libre.
I expect you're picking up on how I feel about it. I suppose that what makes it poetry is a certain confessional intimacy, disregard for rules of grammar and obscurity of meaning. It's a kind of verbal conundrum, a musing or an anecdote. "Some writers try to make their waters appear deep by merely making them muddy", said Nietzsche. If that's what post-modern American poetry is, then so be it.
Bukowski's poetry seems to be of the same genre but it is really quite different. Bukowski's poetry has distinguishable audible qualities - you can hear a couple of lines and know that Bukowski is talking to you.
The reason for my reaction must be that I am steeped in English lyrical poetry that, in my idiosyncratic opinion, does have rhyme and meter, alliteration and onomatopoeia, etc. for the very good reason that these devices make it more effective. It penetrates your analytical mind and passes unchanged into your unconscious.
This does not mean that I dislike this poem. It's a good example of free verse. My objection is to postmodern American poetry in general, not this poem in particular. However it is well-named.
Okay, I have finished complaining. I'm all right now. Really, I am.
About the poem.
If love isn't increasing then it's decreasing. Love gets more intense as time passes: its bonds continue to grow stronger. If that's not happening then you need to consider your position carefully. There's an indictor of how your current relationship will end: look what happened to your partner's previous relationships - and what happened to your own. If previous lovers got bored or annoyed with you, then so will your partner...probably.
History will repeat itself, unless you make a mutual pact to prevent it happening again. There is a malicious idea promoted by the media that you will find that one ideal person and love them, and they will love you in return - forget it. Real people aren't ideal and you have to take them as they are. Real relationships need constant maintenance and effort. Try never to give your partner a bad experience.
You have to make up your mind to be happy, faithful and true, each to help the other achieve their own notion of ideal existence. If you have a quarrel only do it once per topic and find a solution: don't keep on having the same row over the same things. I'll stop pontificating now, in case it ruins our relationship
Here's more about William Matthews:
poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-matthews
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Matthews_(poet)
Couple from funtoosh.com (Very amusing, I recommend a visit)
A Man and a Woman by Lana Deym Campbell
deym.com/Painting-man-and-woman.htm
"Perhaps you'll tire of me," muses
my love, although she's like a great city
to me, or a park that finds new
ways to wear each flounce of light
and investiture of weather.
Soil doesn't tire of rain, I think,
but I know what she fears: plans warp,
planes explode, topsoil gets peeled away
by floods. And worse than what we can't
control is what we could; those drab,
scuttled marriages we shed so
gratefully may augur we're on our own
for good reasons. "Hi, honey," chirps Dread
when I come through the door, "you're home."
Experience is a great teacher
of the value of experience,
its claustrophobic prudence,
its gloomy name-the-disasters-
in-advance charisma. Listen,
my wary one, it's far too late
to unlove each other. Instead let's cook
something elaborate and not
invite anyone to share it but eat it
all up very very slowly.
