Poetry

A note on Alfred's verse. Bill Alfred invented a new form of verse he called "involute rhyme." Here is an example of that form, "Visits." The stanzas here are 14 and then 13 lines each, and in that way they resemble sonnets. The lines resolve to an iambic meter after a kind of rhythmic disorientation in the first two lines of the first stanza. The "involution" of the rhyme, however, is a radical departure from earlier forms. It works this way: Line 1 rhymes with line 14, line 2 with line 13, line 3 with line 12, and so on. By the time a reader reaches the end of the stanza, therefore, what there is only a fading echo for the last line to rhyme with, but the closer one is to the middle of the stanza, the more recognizable the rhyme. I never heard Bill talk about this form, but I can see how echoes, stronger and weaker create an extraordinary effect.  Look, for instance at how dramatically lines 7 and 8 stand out: "The offices they sand by loving vow./ Cars park there now." Where Bill calls the verse t o a full stop and then follows it with a line that is spondaic (All the syllables are stressed.) As a lover of poetry, I would like to go on to investigate how this sound pattern cooperates with the meanings of the lines, but that's not my job here. Perhaps I have said too much already. Bill Alfred does recount an attempt he made to explain this innovation to a class: “. . . my innovation, the involute rhyme, which after an eye-crossing morris dance through the rhyme schemes left [the] class splay-legged in their seats like a Brady photograph of the field after the Battle of Bull Run.”