Line & Meter 2

Definition:

• Concrete poetry is a form of poetry in which the visual arrangement of words on the page is inseparable from their meaning, so that form and content function as one unified expression. In other words, how the words look on the paper is just as important as what the words say.

  • Source: The Princeton Encyclapedia of Poetry and Poetics

History:

• Concrete Poetry officially began in the mid-1950s when Eugen Gomringer and a group of Brazilian Poets defined it as a movement. They established the idea that form and meaning should be unified. It had some ancient and medieval precedents in shaped poetry (carmina figurata), it was more clearly defined in the 1950s.

  • Source: The Princeton Encyclapedia of Poetry and Poetics

My Response:

• I haven't encountered many concrete poems in my academic career, but I think I would find a lot of enjoyment in reading some. It challenges how I think of poems, since I am so used to reading and writing poems that are relatively uniform, with each line taking up similar space and having similar syllabics and rhymes. Furthermore, I work in marketing and social media, and I think someone could connect this to graphic design and advertisement because the words can serve as visual and verbal meaning.

What is this poetic element like?

• This poetic element really reminds me of word clouds. These are something that I did back in middle school, and I'm pretty sure I made a word cloud with words associated with basketball (and the words made the shape of the basketball). Both concrete poetry and word clouds find significance in the form and actual meaning of the work.

Example:

• Easter Wings by George Herbert (Stanza 1):

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store, 

      Though foolishly he lost the same, 

            Decaying more and more, 

                  Till he became 

                        Most poore: 

                        With thee 

                  O let me rise 

            As larks, harmoniously, 

      And sing this day thy victories: 

Then shall the fall further the flight in me. 

Definition:

• A 4-line strophe made up of mostly trochaic and dactylic feet. Due to originally being written in Greek, sapphics are supposed to be in quantitative meter, however since measuring the length of syllables is difficult in other languages it is rarely done. There does not appear to be a set form for how all Sapphics function, especially considering translation, so the first definition I gave seems to be the most inclusive for everything that poets consider Sapphics. 

• Sapphic | Academy of American Poets 

History:

• The sapphic form, unsurprisingly, originates from the ancient Greek poet, Sappho from the island of Lesbos. An astounding amount of her poetry still exists and has served as inspiration for centuries of poets which is perhaps why sapphics became a well-known form. A large number of poets have taken up her form across various languages over the centuries, first the Latin poets such as Catallus and then extending all the way to Ezra Pound. In the modern day, queer (especially Sapphic) poets have adopted the form in homage to Sappho's own homosexuality. 

• Sapphic | Academy of American Poets 

My Response:

• I think that this is a fascinating form if only to do with its ancient qualities and wide-spread influence. I am a fan of Sappho's writing so the process of uncovering more about the ways she approached her poetry has been rather revealing. The form itself is difficult to reproduce in English though certainly not impossible and according to Matthew Buckley Smith the only things you need to do is "listen."

What is this poetic element like?

• Sapphics are like clay, undeniably the same, old substance no matter how it's stretched, thrown, and glazed, but in the hands of separate artists it can be manipulated in ways the ancients hadn't predicted. 

Example:

• Sappho "The Moon is Down"

• Δέδυκε μεν ἀ σελάννα

καὶ Πληΐαδεσ, μέσαι δὲ

νύκτεσ πάρα δ᾽ ἔρχετ᾽ ὤρα,

ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω 

• Robert Lowell translation

• The moon has long since set;

the Pleiades are gone;

now half the night is spent,

yet here I lie—alone. 

Definition:

Ballad meter describes quatrains which follow an ABCB rhyme scheme and a 4-3-4-3 stress pattern, though its syllable count is flexible

History: 

Emily Dickinson often wrote in ballad meter, alternating lines with four stresses and three stresses.

My Response: 

This is very familiar, especially since I took a class about Emily Dickinson. Dickinson liked to alternate lines with different amounts of stresses and I was unaware that there was a name for that until now.

What is this poetic element like?

Ballad meter is similar to common meter, except that ballad meter is a flexible 4-3-4-3, while common meter is a strict iambic pattern and can't do anything different than 4-3-4-3. 

Example:

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The bride hath paced into the hall, #A

Red as a rose is she; #B

Nodding their heads before her goes #C

The merry minstrelsy. #B

Source:

Ballad Meter - Poem Analysis 

Definition:
Prose poetry is a hybrid literary form that combines the visual appearance and syntactic structure of prose with the heightened imagery, figurative language, compression, and musicality of poetry. Unlike traditional verse, prose poetry does not use line breaks or metrical patterns; instead, it is written in paragraphs while still employing poetic devices such as metaphor, rhythm, symbolism, and associative logic. As described in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Fourth Edition), prose poetry challenges conventional distinctions between prose and verse by foregrounding poetic intensity within prose form. 

History:
Prose poetry emerged prominently in nineteenth-century France, especially through the work of Charles Baudelaire, whose collection Paris Spleen helped define the genre. The form was later adopted in Anglophone literature by poets seeking flexibility beyond metrical constraints. In the twentieth century, writers such as Gertrude Stein and Russell Edson expanded its experimental possibilities. Contemporary poetry institutions such as the Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Foundation recognize prose poetry as a distinct and widely practiced form. Because it abandons lineation, prose poetry shifts emphasis from meter and rhyme to rhythm, imagery, and conceptual unity. 

My Response:
I find prose poetry intriguing because it disrupts expectations. When I see a paragraph, I instinctively expect narrative prose, but prose poetry makes it so that I read slower and more attentively, as I would a lyric poem. It demonstrates that poetry is not defined solely by line breaks or rhyme but by intensity of language and compression of meaning. 

What is this poetic element like?
Prose poetry is often compared to free verse, since both reject strict meter and rhyme. However, free verse still uses line breaks as an organizing principle, whereas prose poetry abandons lineation entirely. As noted in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, prose poetry depends more heavily on internal rhythm, imagery, and syntactic play to create poetic effect. It also shares affinities with flash fiction, though prose poetry typically prioritizes mood, image, and lyric resonance over plot. 

Example: 

From Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen (public domain translation excerpt): 

Be always drunk. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. So as not to feel Time’s horrible burden breaking your shoulders and bending you to the earth, you must get drunk without cease. 

But on what? Wine, poetry, or virtue, as you wish. But get drunk.

Definition: 

From Britannica.com: Developed originally by Gerard Manley Hopkins, sprung rhythm is an irregular system of prosody based on the number of stressed syllables. Each foot may consist of one stressed syllable and any number of unstressed syllables. Hopkins typically used diacritical marks to indicate where stressed syllables fall in ambiguous lines. The number of syllables per foot would stay the same within each individual work, to avoid sounding like free verse. It is a form of accentual verse. 

History: 

Hopkins read works by Shakespeare and Milton and discovered an unnamed rhythm present in some pieces. Sprung rhythm didn't become a popular way to construct poems, but did bring attention to accentual verse more broadly. 

My Response:

I feel like since the sprung rhythm can contain any amount of syllables,
and just depends on how many you choose in each poem, the rhythm doesn't become memorable. I sit and read Hopkins with ideas already in my head about where stresses in normal English words are, and I find myself not agreeing with the poet. 

What is this poetic element like?

It just feels like free verse to me, especially if there isn't a clear indication of stresses like a diacritical. With no indications, it's like I'm trying to pull radio waves straight out of the air. 

Example: 

The Windhover

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-

  dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

  Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

  As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

  Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

  Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

  No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

  Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.