Okay everyone... Settle down... Quiet please... Ummm, today's text is this:
http://www.lushstories.com/stories/love-poems/how-i-loved-you-then.aspx#post
If you haven't read it, and you don't need to LIKE it but if you're at this lecture I'll expect you to have at least read it, please take a moment and read it now...
For those of you who are new to this class and Literary Criticism generally, a brief explanation of Lit Crit might be helpful...
Literary Criticism: The art or practice of judging and commenting on the qualities and character of literary works.
Now, unusually, since I WROTE this one, I'll talk a little bit about its genesis before we properly start. Initially, I wanted to experiment with a poem where each line in each stanza finished upon a similar rhyme. Each stanza composed of rhyming couplets. It really was an EXERCISE, in that I hadn't planned an EMOTIVE message at the outset.
I DID have this fragment:
"Know you were my closest friend and
How I loved you then..."
and because of the obvious if imperfect rhyme of 'friend' and 'then' I decided to use this as a starting point.
Let's look at the first stanza as a whole at first:
"The shining sun still shines the same,
We, smiling, play the older games
And paper over wounds and pain
Knowing neither of us are to blame.
But in the air, a hint of rain,
We're heading for a storm again..."
This is basically setting out the stall, really, from a TECHNICAL point of view. There are EIGHT beats/stresses in each line, (Ta da, Ta da, Ta da, Ta dah...) and, as planned, each end word rhymes. So far so good. Looking closer, the ALLITERATION in the first line, in this case the repeated use of 'S' sounds, is PLEASING on the ear and lulls the reader. This is repeated with the harsher 'P' consonants in 'Paper' and 'Pain', but by now the reader is HEARING the lines so it works...
But what does it MEAN?
Well, we're not sure yet where it's going, (neither was I) but there IS a hint of dischord here; something is not quite right. The final two lines refer to a gathering storm, an obvious metaphor for trouble ahead... I CAN tell you that at the time of writing, That Was Not a conscious thing, I merely needed words to RHYME with what had preceded...
I inserted the "Know you were my closest friend and
How I loved you then..." bit MERELY to remind myself of where I was in the piece. I fully intended to take it out later. (My training in rhyme is as a songwriter and WE do love our choruses!!!)
Let's look at stanza two:
"I see it in distracted eyes,
Avoiding rows with soft sad sighs,
Whispered excuses and White lies,
Creating a space where love can die.
A rumble of thunder in the sky
Heralding a last goodbye."
Ahhh... We have problems. After the first three lines the Eight Stresses per line rule falters. Oooops! But nobody will notice because NOW there's a narrative, A STORY. Something Is Happening. The reader will forgive, or even not notice, because they want to know WHAT HAPPENS! The use of the 'S' ("soft sad sighs...") and 'W' sounds in 'whispered' and 'White Lies' is frankly a SOP to the reader, reminding them of the alliteration they LIKED in stanza One. Indeed, it's SO familiar they don't notice the RHYTHM has drifted 'outside the lines' as it were. It's worth mentioning here that not only is the rhythm off but so are the rhymes, for 'lies' DOES NOT rhyme with 'die'. But nobody noticed. It was close enough. We're still on track.
But THIS line: "Creating a space where love can die..." is a dropped glass. Suddenly we're not fucking around. Bad Shit is going down. The final two lines echo the STORM metaphor from before, but after the previous line WE SEE THAT as the cheap device it really is. The READER is thinking, "Fuck storms, What's REALLY Happening With These People???"
And we find out. Stanza Three:
"A numbing cold we cannot mend
Or even bother to pretend,
That we have not now reached the end...
No garden left to tend.
Strangers now that once were friends,
We find ourselves alone again..."
Notice how after the first three lines ALL EFFORT at the original rhythmic line-form is abandoned. It's almost as if with the collapse of the structure of the RELATIONSHIP, the structure of the POEM itself collapses, mirroring their dilemna... An aside. "No garden left to tend..." WHAT? What garden? You never said anything about a fucking garden. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU DICK?" Except no-one will say that (and they would be quite right if they did, actually...) and here's why.
Because the IMAGE is universal and easily understood. An untended garden, a RUINED garden, something once beautiful, now gone... It's actually a COLOSSAL cheat! But it works because the IMAGE registers.
Final Stanza:
"The days seem longer, stretching out,
No-one to laugh with, to love, to shout
At, to touch, to kiss to think about...
A head full of thoughts but no words in my mouth,
Nothing within, nothing without,
Nothing without you but fear and doubt..."
What an ABORTION of a verse! The AUDACITY of that "shout" rhyme cheat! That forth line has ELEVEN stresses in it! This poem has FALLEN APART!
So why does it work as a verse? It works because by now the reader is emotionally engaged, and the falling apart of the structure mirrors the falling apart of the writer. And THESE lines, "Nothing within, nothing without, Nothing without you but fear and doubt..." are both the most lyrical and cleverest in the poem. (Readers will forgive a LOT if they get the clever!)
With regard to the repeated "Know you were my closest friend, And how I loved you then.." well, it really is a rather cheap and simple device but IT WORKS. It's HUMAN... (It's his REAL voice, the only thing he REALLY knows, REALLY wants to say... He doesn't REALLY know how all the rest of it went tits up. But he MEANS those two lines and he UNDERSTANDS them...)
Some of you, ("Hello, Rachel...") will say, "Typical Stephen, yet another attempt to surf upon his own huge ego..." (Perhaps a SMIDGEN of truth in that, BUT...)
Know this, fellow students and writers.
I had NO IDEA where I was going with this. ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA. I started off RHYMING COUPLETS! That's really all I was trying to do. I am IMMENSELY proud of this, but REALLY, it was an accident. I didn't plan it, I didn't spend a great deal of time on it and, (tragically) I could NOT sit down right now and do something similar again. I wish I could. Sometimes you write the words. Sometimes the words write you.
*BELL RINGS!!!!!!*
"Okay everybody... Umm... I'm waiting on Tennyson essays from Raven-Star, Rachel, Betty Button and Clum... I have some of you for tutorial at 4.30, we'll be doing that in the bar... There are some places left for those interested in the field trip to Yeats Country in Ireland in July but do let me know if you're interested... The rest of you have a good weekend... Don't do drugs...
xx Steph
Lurker
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