The Spoken Song

About two years ago I began attending the Poetry and Short Prose Group meetings at Gualala Arts. Gualala Arts is a remarkable organ-ization with an impressive building that would be the pride of many much larger communities.

It is the result of the efforts of many dedicated and gifted people who volunteer their time and resources. It adds immensely to the educational, artistic and social opportunities available to those living and visiting in the Sonoma-Mendocino Coastal area.

The first time I was able to attend the Poetry and Short Prose meeting almost all of the poets present were inclined to Haiku and its derivatives. They explained the rejection of rhyme in this poetic form as being too restrictive.

They went on to explain that even the 5-7-5 meter was ignored if the emotion could be better expressed without this confinement. They circulated and recited many Haiku poems recently written.

It was a very interesting and informative meeting with the gems of Haiku clearly supporting the beauty of this art form. Is it possible that the original Haiku challenge was to create poems in this restricted genre that in no way compromised the expression of emotion?

I was pondering this question when it became my turn to present one of my poems. I chose S’agapo (I Love You), written the morning after my Aunt Effie’s death.

There was polite attention and even some favorable comments by group members. However, one member urged that I discard rhyme and meter as too confining to the expression of emotion. He stated that modern poetry rejects rhyme and meter for that reason.

It would be presumptuous of me to put myself forward as a resurrector or preserver of an old art form. Yet, is it not possible that, with the depth and breadth of the English language, one might use the pleasing cadence of a spoken song without compromising the quality of the emotional expression? Is this no longer something even worth trying? Does the beauty and acceptance of modern free poetry necessarily lead to the assumption that anyone who has retained rhyme and meter is to be dismissed as restricted and old fashioned?

We might counter by quoting Robert Frost, “Writing poetry without rhyme is like playing tennis with the net down.”Webster’s would seem to leave room for both when it defines poem: “An arrangement of words written or spoken, traditionally a rhythmical composition, sometimes rhymed, expressing experiences, ideas, or emotions in a style more concentrated, imaginative, and powerful than that of ordinary speech or prose: some poems are in meter, some in free verse.”

Fernald, in Funk & Wagnalls Standard Handbook of Synonyms Antonyms & Prepositions, has a more narrow construct: “There is much in literature that is beautiful and sublime in thought and artistic construction, which is yet not poetry, because quite devoid of the element of song, whereby poetry differs from the most lofty, beautiful, or impassioned prose.”

The Short Prose and Poetry Group stimulated thoughts on these matters. Sierra Sacramento Valley Medicine Editor, Ed Rudin, MD, in the July/August 2001 issue urged members to submit articles “on their interests and their views on issues.” It is my pleasure to do so and invite your comments.

dennis_marks@bbs.macnexus.org