Poetry: An Introduction

An Introduction

Ruth Miller, Robert A Greenberg, Ruth Miller, Robert A Greenberg

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 1981
• Print ISBN:
  9780333329856
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350317901
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism in Poetry
• Index: Literature

This book provides an introduction to the elements of poetry, formulates a series of contexts for the interpretation of poems, and offers a substantial anthology. Its purpose is to enable students to read poems with understanding and pleasure and to provide them with a basic vocabulary for analysing and talking about poems.

Part One

Elements

1. Some Impulses to Poetry

2. Speaker, Setting, Subject, and Theme

3. Words and Word Order

4. Figurative Language and Imagery

5. Symbols and Allegory

6. Rhyme, Rhythm, and Stanza

7. Structure

8. Genre

9. Tone and Attitude

The chapters of Part One focus on what are commonly referred to as the elements of poetry. Our purpose is to enable you to read poems with understanding and pleasure and to provide you with a vocabulary for talking about any poem you may encounter. For instance, in reading most poems you will find it helpful to consider the “speaker,” the person in whose voice the words are presented; and you will often discover that a poem suggests—perhaps quite subtly—a particular setting which contributes to its effect and meaning. Certainly you will find it valuable to be able to distinguish subject and theme, and you will always want to be alert and responsive to the use of language and the effects of sound and sound patterns—rhythm, rhyme, and meter. Frequently, too, you may be able to appreciate a poem more fully when you see how it fits into—or perhaps reacts against—a particular poetic tradition, evoking other poems by poets writing in different periods of time. Although in the chapters that follow we must consider such topics as these one by one, always bear in mind that a poem is the result of the interplay of all its elements.

1

Some Impulses to Poetry

People have always found ways to involve poetry in their lives, in their ordinary as well as their more exalted affairs. In this first chapter, as we briefly consider a few of these occasions, we may begin to have a sense of how wide-ranging and how various the impulse to poetic expression is. At the same time, we begin to see, in very different poems, certain features that poems seem to have in common: freshness of perception, economy of language, striking images, pleasing rhythms, and more.

Let us begin with a heightened occasion, the religious ceremony, where poetry will often interweave with music and dance to create a ritual enactment of something that the group or community desires. The hunt was a sacred event in Navaho Indian culture, and the Navahos engaged in several ceremonies before setting out. In the instance below, the singer pretends to be a blackbird, and as he enacts that role he chants the following poem:

Hunting Song

Comes the deer to my singing,

Comes the deer to my song,

Comes the deer to my singing.

He, the blackbird, he am I,

Bird beloved of the wild deer, 5

Comes the deer to my singing.

From the Mountain Black,

From the summit,

Down the trail, coming, coming now,

Comes the deer to my singing. 10

Through the blossoms,

Through the flowers, coming, coming now,

Comes the deer to my singing.

Through the flower dew-drops,

Coming, coming now, 15

Comes the deer to my singing.

Through the pollen, flower pollen,

Coming, coming now,

Comes the deer to my singing.

Starting with his left fore-foot, 20

Stamping, turns the frightened deer,

Comes the deer to my singing.

Quarry mine, blessed am I

In the luck of the chase.

Comes the deer to my singing. 25

Comes the deer to my singing,

Comes the deer to my song,

Comes the deer to my singing.

Anonymous

The poem is a ritual chant to accompany a dance. The lines are short and repetitious to fit the movements of the dancer. In each stanza the deer supposedly comes closer and closer, lured by the imitation of the song of the blackbird. The chant ends in a triumphant repetition of the opening lines, this time foretelling a favorable hunt.

Before the Cherokee Indians left for battle, they participated in a ceremonial burial of the enemy. No corpse was present, for the chant and the dance movement were symbolic; after a symbolic killing, the victors buried their enemy’s spirit, covering it with the clay of the “Darkening Land” (line 15):

A Spell to Destroy Life

Listen!

Now I have come to step over your soul

(I know your clan)

(I know your name)

(I have stolen your spirit 5

and buried

it under earth)

I bury your soul under earth

I cover you over with black rock

I cover you over with black cloth 10

I cover you over with black slabs

You disappear forever

Your path leads to the black coffin

in the hills

of the Darkening Land 15

So let it be for you

The clay of the hills covers you

The black clay of the Darkening Land

Your soul fades away

It becomes blue 20

When darkness comes your spirit shrivels

and dwindles

to disappear

forever

Listen! 25

Anonymous

Having symbolically conquered their enemy, the Cherokees were inspired to duplicate that event in reality.

Poetry has long been present in folk medicine, even when no specific religious ceremony is involved. Here is a magic formula, sometimes called a charm, that was chanted to protect against the sting of a wasp. The worried person probab...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Topical Table of Contents
• Contents
• Part One Elements
• Part Two Perspectives
• Part Three Anthology
• Writing About Poetry
• Some Groupings of Poems for Comparison
• A Gallery of Poets
• Index of Terms
• Index of First Lines
• Index of Authors and Titles