ripple

If poetry could pick apart the atom,
unravel D.N.A., or stop old age,
it's value could be measured with a gauge
and read so clearly anyone could fathom
the full five feet of every line and verse.
But there's more to poetry than metered lines,
the by-products of our frustrated lives
or an attempt to set things right with words.
We could think of poems as frozen time,
as threads of thought, holding words together.
What connects them is not the verse or rhyme
but measured breath, a date, a time, a thought:
an emotion that we had before dying,
a ripple on the waters which we caught.

Re: ripple

written just as it is in 2005 i think.
This is not a work in progress, but I would like to hear some reactions to it, thoughts about better ways to say the same thing etc.

Re: ripple

it's powerful and insightful, william. i can think of a few possible changes - what do you think of -

 If poetry could deconstruct the atom, 
unravel D.N.A., or halt aging in its tracks, 
its value could be measured with a gauge 
and read so clearly anyone could fathom 
the full five feet of every line and verse. 
But there's more to poetry than metered lines, 
the by-products of our frustrated lives 
or an attempt to set things right with words. 
We could think of poems as frozen time, 
as threads of thought connecting word-beads. 
What connects them is not the verse or rhyme 
but measured breath, a date, a time, an insight: 
an emotion that we had before dying, 
a ripple on the waters which we caught.

Re: ripple

I liked your train of thought, instead of holding words together,
maybe words like drops of water on a thread or web of thought
love the last line and I am wondering if the water metaphor could be spread in various ways through the poem,  to unify and give a theme, I am thinking snowflakes patterns of emotion frozen like snow in a flake of time. Just throwing out suggestions to use or lose

Re: ripple

Thank You Both,
The weakness here for me is a lack of structure in the last six lines.

We could think of poems as frozen time,
as threads of thought, holding words together.
What connects them is not the verse or rhyme
but measured breath, a date, a time, a thought:
an emotion that we had before dying,
a ripple on the waters which we caught.

There is a reason why it says that the thoughts hold the words together.
I really meant that. I guess it is my comment about language.

Also, In the first few lines, De construct sounds like such an academic process, It is fitting for this poem, but I like… ”poetry could pick apart' Similarly age and gauge have assonance.

There was intended an array of jokes about what makes up poetry, hence the Full Five Feet, or Pentameter, which I don't quite achieve in this verse.
It's an odd little artifact, resembling a Petrarchan Sonnet, without the subject of unrequited love.
Instead it is meta-poetical.
—
Actually insight and caught is quite good, dissimilar sounds but like spelling.

Re: ripple

Oh, and the connecting word-beads,
I have a  strand of poems  revolving around the “one bead- one breath” motif.
I posted someting on Diving Deeper, but I may have had them take it down when i took my 'sabbatical'.
I shy away from that kind of hyphenation, and “connecting' is kind of a rhythmic anomaly.
I like the idea of joining this to some other poetry through phrases like that so i'll look at it later with that in mind.

Re: ripple

i love this, taking us inside your process, it's fascinating. thank you william for opening this up for us to travel with you here.

Re: ripple

Do share when you look at it later William, it will be interesting to see where it leads.I also find it helpful to take time out and come back to something wih fresh eyes.

Re: ripple

There is a funny thing going on here
because the poem talks about
“The Ripple, Caught,”
and something essential.
but i don't necessarily think
that poetry is only about
preserving a moment in time.
if i did i would tell you
that I wrote this in winter,
and when i had finished writing
on the page, i took it outside
in the ink dark Tennessee night,
bent down and set the thing on fire,
with the flame from a candle stub,
And then I pissed on it,
because I was drunk…
until the flame went out.

And that is poetry.

or what i say tomorrow.

Re: ripple

life is constant re-interpretation isn't it, dear william? :)

Re: ripple

I don't know Nicole, which part is life and which is the interpretation? ;P
I wrote something once called “Pissing in the Woods on a Snowy Evening,” which tried to parody Frost…
“Whose woods these are, I think I know…”
It was actually about territoriality, and animals  marking their turf.
'Ripple” was written for a very literally minded friend, who loves science but thinks he doesn't 'get' poetry.
I used direct language and tried to use some rhyme and meter to structure it.
The last six lines explore the possibility that poetry captures a moment in life. There are hidden meanings and references to things we talked about, so that he could see that i spoke directly to him, but also to the world in general. the verse did capture a moment in out lives, it is a relic of a conversation, which is now mostly forgotten.

Another part of my thesis here is the notion that rhyme and meter do more than just decorate the words, they also make them easier to remember, and have some predictable patterns. That allows us to recall longer verses and retrieve forgotten parts, by looking for what fits the pattern.

I don't remember where I read this but, some have advanced the opinion that  epithets in Homers Odyssey, like “wine-dark sea ” or “rosy-fingered dawn” were sort of like stock phrases which filled out the rhythm of the poem, and made it possible for the poet to improvise parts of the story, the way a jazz musician plays variations on a melody. There are examples of similar phrases in English border ballads, which fill a similar function. (milk white steed, grass green skirt, and long black hair all  have similar rhythm and appear in several  old  songs collected from different sources.)