So, I got a comment on one of my poems that I find interesting and puzzling, so I thought I'd throw it out for discussion and hopefully learn something.
Here's the comment: "If you make the "form" of a poem part of the whole you have already stamped authorship all over it...not a problem in 3rd person writing but in 1st person it becomes of import. Sticking with this theme, the 1st person write appears to limit the character..."
The subject of discussion was "authorial intrusion."
I don't understand what's wrong with writing a poem in a form in the first person. Haven't people been doing that since....always?
10-10-2017, 12:11 PM (This post was last modified: 10-10-2017, 11:31 PM by Quixilated.)
(10-10-2017, 11:41 AM)Lizzie Wrote: I don't understand what's wrong with writing a poem in a form in the first person. Haven't people been doing that since....always?
Yes they have, since ever and ever. There is nothing wrong with writing a poem in the first person.
Examples:
Poe: "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary"
Tennyson: "Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me."
Whitman: "I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul. "
Keats: "When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,"
Dickinson: "Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality. "
Shakespeare: "When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;"
Donne: "Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new."
Wordsworth: "I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills,"
Eliot: "LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,"
Sandburg: "Naked I stood on the soft shingle of sand where the sea swept my legs with salt and wet.
Alone I walked under the arch of night where stars fluttered between treetops in the wind.
And a long memory it is I have how the sea and the night were kind."
Williams: "I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox"
Blake: "I saw a chapel all of gold That none did dare to enter in And many weeping stood without Weeping mourning worshipping"
The Dream of the Rood ("since ever") "Listen! The choicest of visions I wish to tell, which came as a dream in middle-night, after voice-bearers lay at rest. It seemed that I saw a most wondrous tree"
The Soufflé isn’t the soufflé; the soufflé is the recipe. --Clara
it sounds like gibberish to me. i assume when the commentor refers to “form” they are not talking about traditional forms (as is usually intended by using this term), but rather an idiosyncratic form peculiar to the author. the implication for 1st person poetry is, supposedly, there’s too much poet and not enough poem. and although this could potentially be a problem, i can’t see how a well written poem would suffer simply from the combination of original form and 1st person narrative.
but it’s 4 in the morning. my warp core generator isn’t at 100% capacity, so i’m probably missing something.
(10-10-2017, 11:41 AM)Lizzie Wrote: So, I got a comment on one of my poems that I find interesting and puzzling, so I thought I'd throw it out for discussion and hopefully learn something.
Here's the comment: "If you make the "form" of a poem part of the whole you have already stamped authorship all over it...not a problem in 3rd person writing but in 1st person it becomes of import. Sticking with this theme, the 1st person write appears to limit the character..."
The subject of discussion was "authorial intrusion."
I don't understand what's wrong with writing a poem in a form in the first person. Haven't people been doing that since....always?
I take this to mean that poems shaped like boats or insects are already insufferable. There's too much of the author stamped in invisible ink over acres of blank spaces and endless ellipses in some of these clever by half forms. To then have their content in the first person alienates the readers entirely
aha... yes, it took a while—tectak isn’t the most articulate chap in the world—but now i understand... i think.
basically, the couplet exposes the “written-ness” of the poem (not to be confused with authorial intrusion which is deliberate and often written in the 2nd person). which compromises the confessional aspect of it. it’s a bit like catching a glimpse of the boom mic in a film. you’re taken out of the scene and suddenly aware that you’re just watching actors performing on a sound stage. likewise, the rhyme implies performance. with that in mind, i don’t think it is necessarily a problem of 1st person vs form, but rather character-confessional vs form, especially given the nature of your particular poem. so, instead of reading the thoughts of a child molester, we read the thoughts of a poet’s eye view of the thoughts of a child molester because our suspension of disbelief has been blocked by the unexpected appearance of the poet..
so, your original question isn’t really relevant. yes, form and 1st person poetry are not antagonistic to each other. but, if the 1st person is a character written in a confessional style then sometimes the application of traditional forms may be detrimental to the desired effect.
nb: having read the other comments it appears his problem isn’t specifically with the couplet (it was 6 in the morning at that stage and i must have confused tectak with billy boy), but with the overall style being detrimental to the credibility of the speaker. it seems an insignificant point in relation to the general question you raised at the beginning of this thread, but i thought i’d just point out my error.
Reading Tom's comments, it seems most of his complaint is with S1, both with the breaks not being as effective as in the rest of the poem and with the tense of "it'll make touching her easier" with the rest of the piece being in the present, the N knowing what the future will bring.
Personally I don't have any problem with an N knowing what their plan is. I also have no problem with the couplet, I'm a poet and didn't know it. Regular speech sometimes rhymes and for me these lines did their job well.
I think Tom's point is that when poetic devices bring attention to themselves it weakens the poet's ability to slip into a non-poet's voice. IMO he found they distracted him. Like in any other poem, if done well all devices add rather than subtract.
I enjoyed reading that one again, a keeper for me.
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I see the point now. Tectak's point is actually quite subtle, though I had difficult understanding what he was trying to say.
The line lengths in S1 are strange. They don't correspond to natural pauses in speech, which is where the artifice comes in.
Now artifice is okay in a confessional if the author wants to deliberately distract himself and the reader from the seriousness of the matter at hand eg. Lolita. But that's a witty sort of artifice, while this one looks random.
(10-10-2017, 03:28 PM)shemthepenman Wrote: it’s a bit like catching a glimpse of the boom mic in a film. you’re taken out of the scene and suddenly aware that you’re just watching actors performing on a sound stage. likewise, the rhyme implies performance. Ah, so rhyme makes a piece feel contrived? What's funny is that I didn't ever think about the rhyme until it was pointed out. It's just how I talk and how I think -- like rhyme and contrived. Not trying to be "poetic"...
if the 1st person is a character written in a confessional style then sometimes the application of traditional forms may be detrimental to the desired effect. Well, now we're just making up arbitrary rules.
nb: having read the other comments it appears his problem isn’t specifically with the couplet (it was 6 in the morning at that stage and i must have confused tectak with billy boy) You're right that he did have a problem with the couplet. He didn't like it at all. I didn't read billy as having a problem with it, though....
but with the overall style being detrimental to the credibility of the speaker. But, what is meant by "overall style"? That could mean anything.
I think you lie.....you're doing a little too well for six in the morning.
(10-10-2017, 08:52 PM)ellajam Wrote: Reading Tom's comments, it seems most of his complaint is with S1, both with the breaks not being as effective as in the rest of the poem amd with the tense of "it'll make touching her easier" with the rest of the piece being in the present, the N knowing what the future will bring. Ok, that explains the final comment. Cool.
I think Tom's point is that when poetic devices bring attention to themselves it weakens the poet's ability to slip into a non-poet's voice. Like seeing the man behind the curtain.... Makes sense.
Like in any other poem, if done well all devices add rather than subtract. For sure. I don't see why confessional poetry needs to have its own set of rules.
I enjoyed reading that one again, a keeper for me. *tips hat*
(10-10-2017, 09:09 PM)Achebe Wrote: I see the point now. Tectak's point is actually quite subtle, though I had difficult understanding what he was trying to say.
The line lengths in S1 are strange. But, you said you liked them! Oh for heaven's sake, make up your mind!
They don't correspond to natural pauses in speech, which is where the artifice comes in. Enjambment often doesn't correspond to natural pauses....are you saying that enjambment isn't to be used where a character may be talking? All I can say in my defense is that everybody else is doing it....
Now artifice is okay in a confessional if the author wants to deliberately distract himself and the reader from the seriousness of the matter at hand eg. Lolita. But that's a witty sort of artifice, while this one looks random.
Isn't confessional poetry based on the author's present/past, not on an assumed character's?
no, lizzie, i am not making up abotrary rules... it is simply a logical observation that the form you choose could possibly be detrimental to the desired effect of a confessional poem. and on this occasion at least something you did was detrimental to the credibility of the poem for tectak. he says so.
for example, if you are writing as a 6 year old but choose the form of, i don’t know some complicated thing, then it may be jarring. that’s all. i am not passing judgement on whether tectak was right to say this of your poem, but in general it is a aspect of writing 1st person confessional poetry (in the form of a character) that is worth taking into account.
(10-11-2017, 06:29 AM)shemthepenman Wrote: no, lizzie, i am not making up abotrary rules... it is simply a logical observation that the form you choose could possibly be detrimental to the desired effect of a confessional poem.Fine then, just rules. I don't like rules.
and on this occasion at least something you did was detrimental to the credibility of the poem for tectak. he says so. You just don't say.
For example, if you are writing as a 6 year old but choose the form of, i don’t know some complicated thing, then it may be jarring. Yes, I've had that come up before, as well. Makes me wonder if I should start reading books about fiction instead of poetry, because nothing I'm reading covers this issue of character development.
that’s all. i am not passing judgement on whether tectak was right to say this of your poem, Nether am I. Crit is just crit, and I have no opinion about that. I just wanted to start a discussion about the topic in general.
but in general it is a aspect of writing 1st person confessional poetry (in the form of a character) that is worth taking into account. All advice heard and considered.
(10-10-2017, 03:28 PM)shemthepenman Wrote: it’s a bit like catching a glimpse of the boom mic in a film. you’re taken out of the scene and suddenly aware that you’re just watching actors performing on a sound stage. likewise, the rhyme implies performance. Ah, so rhyme makes a piece feel contrived? What's funny is that I didn't ever think about the rhyme until it was pointed out. It's just how I talk and how I think -- like rhyme and contrived. Not trying to be "poetic"...
if the 1st person is a character written in a confessional style then sometimes the application of traditional forms may be detrimental to the desired effect. Well, now we're just making up arbitrary rules.
nb: having read the other comments it appears his problem isn’t specifically with the couplet (it was 6 in the morning at that stage and i must have confused tectak with billy boy) You're right that he did have a problem with the couplet. He didn't like it at all. I didn't read billy as having a problem with it, though....
but with the overall style being detrimental to the credibility of the speaker. But, what is meant by "overall style"? That could mean anything.
I think you lie.....you're doing a little too well for six in the morning.
(10-10-2017, 08:52 PM)ellajam Wrote: Reading Tom's comments, it seems most of his complaint is with S1, both with the breaks not being as effective as in the rest of the poem amd with the tense of "it'll make touching her easier" with the rest of the piece being in the present, the N knowing what the future will bring. Ok, that explains the final comment. Cool.
I think Tom's point is that when poetic devices bring attention to themselves it weakens the poet's ability to slip into a non-poet's voice. Like seeing the man behind the curtain.... Makes sense.
Like in any other poem, if done well all devices add rather than subtract. For sure. I don't see why confessional poetry needs to have its own set of rules.
I enjoyed reading that one again, a keeper for me. *tips hat*
(10-10-2017, 09:09 PM)Achebe Wrote: I see the point now. Tectak's point is actually quite subtle, though I had difficult understanding what he was trying to say.
The line lengths in S1 are strange. But, you said you liked them! Oh for heaven's sake, make up your mind!
They don't correspond to natural pauses in speech, which is where the artifice comes in. Enjambment often doesn't correspond to natural pauses....are you saying that enjambment isn't to be used where a character may be talking? All I can say in my defense is that everybody else is doing it....
Now artifice is okay in a confessional if the author wants to deliberately distract himself and the reader from the seriousness of the matter at hand eg. Lolita. But that's a witty sort of artifice, while this one looks random.
Isn't confessional poetry based on the author's present/past, not on an assumed character's?
You can choose to write a confessional in any form you like including blank verse, the question is whether drawing attention to the artificiality of the form has a purpose. In Lolita it does. In your poem it does not.
I still enjoyed it - I remember thinking "why is she speaking like that?" but it wasn't a big enough issue for me as the rest of the poem was great.
There is nothing wrong with writing a poem in the first person. 
