Visual Poetry

Visual poetry uses the page as a canvas to visually represent the themes, subjects, or sentiments of words in a variety of shapes and forms.

The beauty of the visual format lies in the poet’s ability to mark, prescribe, or record process; the replication of shape; or the simulation of movement. It can also present the material in a way that leads to other meanings or implications that aren’t reflected in the words themselves. As Johanna Drucker notes in her book, Figuring the Word, the page serves "as a vocal score of tone or personality."

Rhyme: Principally non-rhyming Structure: Varied; often visually represents the theme or subject of the poem Measure/Beat: Varied Common Themes:Artistic, nature, seasons, relationships

Other Notes:

Key historical types are altar, concrete, and pattern

No rules on meter

Line lengths dependent on shape of poemVisual Expressions And Concrete Poetry

Seeing more than words.

Since they first inscribed words onto papyrus and cuneiform tablets in certain structural and rhythmic patterns, poets have experimented with visual presentations of their work.

Like the choice of lyrics for a piece of music, or the choice of colors for a piece of art, the poet has always enjoyed the freedom of taking words and shaping them to create a 3D representation of the entire experience. Sumerian, Indian, Chinese, Egyptian, Chaldean, and Hebrew poets all painted word-pictures with their song-poems before the Greek and Roman empires emerged, and the Persians famously wrote and illustrated Alexandrine odes and other books with a marvelous display of lettering and color.

Pattern and altar poetry.

The antecedents of today’s visual poetry movement were the Greek pattern poems (likely of Oriental descent), popular with 4th century B.C. Greek bucolic poets like Simian of Rhodes; and the Persian altar poem, developed in the 5th century A.D. Pattern poetry represented the action and motion reflected in the poem, while altar poetry replicated the shape of the poem’s subject. After a millennium of limited expression in Persia and Germany, the altar poem caught on with Renaissance poets such as George Wither, George Herbert, and Robert Herrick, with Herbert’s "The Altar and Easter Wings" perhaps the best known from the period. While pattern poetry wasn’t as widespread as altar poetry, it was used enough to become interchangeable with altar poetry by the late Renaissance. George Puttenham’s 1589 book, The Art of English Poesie, showcased both forms. Among modern poets, Guillaume Apollinaire, e.e. cummings, Dylan

Thomas, and Francois Rabelais worked in the forms, with Thomas’ twelve-part devotional, "Vision and Prayer," the most famous 20th century example.

Concrete poetry.

With the turn of the 20th century came a synthesis of altar and pattern poetry, namely the concrete poetry movement. It was dually influenced by the growing presence of free-verse writers and artistic movements of Dada, Surrealism, and Futurism. Both sought the same goal: to portray words (or images) as accurate, multi-dimensional reflections of everything existing in their inner world. The most notable poet to twist and turn lines to suit the inner movement of his words was e.e. cummings, who breached all established rules of poesy – right down to spelling his name in lower-case type. By 1925, cummings had turned traditional poetry on its head with poems like "O sweet spontaneous earth" and books like Tulips and Chimneys and CIOPW, so named for what he used to write and illustrate his poems – Charcoal, Ink, Oil, Pencil, and Watercolor. More than most committed poets, the ever-eccentric cummings bridged the ford between true poetry and experimental forms.

Incorporating multimedia.

The concrete poem uses multimedia to produce each poem in a different shape and taste. A pure exercise in pictorial typography, concrete poems can be visually depicted on glass, stone, wood, or other materials. Guillaume Apollinaire’s Calligrammes (1918) served as a forerunner of the movement, which Max Bill and Eugen Gomringer showcased to the world in a 1956 concrete art exhibition in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Gomringer’s 1953 konstellations celebrated his view of concrete poetry as "a play area of fixed-dimensions." He used poems of very few words in simple structural arrangements to convey powerful messages, such as his famous 1954 poem, "Silencio." His next two publications, From Line to Constellation and Concrete Poetry, and the publication of Brazil’s landmark Noigandres group, Pilot Plan for Concrete Poetry, established the art/word form’s wide bounds. This came just in time for the 1960s, when Fleet Street, Haight-Ashbury, Peter Max, and numerous inner-city European experimental schools brought out an explosion of concrete poetry.

Branching out.

Concrete poetry was so diverse in its expression that it branched into other forms, such as emergent poetry (cryptographic tricks with letters, such as the first letters of each line spelling out the title and theme of a poem), semiotic poetry (the exclusive use of symbols and images, such as Maurice Lemaitre’s 1950 masterpiece, "Riff Raff"), and kinetic poetry (showing movement typographically, through stretched-out or narrowed lettering). Out of Germany emerged a school specifically dedicated to concrete poetry, Das Konkretisten. British poets Simon Cutts, Stuart Mills, and especially Ian Hamilton Finlay took concrete poetry into realms beyond syntax and grammar. Poets also created works that mixed visual, sound, and written poetry, most specifically France’s Lettrist movement, from which a 1950 masterpiece emerged – Pierre Albert-Birot’s Poesie de mot inconnus (Poetry of Unknown Words), which featured an engraving from Picasso.

Expansion of poetic sources.

Over the past four decades, visual and experimental poetry have drawn from pop and conceptual art as much as from literary or visual poetics. They have also fed the ever-increasing desire for new expressions while contributing to the use of poetics in mass media and advertising. Participants have combined a broad field of poetic sources with an understanding of the ways in which the use of material in visual and verbal form can extend concretism. Their works have included posters, broadsides, performance art pieces, artists’ books, and chapbooks. Cultural changes, ideological squabbles, and politics fed the genesis of this new movement in the 1970s, while one of its adherents, Johanna Drucker, chronicled visual poetics masterfully in books like Figuring the Word and The Alphabetic Labyrinth. A 21st century expression has come from a synthesis of the computer and mathematics – the Fibonacci poem, with word or syllable counts based on the Fibonacci sequence of prime numbers.

Poetry That Knows No Bounds

Poems take form on the printed page.

Examples of experimental and visual poetry forms are as widespread and boundless as the category suggests. This selection of examples showcases the visual form that poetry can take on the printed page, while acknowledging the equally relevant and perhaps more visually exciting colored manuscript pages, mixed-media forms, broadsides, posters, artists’ books, and poetic sketchbooks that also inform experimental poetry.

Altar poetry.

While altar and pattern poetry found several practitioners in ancient cultures, such as Persia and Greece, they didn’t appear again in the Western world until the 16th century, when English, French, and German Renaissance poets started writing and printing their poems to specific shapes and patterns. Below is an example of an altar form from the latter Renaissance’s premier practitioner of the form, George Herbert. The shape replicates a wing – classic altar poetry.

From Easter WingsGeorge Herbert (1593-1633)

Lord, who createdest man in wealth and store,

Though foolishly he lost the same,Decaying more and more,Till he becameMost poore:With theeO let me riseAs larks, harmoniously,And sing this day thy victories,

 

Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

Geometric representations.

Closely related to the altar poem, but more concerned with actual replication of poetic moment, was the pattern poem, also referred to as the shape poem. While altar poems were written more widely during the Renaissance, the pattern poem made it into the 20th century, thanks to e.e. cummings and Dylan Thomas. One pattern poem from each author is displayed below. Note the geometric representation of two praying hands.

O sweet spontaneous earthe.e. cummings (1894-1962)

O sweet spontaneous

earth how often have the dotingfingers ofprurient philosophers pinchedandpokedthee, has the naughty thumbof science proddedthybeauty, howoften have religions takenthee upon their scraggy kneessqueezing andbuffeting thee that thou mightest conceivegods(buttrueto the incomparable couch of death thyrhythmiclover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

From Vision and PrayerDylan Thomas (1914-53) WhoAre youWho is bornIn the next roomSo loud to my ownThat I can hear the wombOpening and the dark runOver the ghost and the dropped sonBehind the wall thin as a wren’s bone?In the birth bloody room unknownTo the burn and turn of timeAnd the heart print of manBows no baptismBut dark aloneBlessing onThe wildChild.

Infinite variations.

Concrete poetry exploded into popularity between the 1920s and 1950s, with large movements forming in Germany, Brazil, and France. Two of the greatest practitioners were Max Bill and Bolivian-born Swiss poet Eugen Gomringer, who defined many variations of concrete poetry, wrote definitive texts and papers, and produced powerful pieces striking in their paucity of words, such as Gomringer’s famous "Silencio."

SilencioEugen Gomringer (1925– )

silencio silencio silencio

silencio silencio silencio

silencio silencio silencio

silencio silencio silencio

silencio silencio silencio

 

One of concrete poetry’s many variations, acrostic verse, keys on the first letters of each line. When spelled vertically, they both title and describe the poem: UpliftingRobert Yehling (1959- )

Upon a glade of sun-sculpted

Pine forest, rooted in stone, Layers of my bark peel away, Inviting a softer surface to emerge. I climb Far into the sky, following an eagle’s current To the sun– I melt into my sculptor... Nestled by Her vision, I hear a new call:"Go back to seed, and I will bring you Home."

Let Your Imagination Take Flight

Play to your heart’s content.

The act of writing an experimental or visual poem is limited only by your imagination. You can spin or form your words; write them up, down, or circled around the page; draw pictures; and play with the lettering to your heart’s content. The only rule of thumb, if it can even be called such, is to remember that visual poetry combines what you see and feel inside with the words you put on the page. Sometimes, your experience will be so graphic and visual that you’ll find the poem to be very sparse in word count, but loaded with eye-catching features.

In order to try visual poetry, work with one of two forms that do rely on words: concrete poetry and Fibonacci poetry.

Depict shape and movement.

In concrete poetry, use indenting, word placement, and visualization to depict the shape or central movement of the subject. Let’s take a simple subject.

Runningstartedas a wayto get ingood shapeBut I became fascinated by climbing back into racing and I started running upand down hillsides and meadows, imagining myself matching strides with thedeer and raccoons who ran the ridges in the crisp sunlit incoming spring air,and an amazing thing hap-pened: It became not about con-ditioning or therapy,but a wayto measurethe victoryof lifereturning tomy soul.

This poem approximates the finish-line tape of a victorious race. When the runner hits the tape, you can only see his or her head and neck, the tape, and the lead leg, since the tape is set at upper chest level and the trailing leg is out of view.

Advertising And Mass Media

Poetry is used with advertising and mass media to quickly capture the senses and minds of consumers, who identify with the wordplay and natural rhythms of poetic expression.

Throughout the ages, poetry’s relationship with the most widespread performance or communication media of literate societies has been very strong, often completely interwoven into daily life. Thanks to the music of the 1960s and 1970s, and the later rise of punk and hip-hop, poetry’s relationship to perhaps our most extensive form of mass media – music – is as great as ever.

Advertisers use poetry (as well as light!) to quickly engage the senses. Rhyme: Varied Structure: Principally single-line slogans or rhyming couplets Measure/Beat: Varied, but primarily iambic tetrameter and trimeter (musical beats) Common Themes:Commercial, cultural, love, human interest

Other Notes:

Catchy lines, phrases, or stanzas; attention-grabbers

Double entendre delivery (two or more possible meanings)

Embedded with "universal truth" that will connect with anyonePoetry In Daily Life

The medium of choice.

Throughout the ages, poetry’s relationship with the most widespread performance or communication media of literate societies has been very strong, often completely interwoven into daily life. The Ancient Greeks coupled poetry with drama and song. The Romans made it their leading literary expression. The Provencal and Old French minstrels and troubadours brought music and poetry together and introduced it into royal courts, where it became the medium of choice in French, Spanish, and English courts for centuries to come. Italian Renaissance poets often incorporated their verse with painting, literature, music, sculpture, and drama. Michelangelo’s sonnets and madrigals often took on and described the deeply passionate, roughened quality of his early-stage and unfinished sculptures. William Shakespeare re-introduced poetry to the stage. Two centuries later, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wove poetry into his travelogues, novels, dramas, scientific studies, and academic pursuits, resuscitating the works of such ancient bards as Gaius Valerius Catullus and reigniting poetry as an art form in Germany.

Minstrels and troubadours brought poetry and music together and made it

a part of daily life.

William Shakespeare reintroduced poetry to the stage.

Poetry has always reflected a culture’s sensibilities and integrated with the other arts – whether in obvious or subtle forms. For a century, it enjoyed a central place in the American media, the object of focus in newspapers, magazines, classrooms, and town hall gatherings. Newspapers and magazines hired poets as regular contributors, while people rode in from miles around to hear local and visiting poets at public gatherings.

The modern decline of poetry.

With the advent of motion pictures, radio, and television, the written word’s place in American mass media declined in the 20th century. Poetry went with it. From a height of more than 100 widely circulated periodicals that featured poetry, today only a few print magazines regularly feature poets and their poems, with Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker leading the way.

Magazines and newspapers write headlines using

Newspapers and magazines no longer hire poets as regular contributors.

double entendres, rhymes, alliterations, oxymorons, and cultural touchstones.

Songs and headlines.

Poetry is like seeds blessed with eternal life. The tree might die, but its seeds sprout to form new trees. Thanks to the music of the 1960s and 1970s, and the later rise of punk and hip-hop, poetry’s relationship to perhaps our most extensive form of mass media – music – is as great as ever. Furthermore, crafty magazine and newspaper editors with a sense of beat, rhythm, and the value of poetic turns of phrase create wonderful headlines that continue the unique relationship between words and the social, political, and personal issues that touch us most. Pick up any widely-circulated magazine or tabloid newspaper and see headlines written using double entendres, rhymes, alliterations, oxymorons, or cultural touchstones that provoke images, feelings, and memories.

Advertising on U.S. Route 66 recreates a rhyming advertising campaign designed to sell shaving cream.

Jingles that sell.

Poetry’s relationship with advertising is more obscure. Several major print and television advertising campaigns use poetic stylings, though the catchy jingles aren’t going to win awards for poetic structure. However, advertisers use rhythm and beat to catch the eye and ear and to conjure up positive images associated with their products and services. The Burma Shave billboard campaign broke new ground in 1925 by placing sequential signs along rural roads that piqued motorists’ curiosity by revealing one rhyming line at a time. The shaving cream campaign lasted until 1963, although recreations of the roadside signs can still be seen in Arizona along the original Route 66.

Henry the EighthSure had troubleShort-term wivesLong-term stubbleBurma-Shave

Magazine, TV, and radio advertising campaigns rarely use a poem excerpt, but every jingle written must convey the same three- or four-beat rhythm that resonated with the greatest poets, or it won’t capture our attention. Thus, they focus on catchy one-liners that play on poetic meter, rather than stanzas or even couplets. The goal is to sell by striking a chord that reverberates in the hearts and minds of a target audience. For that reason, advertisers give a great deal of thought to how the advertisement will be absorbed into the cultural landscape.

Coca-Cola’s 1971 commercial, "Hilltop," combined a lyric poem-song with visual elements in an advertisement that resonated with viewers who responded to its message of unity.

The real thing.

In 2006, the Coca-Cola company commemorated three achievements: the 120th anniversary of the company, the 90th anniversary of its signature bottle shape, and the 35th anniversary of one of most memorable lyric poem-songs to be used in advertising, "I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke," which appeared in the commercial, "Hilltop."

During its history, Coca-Cola has used 46 different slogans, some of which were more poetic than others. "Drink Coca-Cola," from 1886, may have little artistic merit, and "Whoever You Are, Whatever You Do, Wherever You May Be, When You Think of Refreshment Think of Ice Cold Coca-Cola" from 1939 isn’t exactly melodic. Yet "The Great National Temperance Beverage" spoke to the concerns of the citizenry in 1906, while 1932’s "Ice Cold Sunshine" may have been welcome relief for those suffering from the Great Depression.

But for those reeling from the turbulent times of the late 1960s, Coca-Cola’s 1972 "Hilltop" television commercial was a sign of hope and unity. In it, 65 actors from 20 countries lip-synched a song written by Billy Backer and Billy Davis and performed by The New Seekers:

I’d like to buy the world a home And furnish it with love Grow apple trees and honey beesAnd snow white turtle doves (Chorus) I’d like to teach the world to sing In perfect harmony I’d like to buy the world a Coke And keep it company That’s the real thing (Repeat Chorus) (Chorus 2) What the world wants today Is the real thing (Repeat Chorus 2)

As if to illustrate that poetry sometimes resonates more with visual elements, the commercial was first recorded as a radio advertisement. Coca-Cola bottlers didn’t like the song and wouldn’t

pay for the radio airtime. The advertising agency convinced the company to spend an unprecedented $250,000 to add a visual component. Once the television commercial aired, radio stations were inundated with requests to play the song, which later became a Top 40 hit.

The music of lyric-centered bands like The Rolling Stones is being used in advertising to appeal to Baby Boomers.

New twists on old lyrics.

Since 2001, rock and hip-hop have contributed to increased poetry and lyrics in advertising. Because advertising executives recognized that Baby Boomers would respond to nostalgia, lyrics and songs that revolutionized a world and expressed poetry made their way into commercials. Beginning with Cadillac’s campaign, which used Led Zeppelin’s "Rock and Roll" for pacing and atmosphere, the music of lyric-centered bands as diverse as the Rolling Stones (Chase, Lexmark), T. Rex (Coca-Cola), The Who (Cisco Systems, Hummer), Aerosmith (Buick), Nina Simone (Buick), Deep Purple (Dodge), the Allman Brothers (Cingular/AT&T), and Billy Preston (Fidelity Investments) have populated commercials. Ironically, bands and musicians that frowned on TV in their heyday now enjoy golden journeys because of the millions of additional CDs and downloads they’ve sold as a result of TV exposure.

Hip-hop helps sell products and concepts.

Current acts have been included in TV commercials as well, such as New Wave bands Devo, The Cure, and the Violent Femmes; alt rock bands The Dandy Warhols, 13 Storys, and The Chemical Brothers; and current superstars such as Alicia Keys. In 2002, the hip-hop world, led by Chuck D. and La Bruja, utilized public service announcements to improve the criminalized gangsta image of hip-hop and introduce millions more to lyric poetry every bit as vital today as The Beatles’ words were in the 1960s. With more than 50 soundtracked campaigns currently circulating, television is rife with famous accompaniments.

Footnotes in television.

In the past two decades, there have been just four major television shows exclusively focused on poetry: HBO’s "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry," BBC-2’s "Essential Poems," and the Bill Moyers PBS specials, "The Language of Life" and "Fooling With Words." Still, other television shows sometimes incorporate poetry or references to poetry. "The West Wing" often included snippets of poetry, such as when President Bartlett quoted Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Theodore Roethke’s "Infirmity" by saying, "How body from spirit does slowly unwind / Until we are pure spirit at the end." During the third season of the show, the series aired an episode titled, "The U.S. Poet Laureate," featuring guest star Laura Dern, and throughout the fourth season, an aging Chief Justice had a penchant for writing U.S. Supreme Court opinions in verse. Yet another character had a habit of speaking in iambic pentameter when she was nervous.

Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry is one of the few television shows working to give voice

to poetry.

Poetry makes its way into popular fiction in books like Julie Smith’s Talba Wallis series.

Pop-ups in popular fiction.

While books of poetry rarely find their way to the top of the bestseller list, poetry does make its way into popular fiction. Julie Smith, who writes what she terms "New Orleans Noir," features the character Talba Wallis in a series of mysteries. Wallis is a gumshoe by day, but assumes the persona of The Baroness de Pontalba when she performs her original poetry at local venues.

Smith’s novels are liberally sprinkled with The Baroness’ poetry, exposing many readers to the popularity of verse in The Baroness’ world.

A Hollywood love story.

The relationship between poetry and the other emergent mass media form of the 20th century – the motion picture – has been even warmer. Many hundreds of movies and studios have utilized poetry in their screenplays to convey knowledge and emotion, or to portray the movie’s setting. Memorable examples include Kevin Kline reciting Emily Dickinson in Sophie’s Choice and Percy Bysshe Shelley in In And Out, e.e. cummings read by Barbara Hershey in Hannah and Her Sisters, W.H. Auden’s "Funeral Blues" read by John Hannah in Four Weddings and a Funeral, and the poems of William Blake and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow used to close the card-game scene in In The Bedroom. A reading of Dickinson in Seabiscuit – "We never know how high we are" – became the mantra that inspired jockey Red Pollard.

Barbara Hershey reads e.e. cummings in Hannah and Her Sisters.

Hollywood has had a torrid love affair with poetry, as epitomized by Dead Poet’s Society.

There are also movies that celebrated poetry and wrapped themselves around it, giving us a window into a world that once existed, including Shakespeare in Love, Dead Poets Society, Richard III, The Goodbye Girl, Sylvia (based on Sylvia Plath), and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (based on Dorothy Parker). The rendering of Walt Whitman’s immortal tribute to President Abraham Lincoln, "Captain, O Captain!" in Dead Poets Society is one of the most famous single-scene uses of poetry in cinematic history. Producers and directors who connect with audiences often weave poetry into their work, whether by spoken word or musical lyrics. They understand poetry is not just an art or communication form, but part of the primal root of how we speak or sing.

The roots of poetry are also understood by many advertising agencies and editors. Even though our market-based society requires a more subtle use of poetry, we still feel the cadence and stir to the music of a well-turned phrase, just as listeners did on torchlit streets centuries ago.

The Trifecta Of Poetry

From jingles to motion pictures.

Aside from the snippets of rock, folk, country, blues, and hip-hop lyrics found in television commercials, examples of poetry’s usage in mass media and advertising revolve around three forms: jingoisms used in corporate advertising, creative magazine headlines, and much more representative treatment in the movies.

Slogans.

Corporate advertising slogans have created a mini-industry of their own, as agency and freelance writers try to create the perfect catchphrase that will launch a campaign into multi-million dollar orbit. Some of the memorable slogans of the past twenty years include:

"Relax, it’s FedEx""Obey your thirst""Have it your way""Just do it""Tastes great, less filling""Let your fingers do the Dew"

 

A few enterprising writers have even tied together one-liners to create humorous poetry that could be considered, in one sense, the 21st century mass media version of the limerick. Here are examples from poet/consumer advertising advocate Ilya Vedrashko, whose blog, "MIT Advertising Lab," was named "Best Blog of the Year" by Fast Company magazine in 2005: Where do you want to go today?Obey your thirst. Have it your way.Reach out, think outside the bun.Just do it. Prepare to own one.

Expect more, pay less,

Tastes great, less filling.Flick my Bic, experience success.Got milk? Go get the feeling.

Let your fingers do the Dew,

Invent the ultimate driving machine.You are due, definitely due.Think, but please don’t squeeze the Charmin.

Wassup?! Can you hear?

Me? Now? In your mirrorthe objects are closerthan they appear.

 

Snippets in print.

Magazine headlines are fun to examine for their poetic twists and turns. Wise editors understand that, in this world of information overload, they must have a punchy headline and lead paragraph to capture a reader’s attention. Whether through alliteration, rhyme, double entendre, oxymoron, or reference to a cultural touchstone, headline writers tap into the reader’s curiosity or sense of delight in only a few words.

TIME MAGAZINE

"The End of Spend" - Effects of the credit crunch on consumers (rhyme)

"Head Games" - Why girls are at greater risk for sports concussions than boys (double entendre)

"Blueprint Brigade" - Engineers who help developing countries with low-tech, high-impact projects (alliteration)

"Generation X-mas" - Why the 1983 movie, A Christmas Story, is iconic for the post-Baby Boom generation (wordplay)

HISPANIC MAGAZINE

"Prime Cuts" - A profile of great Latino chefs in the U.S. (wordplay)

"Hot Ice" - The greed associated with diamond mining in the Amazon (oxymoron)

O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE and O AT HOME

"Gray’s Anatomy of Style" - Why women should incorporate the color gray into their wardrobes (double entendre using the cultural touchstone of a popular TV show)

"Cloche Encounters" - A profile of a woman who transformed a barn into a hat showroom (wordplay)

ATLANTIC MONTHLY

"Radio Free Everywhere" - The phenomenon of Internet radio (wordplay on CIA "Radio Free" news stations)

"Riders on the Storm" - Meteorologists seed hurricanes in order to diminish them (repurposed song title from The Doors)

Lights. Camera. Action.

Hundreds of movies have featured poetry in various forms. The most notable recent examples include sweeping tributes to the poem in Shakespeare in Love and Dead Poets Society, and memorable scenes from a number of films, in which screenwriters and directors utilized poetry in crucial, plot-turning situations – paying great homage to verse in the process.

In the first card game scene from In The Bedroom, W. Clapham Murray reads from William Blake’s "Auguries of Innocence":

The Beggar’s Dog and Widow’s Cat,Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.The Gnat that sings his Summer’s songPoison gets from Slander’s tongue.

 

Later, in the second card game scene, Tom Wilkinson quotes from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: There are things of which I may not speak;There are dreams that cannot die;There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,And bring a pallor into the cheek,And a mist before the eye.And the words of that fatal songCome over me like a chill:A boy’s will is the wind’s will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.

 

Academy Award-winning screenwriter and director Woody Allen has incorporated poetry from e.e. cummings, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Emily Dickinson, among others, into his films. In Hannah and Her Sisters, he gives Lee these choice lines from cummings’ "somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond," which she recites just before she consummates an affair with Elliot: your slightest look will easily unclose me though I have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens.

 

In the rebellious Francis Ford Coppola movie, The Outsiders, C. Thomas Howell famously recites Robert Frost’s "Nothing Gold Can Stay," which reads: Nature’s first green is gold,Her hardest hue to hold.Her early leaf’s a flower;But only so an hour.Then leaf subsides to leaf.So Eden sank to grief,So dawn goes down to day.Nothing gold can stay.

Capture The Heart Of Your Story

Two-for-one headlines.

Great headlines tell more than one story about the subject in an eloquent way. Writing your own headlines is a great exercise in being able to capture the essence of your thoughts and feelings in only a few words.

Know your audience.

Think of something in the news or in your life that matters greatly to you. Write a few sentences or a paragraph about it, keeping the demographics of your intended audience in mind. Are you writing for teenagers or for retirees? Long-haul truckers or research scientists? A general female consumer audience or male sports aficionados?

Find the rhythm and beat.

Now, try to distill the concept into a single phrase that offers insight from different angles, clues your audience in to the material to follow, and captures the reader’s attention. When you’ve finished, read the headline over and over aloud. See if you can feel its rhythm and beat. Does it capture your ear? Can you feel a stressed and unstressed syllable working together? If you capture a rhythmic beat, the words work well together and your headline snaps a clean shot of the story’s central theme, then you’ve written a captivating, poetic headline.

Try another angle.

To master the art of writing headlines, ask a friend to save a few issues of magazines you don’t typically read. Have your friend cut out at least the first several paragraphs of five different stories – only the text, not the headlines, subheads, pull quotes, photos, or illustrations.

Read the text of the first story and look for a juxtaposition of two story elements, or the hook that the writer uses in the first paragraph. Think of single words that relate to the story. Next, think of a well-known phrase that incorporates one of those words and that will grab the reader’s attention. For example, if you’re reading a story about the resurgence in popularity of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, the Harley nickname "hog" might come to mind. The saying "hog wild" conveys boundless enthusiasm and would communicate both the theme of resurgence and the motorcycle’s nickname. Capitalize it, add an exclamation point, and you have your headline: "Hog Wild!"

Alliterations also make captivating headlines – even when the subject matter is serious. For example, if the story you read focuses on female infertility and the procedures women undergo when trying to conceive, the words "ovaries" and "hurdles" might come to mind. An alliteration that captures the essence of both elements of the story might be "Ovarian Olympics."

Write headlines for all five of the magazine articles, and don’t be afraid to use a thesaurus, or popular song, movie, and book titles for inspiration. You’re looking for an economy of words that will conjure up an image in the reader’s mind, so riffing off of a well-known title or phrase can readily serve your purpose. Once you’ve completed the exercise, compare your headlines to those that were published with the stories.

While people may read words with their eyes, their minds and hearts are engaged by what they hear in that headline or story. If you selected the words you want and you feel the beat, you’ve not only written a poetic headline, but found your subject’s most essential core – the goal of any poet.

Performance Poetry

Performance poetry uses the stage as the page, transforming poetry readings into theatrical events. While the recent resurgence of performance poets is seen as a reaction against mainstream, print-based poetry, the style harkens back to the classic role of the poet, who recited notable happenings, emotions, and perceptions.

And while traditional poems utilized standard structures, in part to serve as mnemonic devices, contemporary performance poetry calls upon experimental rhythms as a means to engage an audience in the listening experience.

The recent growth of performance poetry can be attributed to the popularity of slam, a self-identified movement dedicated to creating real-time discourse between performer and audience. While poetry slam cannot be categorized like a sonnet or a haiku, any form or style of poetry can be turned into slam by virtue of the poet’s performance on stage. This inclusive art form invites all people to participate, whether as a poet, audience member, or judge.

Rhyme: VariedStructure: Varied; some varieties of spoken word rely on improvisation.

Measure/Beat:Crucial, but performance poets challenge themselves to adhere their language to innovative rhythmic structures.

Common Themes:

While performance poems capture a wide range of themes, many pieces focus on social and political critique.

Poetry On Center Stage

Ancient roots.

While the term “spoken word” was not popularized until revival of poetry slams in the 1980s, the focus on developing poems specifically for performances dates back to ancient times, when epic poems like Homer’s Odyssey were recited for entertainment. Later, poetry was incorporated into theatrical events, when forms such as the ode accompanied music throughout the acts.

Over the centuries, oral poetry gave rise to a variety of forms and styles. Chants and ghazals played major roles in religious and spiritual worship. Ballads and villanelles captured the adventure and romance of their day.

Although these oral forms of poetry were quite popular, the greater role of printed text transformed many listeners into solitary readers, and new poets began to focus on the written presentation of their work.

Modern rebirth.

As early 20th century artists rethought longstanding perspectives on art, many poets abandoned more accepted forms of poetry to experiment with combining various media. For example, Tristan Tzara and his fellow Dadaists incorporated costumes and noisemakers into their public performances. This experimentation with sound and performance was also embraced by Italian and Russian Futurists, such as F.T. Marinetti and Khebnikov.

American experimentation with performance poetry lagged behind its European counterparts, as it was largely limited to a few daring artists like Harry Kemp, who in 1909 entered a lion’s cage to read poetry to 500 onlookers. However, both Louis Zukofsky and Charles Olson motivated artists to look deeper into

the performance of poetry. Thus, the Beat Poets of the late 1940s and 1950s, led by Allen Ginsberg and his poem, “Howl,” twisted traditional chants and jazz rhythms into poems rife with social and cultural commentary, helping explode the popular acceptance of performance poetry and spurring on a new generation of artists like Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Amiri Baraka and Diane di Prima.

Allen Ginsberg stylized his groundbreaking “Howl” after

spiritual chants.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five spearheaded hip-hop’s rise and inspired a generation of performers to focus

on percussive wordplay to move their audiences.

Performance on the rise.

Yet the dominant poets of the 1960s and 1970s continued to underestimate the importance of performance poetry. The rise of hip-hop in the late 1970s led to new ways for nontraditional wordsmiths to showcase their skills onstage.

In response to what he saw as elitist and overly academic approaches to poetry, Chicagoan Marc Smith began hosting open mic nights in 1984, focusing these events on poets performing their work, as opposed to reciting it aloud. The popularity of these events led Smith to host performance poetry competitions, called poetry slams, where competitors were given three minutes to present their work to a set of judges selected from the audience. To this day, Marc Smith continues to host The Uptown Poetry Slam in Chicago, an event featuring a touring poet, an open mic, and a poetry slam.

In its infancy, slam poetry was held in disdain by academic and elite poets, largely because anyone could sign up to participate in a performance or competition. In addition, work was not published and marketed in journals and books, the traditional method of earning credibility as a poet. However, slam poetry’s appeal began to grow beyond the café reading and competition scene and into academia, as both traditional poets and scholars recognized the social relevance and artistic challenge of slam.

Suheir Hammand, a Palestinian-American poet, presents provocative pieces influenced by her cultural and political origins.

All eyes on the stage.

The popularity of slam poetry resulted in Poetry Slam International’s National Poetry Slam competition series, as featured in Slamnation, a documentary created by Paul Devlin covering the 1996 National Poetry Slam. Given performance poetry’s hip-hop roots, the movement caught the attention of recording industry icon Russell Simmons, who spearheaded the HBO spoken word series, Def Poetry, which aired for six seasons and became a Broadway production. Def Poetry led to even greater exposure of the nation’s ever-emerging group of performance poets, such as Suheir Hammond, Anis Mojgani, and Marty McConnell.

While the final season of Def Poetry Jam aired in 2007, HBO continues to air a special on the youth national poetry slam, Brave New Voices. Larger audiences still receive slam poets at packed events across the country and the world, such as the reading series at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City and the competitions for the National Poetry Slam. Just as other poetry forms are transitioning to web-based journals, slam poets are achieving new levels of prominence thanks to YouTube and other user-generated media outlets.

The National Endowment for the Arts, in conjunction with the Poetry Project, has also helped to spur a new generation’s interest in and involvement with performance poetry. Tens of thousands of students participate in the Poetry Outloud National Recitation Series, and educational programming helps teachers integrate spoken word writing into their curriculum.

Make Your Own

Start with prose.

While percussion, repetition, and rhyme are three of the primary qualities of spoken word poetry, the perspective, emotion, or idea you want to provoke your reader with is of initial importance.

For your first foray into performance poetry, find a piece of prose that you find alluring, whether an opinion article, a blog post, or micro story.

Bring the beat.

Before you work with your sample, review the examples of performance provided here, or complete a web search for an even broader sampling of styles. Then, try reading your selected piece of prose aloud, at first as you normally would. After doing so, re-read the piece aloud to yourself several more times, altering your style of reading to mimic the examples of reading styles you viewed in this exhibit. Try hesitating during certain sentences, speed up when you think the ideas should flow, and pause before interesting or important moments.

Once you find a style of reading that best suits you and the piece you’re working with, revise the language in the piece by searching for key places to rhyme to emphasize the sound structure of your piece. Don’t just rely on the style of your act of reading; instead, your language itself should also keep the listener’s attention. And while your poem is meant to be performed in front of an audience, utilize line breaks to remind you when to hesitate, pause, and flow.

To finish your piece, create a sentence or phrase you can use as a refrain, and sprinkle this refrain throughout the poem as frequently as you feel necessary. This will serve as an anchor for your audience to latch onto throughout the reading.

Refine your focus.

With a completed poem to read aloud, focus on the other elements that make an effective performance, namely your presence and gestures on stage. Again, review how other performance poets present their material, but don’t focus on how the words move out of the poet’s mouth. Look at how the poet sits or stands, how the poet gestures with his or her arms and hands, and how the poet incorporates his or her entire body into the performance.

For your own poem, choose sentences or phrases, and then stand in front of a mirror and experiment moving your body while you read your work aloud. Think of yourself as a choreographer, matching particular phrases with appropriate actions. Once you have developed your presentation style for this particular poem, check out the local slam poetry scene, as you’ll need a venue to show off your work.

Song Lyrics

From the Stone Age to the Rolling Stones, from the mead hall to Carnegie Hall, poetry in the form of song lyrics has withstood the test of time. In fact, some of the greatest poetry written in the last 50 years resides in the songs and recordings of artists who have entertained us with their music, giving poetry perhaps its most widespread stage since the Romantic Age. The words of rock, country, folk, blues, and hip-hop artists are as relevant and influential to the social discourse, passion, and creative expression of our time as the works of William Blake, Wolfgang Mozart, John Keats, Ludwig van Beethoven, the Shelleys (Percy and Mary), Mendelssohn, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Lord Byron were to turn-of-the-19th century Europe. The

lyric – at once immutable and fluid; deeply personal and universal – may indeed ensure the survival of poetry until the end of time itself.

The words of rock, country, folk, blues, and hip-hop artists are as relevant and influential to the social discourse, passion, and creative expression of our time as the works of Mozart, Keats, and Goethe were to turn-of-the-19th century Europe. Rhyme: Varied rhyme schemes, but couplets are common Structure: Varied, but points in common include verses (stanzas) and refrains Measure/Beat: Primarily iambic trimeter, tetrameter, or pentameter Common Themes:

Love, tragedy, happiness, loss, life issues

Other Notes:

Etymology: from the Greek lyrikos meaning "sung by the lyre"

Words are written to accompany music or a musical instrument, but they can stand alone as a poem

The lyric/poem tells a story using a mixture of concrete images, such as apples, dogs, and cars, and abstractions like love, hate, and sadness

Resonating For Centuries

The fabric of our lives.

From ancient times to today, musicians have given us birthing songs and dying songs; feasting songs and songs for famine; songs for a day’s work and songs for a night’s sleep; and songs to be sung just for the joy of it. From the swell of pride that accompanies the singing of a national anthem to the sense of community from kindred spirits who know all of the words to a familiar campfire song, song is interwoven into the fabric of our lives. Each time we turn on the radio, plug into our iPods, attend a concert, or enjoy music in any of its other manifestations, we are participating in an ancient ritual.

From the swell of pride that accompanies the singing of a national anthem to songs to be sung just for the joy of it, song is interwoven into the

fabric of our lives.

Today’s booming rock and hip-hop scenes offer a direct portal to ancient times, when shamans

and elders used music as a method of oral storytelling.

A time portal.

Music and spoken word have been joined since ancient shamans and elders began using cadenced singing, drumming, and rhythmic dancing as forms of oral storytelling in order to communicate vital information to nomadic peoples. With their sense of tribalism, movement, performance, and the symbiotic relationship between lyrics and music, today’s booming rock and hip-hop scenes offer a direct portal into a time otherwise lost to the sands of history.

Virtually all ancient cultures – China, India, Persia, the Mesoamericas, Indo-Aryan, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian – used storytelling, with the presentations delivered by orators in song-verse as a way of feeding audiences huge amounts of material in bite-sized chunks.

Lyrical traditions.

The first written tributes – of Sumeria’s Enheduanna to the goddess Inanna, ancient Egyptian love poetics, India’s Vedas, China’s dynastic nature odes, and early Biblical-era works (such as Song of Songs, Psalms of David, and Song of Deborah) – were not poems as we know them, but lyrics, written to be sung.

Early Biblical works like the Song of Songs were not poems, but lyrics that were written to be sung.

(Owen Jones, Song of Songs which is Solomon's, 1849)

Poet-singers were the rock stars of the Middle Ages. (Francesco del Cosa, Triumph

of Venus, 1470s)

This lyrical tradition informed and inspired the earliest Greeks. Their lyric poetry spoke to subjects of love, war and peace, nature and nostalgia, social issues, relationships with gods and goddesses, and grief and loss – subjects that feed virtually every lyric-based music genre today.

With the Middle Ages, music and poetry alike enjoyed a period of great prosperity and attention, a result of the burgeoning European feudal system that placed traveling poet-singers such as the troubadours and minstrels at the forefront of courtly living and made "rock stars" of those skilled with the pen, voice, harp, and flute. Provencal composer-poets like Marie de France, Adam de La Halle, and prolific composer Guillame de Machaut broke European prosody out of the iron cage of the Middle Ages by putting words to music through forms like rondeau, canso, madrigal and ballade, then fanning out to Spain, Italy, and England.

Domination, decline, & revival.

After the healthy boon of the Renaissance, lyric work dominated the poetry scene through the 16th and 17th centuries, finding champions in John Donne, Robert Herrick, Basho (in Japan), and others. After a decline in the 18th century, the Romantics embraced the idea of emotion over reason and revived lyric poetry as the ultimate expression of intense feeling. The early 20th century brought little change as lyric poetry dominated in both Europe and America. It was memorized by children in one-room schoolhouses, jotted onto Valentine’s cards, and quoted as often as one might hear their favorite song on the radio. Out of this love of lyric poetry, the parlor song emerged. Songs like "Home Sweet Home," "When the Swallows Homeward Fly," and "Beautiful Dreamer" were played and sung in homes in every region, regardless of social class.

Among others, John Donne championed lyric work in the 16th and 17th centuries.

T.S. Elliot wrote this inscription to Ezra Pound. Both poets chose to

focus on the grit of daily life. Pound’s work, The Cantos, reflects his affinity for troubadour poetry

and song.

At the same time, a movement engineered by poets Ezra Pound, T.S. Elliot, and William Carlos Williams worked to reject what were considered to be the "vapid" notions of Romantic lyric poetry and focus instead on complexity and the grit of daily life. Despite an initial opposition to traditional lyricism, it was this particular poetic revolution that made way for the counterculture movement of the 1960s.

The old made new again.

The poetic lyrics of Bob Dylan, the Doors, the Byrds, and Joan Baez easily demonstrate the connection between the new and the old. From Baez’s rendition of Poe’s "Annabell Lee," to Dylan’s nods to T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound (in "Desolation Row"), to the Byrds’ re-working of a verse from the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes ("Turn, Turn, Turn"), the troubadours of the musical revolution of the 1960s honored their forbears.

The poetic lyrics of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and others honored their forbears

In the late 1960s, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and other poets would open rock concerts with spoken-word

performances.

While the decade brought about a onslaught of new, cryptic, and appropriately unsettling lyrics, the era also saw a resurgence of old ballads of the medieval and Renaissance minstrels, such as "Barbara Allen," "Silver Dagger," and "Greensleeves." Indeed, the 1960s provide us with a palpable example of the marriage between "traditional" poetry and the poetry of song, with the lines blurred between the old and the new. So interconnected were poetry, performance art, and music in the late 1960s that poets such as Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg opened rock concerts and festivals with spoken-word performances.

Mos Def and other rappers expounded upon socially relevant issues, much like poets in centuries prior.

Rap and hip-hop.

Forty years have passed since our latest major lyrical revolution, though many insurgencies have taken place since the 1960s. One of the most hard-hitting is rap, which arose from the inner-city social unrest of the '60s. After germinating in the 1970s, rap broke onto the scene in a big way in the 1980s, finding an audience among black youth and white Generation Xers burned out on a punk rock scene that had de-fanged into New Wave.

Characterized by meticulously rhymed, brutally frank lyrics expounding upon social injustice, sex, drugs, abuse, and poverty, and most often set to a driving beat with little instrumentation, rap lyrics have become the poetic battle cry of those angered by the world around them. By the late 1990s, rap artists shifted their focus from socially conscious lyrics to a tough "gangsta" approach. White youth jumped on the fan base in droves, with Detroit artist Eminem (Marshall Mathers) joining Dr. Dre, Mos Def, Puff Daddy, The Roots, Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott, and others in lyrically expounding upon the issues that bothered them – much like what Blake was doing on the streets of London two centuries prior.

Future revolutions.

Only time will tell what the next decades may bring for the genre. While rap emerged as an entirely new genre out of the 1960s, most modern lyrics are an extension of what came before, with country, folk, rock, punk, indie, and New Age lyricists adjusting their styles to fit the times. As we head full-force into this millennium with new wars, new threats, new social mores, new concerns, and new celebrations, we may yet be ripe for a new poetic revolution, with song leading the way as the past, present, and future of poetry.

Music And Poetry: Fraternal Twins

The journey from Ancient Greece.

The annals of time make it clear that, for all of today’s diversity in lyric-based music, the modern lyric’s roots lie beneath the hills and ruins of Ancient Greece. Greek dramatists and poets had been composing to accompanying music for several centuries when, in the 4th century B.C., a new sport emerged: spoken-word contests. Music and poetry have made the journey since, their shared source of creative inspiration and similar mathematically-inclined structures making them like fraternal twins – able to separate in daily life, but yoked from the womb.

The following examples demonstrate how poetry informed lyrics and music, with an emphasis on pieces that were either put to song or celebrated song, beginning with the father of the narrative poem, Homer:

From Hymn to Earth the Mother of AllHomer (7th century B.C.) O universal mother, who dost keepFrom everlasting thy foundations deep,Eldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee!All shapes that have their dwelling in the sea,All things that fly, or on the ground divine

 

Live, move, and there are nourished–these are thine;These from thy wealth thou dost sustain; from theeFair babes are born, and fruits on every treeHang ripe and large, revered Divinity!By the early 5th century B.C., choruses began to develop for Greece’s fledgling theater culture. Euripides can be credited as setting the format and positioning for the traditional chorus that evolved into the envoi in Renaissance ballads and the refrain in modern music. Chorus from The BacchaiEuripides (480-406 B.C.)

Where is the home for me?

O Cyprus, set in the sea,Aphrodite’s home in the soft sea-foam,Would I lend to thee;Where in the wings of the Lovers are furled,And faint the heart of the world!

Ay, or to Paphos’ isle,

Where the rainless meadows smileWith riches rolled from the hundred-foldMouths of the far-off Nile,Streaming beneath the wavesTo the roots of the seaward caves!

 

Underground in the Middle Ages.

Lyrical, musically fed poetry waned after Greece, although some Roman poets occasionally wrote to music. The music-poetry relationship went underground during the Middle Ages, but out of southern England and France, a few courageous court-poets wrote words to music and spread them from village to village, igniting the Provencal troubadour movement, the first spark of modern lyric-based music.

From The Cambridge Songs(c. 1000)

Wind is thin,

Sun warm,The earth overflowsWith good things.

Spring is purple

Jewelry;Flowers on the ground,

 

Green in the forest.

Quadrupeds shine

And wander. BirdsNest. On blossomingBranches they cry joy!

Among the most exquisite poet-lyricists in world history was Marie de France, the most popular female poet of the Middle Ages. From Song from ChartivelMarie de France (1155-1189)

Hath any loved you well, down there,

Summer or winter through?Down there, have you found any fairLaid in the grave with you?’s death’s long kiss a richer kissThan mine was wont to be–Or have you gone to some far blissAnd quite forgotten me?

What soft enamoring of sleep

Hath you in some soft way?What charmed death holdeth you with deepStrange lure by night and day?A little space below the grass,Our of the sun and shade;But worlds away from me, alas,Down there where you are laid.

 

Swooning over troubadours.

Not only did the Provencal troubadour poets seed Italy for the Renaissance with poetic forms, but also with lyrical forms that were meant to be accompanied by music. From Sicily to Tuscany to Bologna, the music of the troubadours swooned over a people ready to unlock their hearts and minds. The Renaissance began with ballata, sonnets, madrigals, canzones, and canzonettas – all initially set to music.

Strambotti Siciliani (Sicilian Love Song)(12th century)

More than honey the words you speak are sweet,

Anonymous Song (Spain)(c.1400)

There in the flower garden

Honest and wise, nobly and wittily said,Yours are the beauties of Camiola complete,Of Iseult the blonde and Morgana the fairy maid.If Blanchefleur should be added to the group,Your loveliness would tower above each head.Beneath your brows five beautiful things repose:Love and a fire and a flame, the lily, the rose.

I will die.Among the rose bushesThey will kill me.I was on my way,Mother, to cut some roses;There in the flower gardenI found my love,There in the flower gardenThey will kill me.

The unlikely poet.

The troubadour movement also reached England through the work of Geoffrey Chaucer. A century after Chaucer’s time, when Sir Thomas Wyatt brought Italian lyrical poetry into the country, English poets explored the relationship between song and words. Among them was an unlikely bard, King Henry VIII, who wrote some of the finest music of the Renaissance.

From Past Times with Good CompanyHenry VIII (1491-1547)

Pastimes with good company,

I love, and shall until I die.Grouch who list, but none deny,So God be pleased, thus live will I.For my pastance,Hunt, sing and dance,My heart is set;All goodly sport,For my comfort,Who shall me let?

From SongJohn Donne (1573-1631)

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,Tell me where all past years are,Or who cleft the devil’s foot,Teach me to hear mermaids’ singing,Or to keep off envy’s stinging,And findWhat windServes to advance an honest mind.

It thou be'st born to strange sights,

Things invisible go see,Ride ten thousand days and nights,Till Age snow white hairs on thee;Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell meAll strange wonders that befell thee,And swearNo whereLives a woman true and fair.

Oh, baby.

The dawning of the Renaissance era was met with people eager to unlock and free their hearts and minds and give themselves over to the pleasures of life. One such eager reveler was William Shakespeare, who wrote 160 songs for use within his plays. These songs were meant to be accompanied by simple instruments – the drum, flute, and lute – and were often salvaged from older lyrics and tunes. "Sigh No More, Ladies" is a classic example of this era’s lyricism, including the "hey nonny nonny," which was Shakespeare’s equivalent of today’s, "Oh baby" or "yeah, yeah, yeah."

Sigh No More, Ladies from Much Ado About NothingWilliam Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh nor more;

Men were deceivers ever;One foot in sea and one on shore,To one thing constant never;Then sigh not so,But let them go,And be you blithe and bonny;Converting all your sounds of woeInto. Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo,

Or dumps so dull and heavy;The fraud of men was ever so,Since summer first was leavy.Then sigh not so, But let them go,And be you blithe and bonny,Converting all your sounds of woeInto. Hey, nonny, nonny.

 

Champion of lyricism.

John Donne was one of the champions of lyricism in the 16th and 17th centuries, and many of his works were designated as "songs." "Go and Catch a Falling Star" is a reflection on life’s pilgrimage utilizing mystical aspects of magical herbalism, mythology, and love. Like most songs of the era, this was most likely written to be accompanied by the lute – the instrument of choice for minstrels and bards.

Go and Catch a Falling StarJohn Donne (1572-1631)

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,Tell me where all past years are,

 

Or who cleft the devil’s foot,Teach me to hear mermaids singing,Or to keep off envy’s stinging,And findWhat windServes to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,

Things invisible to see,Ride ten thousand days and nights,Till age snow white hairs on thee,Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,All strange wonders that befell thee,And swear,No whereLives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,

Such a pilgrimage were sweet;Yet do not, I would not go,Though at next door we might meet,Though she were true, when you met her,And last, till you write your letter,Yet sheWill beFalse, ere I come, to two, or three.

The Romantics.

As lyric poetry began to lose popularity, few notable works emerged. Then came the Romantics. Who better to write a lyric than those who prided themselves for placing emotion over reason? Poets such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, William Blake, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, and Lord Byron – and the Ancient Romans and Greeks who influenced them – became prime sources for some of the deeper rock lyrics of the 1960s.

Wanderer’s Night-SongsJohann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Thou that from the heavens art,

Every pain and sorrow stillest,And the doubly wretched heartDoubly with refreshment fillest,I am weary with contending!

Mad SongWilliam Blake (1757-1827)

The wild winds peep

And the night is a-cold;Come hither, Sleep,And my griefs infold:But lo! The morning peeps

Why this rapture and unrest?Peace descendingCome, ah, come into my breast!

O'er all the hilltops

Is quiet now,In all the treetopsHearest thouHardly a breath;The birds are asleep in the trees:Wait; soon like theseThou too shalt rest.

Over the eastern steeps,And the rustling birds of dawnThe earth do scorn.

Lo! To the vault

Of paved heavenWith sorrow fraught My notes are driven:They strike the ear of night,Make weep the eyes of day;They make mad the roaring winds,And with tempests play.

Negro influence.

While not European in nature, traditional Negro music spread across the United States in the 1900s. It formed the basis of three forms – blues, jazz, and gospel – that influenced such English rock bands as The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Cream, and Led Zeppelin, all of whom contributed enormously to the vault of poetics in modern music.

From Follow the Drinking GourdTraditional Negro Folk Song

When the sun comes back, and the first quail calls,

Follow the drinkin’ gourd,When the old man is a-waitin’ for to carry you to freedom,Follow the drinkin’ gourd.Follow the drinkin’ gourd,Follow the drinkin’ gourd,For the old man is a-waitin’ for to carry you to freedom,Follow the drinkin’ gourd.

 

Musical revolution.

In the mid-1960s, folk, blues, and rock fused together in three locations: San Francisco, London, and New York City (in particular Greenwich Village). All three cities had different scenes and expressions, but collectively they changed the face of the world by hosting musical and cultural revolutions.

In Los Angeles, a troubled soul combined rock lyrics with the pantheon of Ancient Greek, English, and French poets: Jim Morrison. Drawing comparisons to Greek wine god Dionysus, the Doors’ lead singer worked with odes, epics, ballads, and Greek choral structures to build many of his songs, led by the striking "The End."

From The EndJim Morrison (1943-71)

This is the end,

Beautiful friend,This is the end,My only friend, The end...of our elaborate plans,The end...of everything that stands,The end...no safety or surprise,The end...I’ll never look into your eyesAgain.

Can you picture what will be,

So limitless and free,Desperately in need of someStranger’s handIn a desperate land.Lost in a Roman wilderness of painAnd all the children are insaneAll the children are insane;Waiting for the summer rain.

 

Bob Dylan successfully melded Classic, Renaissance, Romantic, and anti-Romantic poetic traditions by integrating mythology, lush (and surreal) imagery, timely themes, and nods to his personal poetic heroes. Were it not for the modern language, these lyrics could easily be mistaken for a medieval minstrel song. As I Went Out One MorningBob Dylan (b. 1941)

As I went out one morning

To breathe the air around Tom Paine’s,I spied the fairest damselThat ever did walk in chains.I offer’d her my hand,She took me by the arm.I knew that very instant,She meant to do me harm.

"Depart from me this moment,"

I told her with my voice.Said she, "But I don’t wish to,"Said I, "But you have no choice."

 

"I beg you, sir," she pleadedFrom the corners of her mouth,"I will secretly accept youAnd together we’ll fly south."

Just then Tom Paine, himself,

Came running from across the field,Shouting at this lovely girlAnd commanding her to yield.And as she was letting go her grip,Up Tom Paine did run,"I’m sorry, sir," he said to me,"I’m sorry for what she’s done.

Love or something like it.

Alanis Morisette began writing her own quirky, biting lyrics in 2002, often utilizing plays on words and old sayings to tell her stories.

Knees of my BeesAlanis Morisette (b. 1974)

We share a culture same vernacular

Love of physical humor and time spent aloneYou with your penchant for spontaneous adventsFor sticky and raspy, unearthed and then gone

You are a gift renaissance with a wink

With tendencies for conversations that raise barsYou are a sage who is fueled by compassionComes to nooks and crannies as balm for all scars

You make the knees of my bees weak, tremble and buckle

You make the knees of my bees weak

You are a spirit that knows of no limit

That knows of no ceiling who balks at dead-endsYou are a wordsmith who cares for his brothersNot seduced by illusion or fair-weather friends

 

You make the knees of my bees weak, tremble and buckle

You make the knees of my bees weak

You are a vision who lives by the signals of

Stomach and intuition as your guideYou are a sliver of god on a platterWho walks what he talks and who cops when he’s lied

You make the knees of my bees weak, tremble and buckle

You make the knees of my bees weakYou make the knees of my bees weak, tremble and buckleYou make the knees of my bees weakYou make the knees of my bees weak, tremble and buckleYou make the knees of my bees weak

Most would consider the frank lyrics of gangsta rap artist and activist Tupac Shakur far removed from the almost-sweet sentiment of "Bees of My Knees." Beneath the brutal exterior, however, is that driving force behind so many songs – love. from Nothin’ But LoveTupac Shakur (1971-1996)

When I was young I used to want to be a dealer see

Cause the gold and cars they appealed to meI saw our brothers getting rich slangin crack to folksAnd the square’s getting big for these sack of dopeStarted thinking bout a plan to get paid myselfSo I made myself, raised myselfTil the dealer on the block told me, "That ain’t coolYou ain’t meant to slang crack, you a rapper fool"I got my game about women from a prostituteAnd way back used to rap on the block for lootI tried to make my way legit, hahaBut it was hard, cause rhymes don’t pay the rentAnd uhh, it was funny how I copped outI couldn’t make it in school, so finally I dropped outMy family on welfareI’m steady thinking, since don’t nobody else careI’m out here on my ownAt least in jail I have a meal and I wouldn’t be aloneI’m feelin like a waste, tears rollin down my faceCause my life is filled with hateUntil I looked around me

 

I saw nothing but family, straight up down for mePanthers, Pimps, Pushers and ThugsHey yo, that’s my family tree, I got nuttin but love.

New folk movement.

In a musical climate where anything goes, an "underground" movement of new artists writing in the folk tradition has unfolded. Operating in the minstrel tradition, Joanna Newsom composes lyrics that can stand alone as poems as easily as they can be put to music.

from SadieJoanna Newsom (b. 1982)

This is an old song,

these are old blues.This is not my tune,but it’s mine to use.And the seabirdswhere the fear once grew will flock with a fury,and they will bury what’d come for you

Down where I darn with the milk-eyed mender

you and I, and a love so tender, is stretched-on the hoop where I stitch-this adage: "Bless this house and its heart so savage."

And all that I want, and all that I need

and all that I’ve got is scattered like seed.And all that I knew is moving away from me.(and all that I know is blowing like tumbleweed)

And the mealy worms

in the brine will burn in a salty pyre, among the fauns and ferns.

And the love we hold,

and the love we spurn,will never grow cold

only taciturn.

Create Your Own Beat

Songwriters are the performance poets of the 21st century

Become a performance poet.

Never has the songwriting market been larger or more diverse. Songwriters are the performance poets of the 21st century, celebrated – or reviled – as heartily as were the Beat poets of the 1950s or the Romantics of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. With an incredible variety of distribution outlets – and the viral marketing effect of the Internet – it pays to know how to write a song. Besides, the pleasure of having written a song knows few equals in creative expression.

As a teenager, Suzanne Vega used a songwriting formula that began with matching guitar chords to her mood.

Start where it feels right.

Writing your own song lyrics doesn’t require anything more than the impetus to say something to the world.

Regardless of fame, fortune, or experience, getting started is often the most difficult part of an artistic undertaking. Singer and songwriter Roseanne Cash writes, "Those niggling questions about the specifics of writing – the order of creation, the source of inspiration, the parsing of individual truth and the wrestling of facts and the divergence of the two, are better left alone and in the realm of mystery, where all creative work forms."

As a teenager, folk-pop music legend Suzanne Vega used a formula that began with matching guitar chords to her mood, then developing a melody, and finally writing the lyrics. She writes, "Each chord told a piece of a story, and by putting the chords together in a certain way you had a musical narrative. Major chords = happy. Minor chords = sad. Sevenths were sort of sexy and bluesy. Augmented and diminished chords were spooky and spiritual."

Songwriter Darrell Brown isn’t picky about where a song begins. He writes, "In general, it doesn’t matter to me if a title is the first thing to come out or the chord progression or any part of the melody or lyrics. I just want anything to come out so I can start writing (or the song can start writing itself)."

Darrell Brown says that songwriters are "emotional spies."

Ideas and inspirations.

Inspirations for lyrics come in many forms. According to Darell Brown, songwriters are "'emotional spies’ - little creative crazies creeping around, sneaking in and out of our own emotions, watching, listening and remembering every bit of conversation with friends, family and every stranger we meet." He writes, "If a song is cowering deep inside someone else’s

divorce, engagement, seduction, innocence, sickness, recovery, treachery or resurrection, we long to see every crevice of it revealed in the light, all dressed up in grooves, chords and poetry."

If you choose a title like "Pancakes on Sunday," the images it evokes will serve as the building blocks for your song.

Create a title.

Although you can begin the writing process with any component of a song – title, melody, or lyrics – for the purpose of this exercise, let’s start with the title. After you have this concise summary of what you want your song to be about, you’ll need to answer some questions. Answering questions is where your song begins. For instance, if you chose a title called, "Pancakes on Sunday," the questions you’ll need to answer are, "Who made the pancakes?", "Why on Sundays?", and "Why are the pancakes being made?" Once you answer these questions, images will flood your mind, and these images will serve as the building blocks for your song.

Think in images.

From the "sweet-apple reddening high on the branch," to the "stags stirring the river with their antlers," to "the milk-eyed mender," lasting lyrics have one common craft: they’re built on lasting images. Writing in too many abstractions (words that we cannot "see," such as love, hate, sad, happy, beautiful) is a common mistake made by budding writers. Instead, try to tell someone how much you love them (or hate them) by using images. What does this person do or say that makes you love them? Is it because they make you pancakes every Sunday in the shape of a flower? Then put that into your song. For the moment, don’t concern yourself with rhyming, verses, refrains, or choruses. Just list everything you "see" to shape your free-write into a song.

Singer and songwriter Roseanne Cash says that lyricists aren’t bound by facts.

Feelings over facts.

As you write, don’t worry about how closely your words conform to events in your life. Instead, let your inner poet soar. Roseanne Cash writes, "I used to teach a summer songwriting workshop, and sometimes I would suggest a change of a line or phrase in a song a fledgling writer brought to class and the writer would say, ‘But it didn’t happen that way.’ I would remind him or her that these were songs, not news reports, and if they were bound to just the facts, they should consider science rather than art."

Wail on it.

Not all songs have choruses, but most mainstream songs rely on a strong chorus that people will keep on singing. To give your song extra staying power, create a chorus that really drives your point home. Your chorus should be about four lines, and should be placed between the verses of your song. Your chorus should also contain some or all of the words in your title, to further reinforce your intentions. Go through the free-write you just composed and see if there are any images or ideas that stand out to you as being particularly powerful. Returning to the image of the pancakes, you can summarize the point of your song with a few lines about pancakes on Sunday:

You never brought me diamondsOr jewels from far awayBut you made me want you alwaysWith your pancakes every Sunday

In writing a chorus, you’re giving the song shape by extracting one image that will, when the song is finished, unite all of the other images under a common theme, the theme here being that you love this person even if they couldn’t give you heaps of desirable riches.

Shape it up.

Now that you’ve got your chorus, it’s time to go back through your free-write again and see where the song is. If you feel as though there are multiple themes present in your free-write material, that’s wonderful! However, avoid loading your song with more than one or two main ideas or stories. Also, avoid confusing your listeners with ideas and images that are deeply personal to you, such as inside jokes, nicknames, or unexplained references to things and people. Begin creating an outline for your song – how the story will progress, which words you’d like to see in certain lines, and where your chorus will come in. Remember, your song must mean as much to other people as it means to you, so a second or third set of unbiased eyes as you’re putting your song together can be extremely helpful.

Once you’ve laid out the "bones" of your song, it’s time to lend it the shape that’s going to make it into a sing-able lyric. Since it’s far more difficult to imagine a song that doesn’t rhyme, work with a rhyme scheme for your first attempt. The important part about rhyming is that you should try to be as organic as possible; don’t force words to rhyme by using archaic syntax ("and sad I was made by your falling tears") and don’t try to cram too many syllables into one line for the sake of the rhyme. The best way to start out when learning to write with a rhyme scheme is to give yourself some leniency. Don’t insist on using an abab rhyme scheme. Instead, consider an abac or abcb rhyme scheme. That way, you only need to rhyme one pair of words per four-line stanza. We turn again to the "Pancake Song":

We met in August over wine and old bread (a)At a cafe torn down in September (b)So we stayed in on Sundays and you made us pancakes (c)And I swore I would always remember (b)

The syrup I kissed from your chin (d)And the hiss of the pan on the fire (e)But I forgot how they tasted, don’t remember your hands (f)All I know now is hungry desire. (e)

Refining, editing, and polishing are all part of the songwriting process

Polishing a rough gem.

From start to finish, songwriting is a process that is both arduous and a great deal of fun. Keeping your vision for the song in mind and taking the time to listen to some of your favorite artists along the way will keep you inspired through the multiple revisions most songs require. Roseanne Cash writes, "Twenty-five years ago, I would have said that the bursts of inspiration, and the transcendent quality that came with them, were an emotionally superior experience, preferable to the watchmaker concentration required for the detail work of refining, editing and polishing. But the reverse is proving to be true. Like everything else, given enough time and the long perspective, the opposite of those things that we think define us slowly becomes equally valid, and sometimes more potent."

Remember that the success of your song lies in an equal balance of emotion and craft. If your song is all emotion, people may or may not understand what you’re trying to say. If your song is perfectly crafted but lacking in emotion, people will not care what you have to say. As you draft and redraft your blossoming lyrics, make sure to preserve your earlier drafts, as it is often something said pages ago that will end up sparking the next song you write.

If you play an instrument, you can take a crack at composition

Sing it!

If you already play an instrument – especially the guitar or piano – now is the time to take a crack at composition. If you know your scales and some basic music theory, try composing a melody for your lyrics by imagining the kind of mood you want your song to evoke and going from there. Roseanne Cash writes that the melody can grow out of a song’s lyrics: "I’ve found that the melody is already inherent in the language, and if I pay close enough attention to the roundness of the vowels and the cadence of the words, I can tease the melody out of the words it is already woven into. I have found that continual referral back to the original "feeling tone" of

the inspiration, the constant re-touching of that hum and cry, more important than the fireworks of its origin. I have learned to be steady in my course of love, or fear, or loneliness, rather than impulsive in its wasting, either lyrically or emotionally."

If you’re not a musician, try finding a musician who’s willing to help you out, or perhaps spend an evening at an open mic; coffee houses host open mic nights in small and large towns alike. You may just meet someone looking for new material. If you’ve written lyrics that you feel can stand on their own as poetry, then step up to the microphone and proudly read your song aloud. If it’s good enough, no one will miss the guitar. For the musically adept and disinclined alike, there are now many useful computer programs that can help you create back-up tracks for a song (such as Apple’s "Garage Band" or Finale Notepad). Finally, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with keeping your song all to yourself. Anyone can make up a tune, regardless of whether or not they can read music. Sing it in the shower, while you’re cooking dinner, or while you’re cleaning the house. Feel proud of your creation and newfound artistic ability.

The New York Times blog, Measure for Measure pulls back the curtain on the creative process of song writing.

Node Poems

Just as visual poetry utilizes the page as an extension of poetic themes, node poems use an interactive online interface to make readers active participants in exploring and constructing poetry. Like synthetic poetry, node poetry focuses on fresh, innovative content that is free of the constraints of traditional forms. The node form lets writers construct lines of poetry into tree-like structures, with the first line forming the trunk and the subsequent lines dispersing like branches and twigs.

Then, readers journey along each branch, creating comparisons and cross connections for themselves. Whereas traditional, static poems allow movement down a page full of lines and stanzas, node poems ask readers to take control over how poems develop and flow. While all poetry allows readers to analyze and probe intellectually stimulating language, node poetry gives readers the opportunity to play with the building blocks of poetry, the language itself.

Node poems utilize the SpicyNodes interface. SpicyNodes is produced by the same research team at idea.org that develops WebExhibits, and it is free for any artistic use.

Rhyme: Varied, according to the poem

Structure:Preferably shorter lines (15 syllables or less), to allow development of the nodes

Measure/Beat: Varied Common Themes:

Universal

Other Notes: Nodes can run many levels deep, or spread out ad infinitum

Nodes create a graphic presentation of the poem

Nodes invite readers to explore specific sections of the poem.The Piquant Poem

Serving up poetry in the 21st century.

Among the various experimental and visual forms of poetry, node poems fully embrace the spirit of the Information Age. The SpicyNodes online interface allows the poet to write the lines of the node poem, and then choose color schemes and soundscapes to enhance a reader’s experience of moving through a poem.

In contrast to other visual forms, the poet must then let go and allow each reader to construct the poem as he or she pleases. The poem is no longer linear, but instead is multi-dimensional, giving rise to exploratory journeys of comparisons and cross-connections.

The reader as leader.

Node poems are reminiscent of the progression of experimental writing that puts readers in control of the content. This form harkens back to earlier, low-tech versions of works controlled by readers, such as Emily Dickinson’s poems that utilize variants words written on the bottom of the page and B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates, an unbound novel placed inside a box for readers to rearrange the papers to their preference. SpicyNodes, the underlying technology for node poetry, works a bit differently. Instead of readers rearranging the order of entire pages, they have control over small snippets of language, with the title of the poem as the vortex and the subsequent lines providing a 360-degree journey through the poem and the relationship of words, images, and ideas. The technology also enhances traditional poetic forms, from haiku to free verse. SpicyNodes works with every level of structure, from strict sonnets to the most expressive visual poetry. Besides the node poems highlighted in this section, you can navigate this entire exhibit in node format.

A new town square.

Just as ancient cultures used poetic presentations to give audiences vast amounts of material in bite-sized chunks, SpicyNodes acts as the 21st century orator in presenting nuggets of information within today’s town square – the Internet.

The Birth Of A Form

Mapping new paths.

Node poems mediate a new interaction between readers and writers by letting readers permeate texts as they become active participants in shaping the direction of the language. Writers, in turn, can develop new strategies to give their audience exciting and engaging opportunities to navigate their work.

To discover the new potential of node poetry, check out the following works by the team of node poets who prototyped the form.

Marci Johnson’s "Choose" recontexualizes phrases into different moods. As you navigate through the nodes, you’ll notice how these phrases take on new meanings depending whether you select "hesitation," "suspense," or any other of the initial options.

               

With "As Dawn Rises," Tina Gagliardi experiments with radial writing. The surrounding nodes can be read as a complete sentence, or readers can choose to select an individual node and move deeper into the poem. Gagliardi’s strategy matches the content of the poem. Once readers permeate the surface nodes, the language becomes ever more abstract.

Spicynodes forms an fascinating forum for traditional strategies of poetry. Scott Siders begins "The Inside of Out" by exploring anaphora, but notice how the repetition degenerates as the poem moves towards further nodes, and the thoughts and emotions become less and less restrained.

       

SpicyNodes, the underlying technology for node poems, also works with simple, elegant and classic styles, as Bob Yehling’s "Himalayan Cloud-Drops" bears out. Joe Romano’s "Postponed" explores the concept of navigation itself as he wonders how one moves while asking readers to navigate his node poem.

Savor The Flavor

Taste the excitement.

Using the technology of SpicyNodes as a launching point, your poem becomes a series of interactive levels rather than lines and stanzas. Node poems enable you to write lines within lines while extracting every possible direction an image, idea, or emotion can go. Readers can view the nodemap and cross-reference aspects of your poem to inform or clarify their own lives – or to simply have an exciting reading experience!

First things first.

Begin by signing up for a free SpicyNodes community membership. It might also be helpful to review Joe Romano’s recipe for writing node poetry.

Form your approach.

Node poets must approach each line multi-dimensionally, always thinking about the various branches readers will explore. Before you begin brainstorming your node poem, check out the examples to see strategies that poets have already experimented with. Then, find the approach that fits your flair for poetry.

Care to translate traditional forms into a nodal approach?

When working with restrained language, node poems can create fascinating results. For instance, re-imagine Shakespeare’s famous Sonnet 18:

Central Node: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

First node option: Thou art more lovely, and more temperate;

Second node option: Thou art too frigid for I to question it;

Node poems can enhance work by creating a duality of thought, all the while working with rhyme to connect the opposing lines. If this suits your style for poetry, explore the various forms explained throughout Poetry Through the Ages, and find ones that are perfect for nodes. You can even use a famous poem as a seedling for a new poem–freshen the piece and pull it into the digital age!

Need more freedom in your work?

Try experimenting with the various methods to shape sentences into node form, as outlined in the recipes or in the SpicyNodes Teacher’s Guide. After all, a sentence can start one way but then spin off into several different directions. Short lines work best for the visual representation of node poems, so find openings in grammar where the phrase can spin away into a different direction.

No matter your choice, start where any great poem begins–put pen to paper. Draft out your first line and then sketch three or four options for the next line. Keep going until you have multiple directions for your readers to lose themselves in.

Synthetic Poetry

Synthetic poetry is dedicated to questioning and highlighting the material process of creating poetry. It asks readers to give equal weight to a poem’s material construct and the meaning of the final product. For hundreds of years, poets have been asked to participate in formal norms, slightly modifying the canzone, sonnet, and ode to suit their needs. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, early synthetic poets began focusing on how new formal constraints and experiments could lead them to generate fresh, innovative content.

These pioneers and their successors have used various methods (with differing degrees of success) to take poetry in new, unexplored directions. Thus, From DaDa to L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, synthetic poetry can overlap with other forms and writing styles, and when combined with today’s technology, can help readers to see language and even consciousness in novel ways.

Rhyme: Possible, but not necessary

Structure:Constraint not necessarily mandated by syllabics or metrics. Instead, synthetic poetry often relies on other structural devices

Measure/Beat: Possible, but not necessary Common Themes:

Resists themes; instead, encourages readers to experience and partake in innovative uses of language

Other Notes: Employs formal and procedural experiments

Asks readers to look anew at language and consciousnessManufacturing Content

F.T. Marinetti launched the magazine Poesia, and the Futurist movement, in 1905. The plaque in Milan commemorates the magazine’s founding.

Liberating the word.

At the turn of the 20th Century, technology quickly advanced across Europe and the United States. As science and engineering displayed life-altering potential, ever-faster automobiles sped people over vast distances, new tools for mass production eased the burdens of a factory worker, and growing cities filled with the buzz of machinations. The hope? That advances in technology would allow humans to enter lives of leisure.

Artists were also invested in the potential of technology, and the Futurists were the most prominent voice for progress. The Italian Futurists, led by F.T. Marinetti, heralded war and revolution as a means to hasten the arrival of a new society, and demanded the destruction of any relic of the past, whether a museum or an old city like Venice. With manifestos in hand, the Futurists had a plan to thrust all areas of life – from poetry to the culinary arts – into modernity.

The Russian Futurists, led by Velemir Khlebnikov, embraced aesthetic advances in language and the visual arts. Velemir Khlebnikov, Self-Portrait

Like their Italian brethren, the Russian Futurists were highly invested in developing art as a reflection of modern technological (and thus, social) advances, but were less concerned with a complete overhaul of life. Instead, the Russian Futurists embraced aesthetic advances in language and the visual arts. Led by Velemir Khlebnikov, this movement strived to free language from the constraints of meaning and significance, instead considering sound as being of primary importance. This poetry, called Zaum, utilized neologism and glossolalia, among other devices, to let language resist coherence in its quest to be material building blocks for complex soundscapes. The Zaum poets used these tactics to display language as more than a medium for communication, letting words resist coherence in order to become the building blocks for complex sounds.

Although Zaum poets like Aleksei Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Yelena Genrikhovna Guro were less concerned with language’s use as a means for practical communication, the words in their poems could be pulled apart and interpreted, the meaning highlighting the auditory experience of the

audience. Their method of contorting language to display interesting sounds (instead of clever considerations of the world) illustrates an early advance towards synthetic poetry. Here, the poet loosens control of what is being expressed in order to build an interesting sound experience for the audience. By producing poems that promoted the auditory experience as the primary goal, this movement helped provide a foundation for synthetic poetry. Readers began to understand material language as an aesthetic experience unto itself, with the work’s meaning being a secondary concern.

Kazimir Malevich’s White on White illustrates the Futurist’s blend of materials

that draw attention to the nature of the color itself, and not necessarily to what the color

represents.

Max Ernst’s 1934 painting, The Entire City, employed the Surrealist technique of grattage,

which involved scraping off dry pieces of paint, resulting in random lines and shapes.

Seeking the subconscious.

Differing from the methods of the Futurists, the Surrealists experimented with creating poetry and art that discovered and explored subconscious thoughts and connections for both the writer and the reader. In his 1924 "Manifesto of Surrealism," André Breton pronounced, "I would like to sleep in order to surrender myself to the dreamers, the way I surrender myself to those who read me with eyes wide open; in order to stop imposing, in this realm, the conscious rhythm of my thought." For Breton, conscious, rational thought only served as controls for social and political norms. Thus, Breton wanted Surrealists to tap their dream worlds to encourage liberation from logic and rationale.

Andre Breton and Phillipe Soupault created Les Champs Magnetiques as the first Surrealist novel to employ automatic writing.

Breton, Paul Valéry, Pierre Reverdy, Robert Desnos and various other members of the movement devised experiments (and appropriated those from other movements, such as Dada) to assist writers in losing conscious control of the creative process, causing spontaneous development and arrangement of images and ideas.

The most popular experiment for Surrealists dealt with automatism or automatic writing, which attempted to shift control of the creative process from the conscious to the subconscious mind. In an attempt to enter a trance-like state, the writer let his or her hand control the creation of language. In a collaborative effort, Breton and Phillipe Soupault created Les Champs Magnétiques as the first Surrealist novel to employ automatic writing. Beyond automatic writing, the Surrealists were also interested in various other experiments, such as calligrammes and cut-ups, as a means to free artists from the constraints of logic and discover their unconscious dream world. As a result, Surrealist writing displayed strange connections and transgressions for the reader to deliberate over. So, while the Futurists let language exist as medium for an auditory experience, the Surrealists worked with language as a method to tap the subconscious. Here, meaning was also rendered a secondary concern, following the primary goal of expressing inner thoughts and experiences, however strange or unrelated.

In La disparition, Georges Perec sustained a lipogram by eliminating the letter "e" throughout his novel.

Recognizing potential.

While the Surrealists left production to the inner workings of the mind, other writers explored the role of formal constraints in developing interesting pieces of art. For hundreds of years, forms such as the sonnet, ode, and villanelle were regarded as the pinnacle of poetic writing. The merits of a poem were easily judged by how well the words flowed through the structure. On November 24th, 1960, a group was chartered to redirect writers away from traditional forms and towards the potential of science and mathematics. This collaboration between writers, poets, and mathematicians was named the Ouvroir de littérature potentielle (or, simply, OuLiPo), and was dedicated to creating new structures and forms for writers.

In "Lipo: First Manifesto," François Le Lionnais questions the focus on traditional forms by inquiring, "Should humanity lie back and watch new thoughts make ancient verses?" Georges Perec thought not, and in La disparition sustained a lipogram by eliminating the letter "e" throughout his novel, which detailed the search for a missing individual. Every piece of writing from an Oulipian was written under a particular constraint, though the restrictions are not always easily identified by a reader. A contemporary example of an Oulipian constraint can be seen in the popular Fibonacci poems. In sixth grade, New York City student Georgia Luna Smith Faust became fascinated with the Fibonacci sequence – nature’s underlying form of growing patterns. Years later, she tied together those two eternal bookends, mathematics and poetry, in yet another way. Note the syllable sequence per stanza, which is a Fibonacci sequence: 1+1+2+3+5+8+13… before it rolls down and repeats to form a pair of perfect syllabic pyramids. Fibonacci poetry has gestated into a mini-movement, with recent articles in the New York Times and Hyperseeing, the math/art journal. It even has its own experimental website and archive of Fibonacci poetry, fibetry.com.

Fearing SpaceGeorgia Luna Smith Faust (1986– )

Thisisfear ofknown ineptcomfort level ofpigeons rodents fire crackersexplosions of city things an inside/outside in

between the middle of interior fear of whatmight be found when is constant cannot or never wouldbe concreteactionslostin

con-cretepatiencecontentmentwith current contentshowerheads bathtubs in bathroomsfull and exploding won’t be any, any longer

one can panic only in passing fear of focuschaos chance encounters things welove last little thereare no thingsbut con-cretethings.

The Reader’s New Role

OuLiPo wasn’t only established as a service for poets and writers. Just as the Futurists required that the audience make sense of their neologisms and new words, and just as the Surrealists performed experiments and played games to unlock their own subconscious thoughts, the Oulipians created language systems and literature, the potential of which could be unfurled by a reader. They hoped their audience would recognize and rework the material language as a means to discover meanings embedded in the Oulipians’ work.

Raymond Queneau, one of the most inventive Oulipians, was both a mathematician and writer. His Cent mille milliards de poèmes (translated as One Hundred Million Million Poems) is a series of 10 sonnets that all have the same rhyme sound at the end of each line. He wanted to give readers the chance to take part in the creative process, forming sonnets that Queneau himself had not anticipated. Thus, readers can form new poems by rearranging any line from one

sonnet with any line from the other sonnets, providing 1 billion potential poems – more than any individual could read in a lifetime.

Beyond creating forms to reflect 20th century advances in science and thought, OuLiPo also experimented with 20th century technologies as a means to create art. In doing so, they inspired a new generation of writers to employ digital mediums that can loosen a writer’s control of a text while allowing computers to create content and readers to unlock the potential of a work.

The cover of Christian Bök’s 2001 book-length lipogram, Eunoia. The image is a polychromatic translation of Arthur Rimbaud’s "Voyelle." The

various colors follow the pattern of vowel sounds throughout the poem, reminiscent of an

Oulipian language constraint thrust into the visual realm.

Synthetic poetics is unlocking new potential in the digital realm, as poets and programmers are

discovering innovative ways to generate and display language.

Letting go of the printed page.

The 21st century finds readers clutching to the printed page, attached to the tactile experience of leafing through a new edition and giving the binding a solid crack before settling into a story, essay, or poem. This nostalgia for print is heightened by signs of its disappearance. Bulky encyclopedias have become obsolete, thanks to easily searchable versions available on the web. Newspaper circulation is down, while Internet readership booms. Entire libraries are being digitized for easy access. With artisan presses and experimental book design, print will continue, but the Digital Age is offering new possibilities for the language arts. But is there merit in computer-aided and computer-generated poems? Don’t these disrupt or eliminate a poet’s intent?

By looking at the short history of the precursors to synthetic poetry, computer-aided productions can be seen as another point on the line of new potential for the language arts. Synthetic poetics is unlocking new potential in the digital realm, as poets and programmers are discovering innovative ways to generate and display language. Just as the Futurists would have wished, language can audibly and visually blend on an animated page. Just as the Surrealists would have

hoped for, computer generated poems help us question our own subconscious and the consciousness of machines, and thus our place in the world. And just as the Oulipians continue to experiment with mathematics, new, digitized algorithms are pushing the potential for formal constraints.

In 1959, Theo Lutz used a Zuse Z22 computer to generate a stochastic poem

Dual directions.

Digital poetries move in two general, though not mutually exclusive, directions. One focuses on the artist transferring control of the work to a computer. Much like the cut-up poems created by Dada and the Surrealists, a computer can be given several semantic targets and rearrange undetermined language into a stochastic poem. In 1959, Theo Lutz utilized a Zuse Z22 (an early computer using vacuum tubes) to generate a stochastic text using certain nouns from Kafka’s The Castle, later connecting them by consistent grammatical rules. One result was the following poem, found in an article published in the journal Augenblick:

Not every look is near. No village is late. A Castle is free and every farmer is distant.Every stranger is distant. A day is late. Every house is dark. An eye is deep. Not every castle is old. Every day is old. Not every guest is furious. A church is narrow. No house is open and not every church is quiet. Not every eye is furious. No look is new.

Certainly, the lines don’t flow mellifluously, and the sentence structure is simple. The connections, however, are quite interesting. Could "A castle is free and every farmer is distant" be interpreted as a consideration of the feudal system? How does this poem work as a companion to Kafka’s original? Or, is aesthetic merit awarded merely on the basis that the poem came from a machine?

At the least, computer-generated poems have caused writers and critics to question the merits of poems created by people. For over five years, Pablo Gervás and his team of researchers at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid have been working to create a computer-based poem generator that can understand how to manipulate phonetics, diction, comparison, theme, and emotional tension into an aesthetically pleasing work of art. Other researchers, such as Ruli Manurung, have focused on single aspects of generating poems, such as meter. Manurung successfully programmed software to write a stochastic poem that adheres to the traditional meter of a limerick:

The cat is the cat which is dead.The bread which is gone is the bread.The cat which consumedthe bread is the catwhich gobbled the bread which is gone.

Pablo Gervas and his team of researchers at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid have been

working to create a computer-based poem generator.

John Cayley suggests that computer programming codes can be appreciated for both the potential for the code and the aesthetics that

the code contains in its potential state.

While this unrhymed limerick doesn’t satisfy each of Gervás’s qualifications for a poem, given that the target words were "cat," "dead," "bread," "gone," "eat," and "past," it is a significant advancement in computer-generated poetry. The program was able to analyze and coordinate the stressed and unstressed syllables of a limerick, and generate sentence structure that’s much more complex than Lutz’s computer-generated poem.

Even though researchers have yet to develop software that can replicate a poet’s role, digital technology is heavily influencing many language artists, which leads to a second strand of digital poetry. Here, poets like John Cayley and Jim Rosenberg step beyond paper and display their language on the dynamic canvas of the screen, while Aya Karpinsky and Brian Kim Stefans produce innovative poems that put language in motion, whether as a digital projection against the wall or movable type on a ever-advancing digital page.

Redefining language.

If presentation of the digital page is altering the way we perceive language, to what extent can aesthetic pleasure be derived from the new building blocks of these poems – the code itself?

Programming languages are, by name, languages, though they’re not necessarily used to communicate between peoples. Instead, these languages express different potential for meaning. A knowledgeable audience, then, should be able to value code for what the code represents.

In his 2002 "The Code is not the Text (Unless it is the Text)," published in the Electronic Book Review, John Cayley suggested that digital writing should be constructed for reading on two levels: the communicable language on the screen and the programmed language that presents what we see on screen. Cayley proclaimed, "If a codework text, however mutually contaminated, is read primarily as the language displayed on a screen then its address is simplified. It is addressed to a human reader who is implicitly asked to assimilate the code as part of natural language." He posited that programming codes are always addressed to a machine that must translate the code, and that programming codes are always readable by certain individuals who understand the language and can appreciate both the potential for the code and the aesthetics that the code contains in its potential state. Cayley then presented his own experiments with a coding language called, HyperTalk. Notice how many of the commands provide central roles in your understanding of the text:

on writerepeat twicedo "global " & characteristicsend repeatrepeat with programmers = one to alwaysif touching thenput essential into invarianceelseput the round of simplicity * engineering / synchronicity + one into invarianceend ifif invariance > the random of engineering and not categorical thenput ideals + one into mediaif subversive thenput false into subversiveend ifif media > instantiation thenput one into mediaend ifelseput the inscription of conjunctions + one into mediaend if

Overall, if the computer is not ready to produce poems that satisfy our sense of aesthetics, both humans and machines are at least prepared to appreciate poems such as these, which combine our interests in language as both experience and function.

The Supremacy Of Sound

Velemir Khlebnikov’s "Incantation of Laughter" is a preeminent example of Zaum. In this poem, Khlebnikov selects sounds that all share similar sounds to "smex," which is Russian for laughter. First, the original: Zaklyatic SmekhomVelemir Khlebnikov (1885-1922)

O, rassmeites’, smekhachi!

O, zasmeites’, smekhachiChto smeyutsya smekhami, chto smeyanstvuyut smeyal'no.O, zasmeites’ usmeyal'no!O, rassmeshishch nadsmeyal'nykh – smekh usmeinykh smekhachei!O, issmeisya rassmeyal'no, smekh nadesmeinykh smeyachei!Smeievo, smeievo, Usmei, osmei, smeshiki, smeshiki, Smeyunchiki, smeyunchiki, O, rassmeites’, smekhachi!O, zasmeites’, smekhachi!

And then, Paul Schmidt’s translation of the poem into English: Incantation by Laughter

Hlahla! Uthlofan, lauflings!

Hlahla! Ufhlofan, lauflings!Who lawghen with lafe, who hlaehen lewchly, Hlahla! Ufhlofan hlouly!Hlahla! Hloufish lauflings lafe uf beloght lauchalorum!Hlahla! Loufenish lauflings lafe, hlohan utlaufly!Lawfen, lawfen,Hloh, hlouh, hlou! Luifekin, luifekin, Hlofeningum, hlofeningum, Hlahla! Uthlofan, lauflings!Hlahla! Ufhlofan, lauflings!

Raymond Queneau’s One Hundred Million Million Poems enables readers to create their own poetry from his 10 source sonnets. To feel the potential he saw and created, explore the web-based version of his work. His 1955 Meccano also explores the connection between language and mathematics. In this book-length work, Queneau includes the following poem that displays how algebra works with language: Excerpt from MeccanoRaymond Queneau (1903-1976)

Christian Bök offers his own take on Zaum and sound poetry in his forthcoming Cyborg Opera. In "Mushroom Clouds," you can to recognize many of the words that Bök uses to construct the piece, but you may find yourself caught up in the song that resists interpretation. Click here to listen to the poem "Mushroom Clouds."

In 1999, Danika Dinsmore, Lee Ann Brown, Bernadette Mayer, and Jen Hofer participated in what they deemed the 3:15 Experiment. These four poets created a surrealist project involving alarm clocks set for 3:15am. Once roused from slumber, each poet would immediately write a poem in order to capture the essence of the conscious mind soon after leaving sub-consciousness. The result is a 2001 book published by The Owl Press along with a website that displays new versions of the project every year. Bernadette Mayer composed many poems during the project, including:

UnititledBernadette Mayer (1945-)

familiar, but late

if we are the laborof poetry, then who is managementwhat laws govern itshow just cause youhave good luck with gumor rather, congradulationsor the gum.Not cheating, butlate. Not Up atthe house by the lake

by the sky bysutures by thesnares

we are jocelyn's

elders

someone’s kept

me in thedark on this.

For a contemporary example of how hypermedia can work within poetics, click here to find Judd Morrissey’s The Jew’s Daughter. When you move your mouse over the highlighted words, parts of the existing page disappear, and the remaining parts are reconfigured with new additions, continuing the story. Kim White’s The Minotaur Project is another great example of a digital text.

Figure 4: The first page of A Humument, by Tom Philips. Philips creates collages out of a pre-existing text to develop his own take on a

visual poetry.

A still shot of Jenny Holzer’s Projections, where Wislawa Szymborska’s poems are projected

across a room the size of a football field. Heat sensitive bean bag chairs are placed throughout the room, changing colors as the body heat of

observers alters as they react to the poems.

A screenshot from Jim Rosenberg’s Intergram 9, which displays Rosenberg’s interest in language that occurs simultaneously. The top box shows the overlap of language, while the bottom details

the individual pieces. The other parts serve as links to different segments of the text. <p></p> <h3>Poetry by the numbers.</h3> <p>In the 21st century, computers have combined with visual poetry to produce an array of interesting works, using everything from the Fibonacci sequence to the algorithms used by the Oulipo school. New York City student Georgia Luna Smith Faust became fascinated with the Fibonacci sequence &#150; nature’s underlying form of growing patterns &amp;ndash; in sixth grade. Years later, she tied together those two eternal bookends, mathematics and poetry, in yet another way. Note the syllable sequence per stanza, which is a Fibonacci sequence: 1+1+2+3+5+8+13... before it rolls down and repeats to form a pair of perfect syllabic pyramids. Fibonacci poetry has gestated into a mini-movement, with recent articles in the <i>New York Times</i> and <i>Hyperseeing</i>, the math/art journal, and its own website, <a href="http://fibetry.com">fibetry.com</a>.</p> Fearing SpaceGeorgia Luna Smith Faust (1986– )

This

isfear ofknown ineptcomfort level ofpigeons rodents fire crackersexplosions of city things an inside/outside in

between the middle of interior fear of what

might be found when is constant cannot or never wouldbe concreteactionslostin

con-

cretepatiencecontentmentwith current contentshowerheads bathtubs in bathroomsfull and exploding won’t be any, any longer

one can panic only in passing fear of focus

chaos chance encounters things welove last little thereare no thingsbut con-cretethings.

Building Blocks

As a synthetic poet, get ready to create works that cause your readers to question the procedure behind the generation of the poem. It doesn’t matter whether you write in a public form, employ a computer algorithm, or hand your audience the pieces with clues about how to construct the work on their own. To get started, you can try these experiments and create your synth poem:

Just like Raymond Queneau and his fellow OuLiPians, try using mathematical formulae for your poems. The quadratic equation, Bernoulli’s equation, or Doppler equations are all ripe for translation from mathematical language to those that are spoken. Poems utilizing the Fibonacci sequence are also quite popular.

Every August, the 3:15 Experiment starts up with a new round of participants. Take this opportunity to alarm your subconscious by writing a short poem every morning. Click here for more information.

If you’re interested in assistance from machines as you create your own poems, the University Center College in Dublin’s The Creative Language System Group can help you out. This team of researchers has several programs available that will assist your inventive uses of language. Many poets also utilize search engines such as Googlism.com to create anaphoric texts. You might also want to try taking a paragraph and using one of the various web-based translation engines to move it from English to Arabic to Russian and back to English again, just to see whether the text undergoes any interesting changes.

Write word pictures.

You may want to try a Fibonacci poem, using the simpler of two means of constructing it: syllable count. Think of a nautilus shell or a pyramid as you build the poem, spiraling or rising in a perfect pattern. You can punctuate as you please, but the syllable count is fixed. The syllable count per line appears in parentheses next to the poem, Leaves (by Robert Yehling); for this example, we’ll count to 13, then back down.

Leaves (1)twirl (1)sideways (2)in a wind (3)calved by the back end (5)of a tornado that, this time, (8)showed mercy for farmers, laborers and citizens (13)racing the black-bearded storm to (8)store the bumper crop; (5)not like last (3)time, when (2)lives (1)whirled. (1)

If you want to enrich the experience, present your Fibonacci poem visually on the page:

Leavestwirlsidewaysin a wind calved by the back endof a tornado that, this time, showed mercy for farmers, laborers and citizensracing the black-bearded storm tostore the bumper crop;not like lasttime, whenliveswhirled