The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination by Ursula K. Le Guin
Authors: Ursula K. Le Guin
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quatrain by following the syntax and abandoning the pentameter: the same words exactly, but without the rhythmic tension given by enjambment:
At the round earth’s imagin’d corners,
blow your trumpets, Angels,
and arise, arise from Death,
you numberless infinities of souls,
and to your scatter’d bodies go.
Not only is the structure weakened by the loss of the emphatic rhymepattern, but the tense, powerful beat of the lines has gone flabby.
I did not desecrate Brooks and Donne only to show the power of the line in poetry, but also as an indication of why poets may seek strict, formalised patterns to work in. The observation of a pattern, even an arbitrary pattern, can give strength to words that would otherwise wander bleating like lost lambs.
This is why it can be harder to write prose than to write poetry.
S TRESS -R HYTHMS IN P OETRY : F REE V ERSE
Free verse has no regular meter; but there are stress-patterns in most free verse, just as there are often plenty of rhymes and other rhythmic devices, though not in predictable places. Finding the flexible, changingpatterns in free verse is a matter of listening intently, using your own ear to catch the poet’s beat.
For example, in Whitman’s “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” you’ll find the hypnotic, gentle beat of that title line recurring, here and there, changed and varied, throughout the long poem: TUMtata TUMta / TUMtata TUMta. . . .
Free verse that avoids stress patterns and doesn’t use the line end as a pause may compensate by other rhythmic devices, other kinds of pattern and recurrence. One is the regular repetition of lines or parts of lines. Left to its own devices, English poetry seems to do this only in refrains; but it has imported exotic forms, such as the sestina and the pantoum, which not only set up a pattern by strict repetition, but control the range of emotion and meaning by restricting the choice of words.
The ideal of free verse is that the poem itself will find/create its own internal pattern, as unpredictable and inevitable as any fir tree, any waterfall.
S TRESS -R HYTHMS IN P ROSE
Tentatively, I propose the following statement: There are two elements to stress-rhythm in prose: first, actual syllabic stresses; second, syntactical phrases or word groups, following syntax, punctuation, sense, stress, and breath. These groups are what I call “bars.”
By reading a passage of prose aloud you will hear both the syllabic stresses and the slight pauses or rise-and-fall of intonation that break the sentence into bars. Almost certainly none of us will read or hear or “scan” it in the same way. That doesn’t matter. Prose has a whole lot of latitude.
The thing to remember is that good prose does have a stress-rhythm, subtle and complex and changing though it may be. Dull prose, clunky narrative, hard-to-read textbook stuff, lacks the rhythm that catches and drives and moves the reader’s body and mind and heart.
There are no rules for finding and feeling the rhythm of prose. It is a gift, but it is also a learnable skill—learned by practice. Probably thebest practice is reading out loud. You know how an uncomprehending reader reads out loud, a scared fourth-grader, stumbling and missing the beats? A poor reader can’t dance to the prose.
But the best reader can’t make lame prose dance.
The only rule of prose “scansion” I know is: listen to what you are reading (or writing) as closely as you can, listen for its beat, and follow your own ear. There is no right way. The way that sounds right to you is the way. (Tao Rules, OK?) Don’t worry if you mark the stresses differently at different readings. Don’t worry if others disagree.
Don’t WORry if OTHers disaGREE
DON’T WORry if OTHers DISagree
Don’t WORry if OTHers DISaGREE
With repetition and emphasis, a regular beat tends to establish itself. My last reading of that casual prose sentence, with just a wee bit of elision, is iambic tetrameter. We
At the round earth’s imagin’d corners,
blow your trumpets, Angels,
and arise, arise from Death,
you numberless infinities of souls,
and to your scatter’d bodies go.
Not only is the structure weakened by the loss of the emphatic rhymepattern, but the tense, powerful beat of the lines has gone flabby.
I did not desecrate Brooks and Donne only to show the power of the line in poetry, but also as an indication of why poets may seek strict, formalised patterns to work in. The observation of a pattern, even an arbitrary pattern, can give strength to words that would otherwise wander bleating like lost lambs.
This is why it can be harder to write prose than to write poetry.
S TRESS -R HYTHMS IN P OETRY : F REE V ERSE
Free verse has no regular meter; but there are stress-patterns in most free verse, just as there are often plenty of rhymes and other rhythmic devices, though not in predictable places. Finding the flexible, changingpatterns in free verse is a matter of listening intently, using your own ear to catch the poet’s beat.
For example, in Whitman’s “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” you’ll find the hypnotic, gentle beat of that title line recurring, here and there, changed and varied, throughout the long poem: TUMtata TUMta / TUMtata TUMta. . . .
Free verse that avoids stress patterns and doesn’t use the line end as a pause may compensate by other rhythmic devices, other kinds of pattern and recurrence. One is the regular repetition of lines or parts of lines. Left to its own devices, English poetry seems to do this only in refrains; but it has imported exotic forms, such as the sestina and the pantoum, which not only set up a pattern by strict repetition, but control the range of emotion and meaning by restricting the choice of words.
The ideal of free verse is that the poem itself will find/create its own internal pattern, as unpredictable and inevitable as any fir tree, any waterfall.
S TRESS -R HYTHMS IN P ROSE
Tentatively, I propose the following statement: There are two elements to stress-rhythm in prose: first, actual syllabic stresses; second, syntactical phrases or word groups, following syntax, punctuation, sense, stress, and breath. These groups are what I call “bars.”
By reading a passage of prose aloud you will hear both the syllabic stresses and the slight pauses or rise-and-fall of intonation that break the sentence into bars. Almost certainly none of us will read or hear or “scan” it in the same way. That doesn’t matter. Prose has a whole lot of latitude.
The thing to remember is that good prose does have a stress-rhythm, subtle and complex and changing though it may be. Dull prose, clunky narrative, hard-to-read textbook stuff, lacks the rhythm that catches and drives and moves the reader’s body and mind and heart.
There are no rules for finding and feeling the rhythm of prose. It is a gift, but it is also a learnable skill—learned by practice. Probably thebest practice is reading out loud. You know how an uncomprehending reader reads out loud, a scared fourth-grader, stumbling and missing the beats? A poor reader can’t dance to the prose.
But the best reader can’t make lame prose dance.
The only rule of prose “scansion” I know is: listen to what you are reading (or writing) as closely as you can, listen for its beat, and follow your own ear. There is no right way. The way that sounds right to you is the way. (Tao Rules, OK?) Don’t worry if you mark the stresses differently at different readings. Don’t worry if others disagree.
Don’t WORry if OTHers disaGREE
DON’T WORry if OTHers DISagree
Don’t WORry if OTHers DISaGREE
With repetition and emphasis, a regular beat tends to establish itself. My last reading of that casual prose sentence, with just a wee bit of elision, is iambic tetrameter. We
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