Lecture 5: Reading Differently

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," Frost

reading closely (revisited)

The last lecture emphasiszed that the way to make sense of a poem (if at all) first requires close reading. There are very easy poems that do not require much attention (the works of Dr. Seuss come to mind--they are delightful, but they are seldom challenging or ambiguous).

Some poems really seem straightforward, but when they are looked at closely, they offer up more to the reader.

I remember being singled out (not for the first time) in high school for my stupid interpretation of a Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken." The English teacher was exasperated at my silly refusal to see what was obvious: this is a poem about someone (anyone) making a significant life choice (any significant life choice) that impacted that life hugely. The choice was the rebel/outsider/bohemian's choice; here was Frost, well before the Sumemr of Love (you can look it up), preaching anti-establishment action. Keep in mind I was in high school just around the Summer of Love, so my hippie teachers were enforcing their own brand of "establishment." Crazy :)

Admittedly, I was a bit of a wise guy, and I was a physics major; this poetry stuff was not my thing, but I still thought the teacher had got it wrong; he was not reading closely enough. Even then I knew that looking closely at things (in physics, math, art, whatever) was necessary to fully understand them.

Here is where the teacher's and my paths "diverged":

TEACHER: Look at the ending of the poem: "two roads diverged in the wood, and I -- / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference (ll 18-20).

He had a pretty good case. Even to a physics major, this was obvious/easy symbolism. The narrator reached a forking path and had to make a choice. He picked the less-traveled one (the one fewer people walked on, the non-mainstream one), and he later announces that his choice had a profound effect on him ("has made all the difference"). Had his dad told him to be an accountant and he, instead, went off to try to become a rock star?

ME: But you are not looking at the whole poem. Early on the speaker looked at his choices and decided to take one that he claims had "perhaps the better claim / Because it was grassy and wanted wear" (ll 7-8). The fact that there was more grass on it meant it was not the path most-often walked on, not the path most-often chosen. However, look at the next two lines: "Though as for that, the passing there / Had worn them really about the same" (ll 9-10). He just contradicted himself. He imagines they are completely different paths, but he then admits they are just "about the same." His choice was not between becoming an accountant and a rock star; it was between becoming an accountant and a banker or insurance salesman.

I stand by my "stupid" interpretation. You can't just ignore lines, especially in such a short poem. COULD a reader take away the meaning my teacher said was the right interpretation? Sure. But is that the only reasonable interpretation? Not if you consider the whole poem.

OK, so let's just imagine Teen-Corbally was right; after all, the lines do say what they say. The paths/choice were/was not all that different. How does the ending make sense?

And that is a terrific question. I asked you to look at all the lines, and you are forcing me to look at all the lines. Touche! My teacher asked me the same question, by the way.

ME: That makes sense if you look at these two lines--"I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence" (ll 16-17). He has ended up "somewhere," and he is much older ("ages and ages hence"). He is also sighing as he thinks back to that moment in the woods. There is almost a sense of a life that was not lived to the fullest, that was not exciting (*sigh*). Who would he be telling this too? His dead friends? His few remaining living friends? How about a grandson on a front porch (I made that part up, but that's how I visualize it). Why would an old geezer be re-telling tales of his life to a grandson and saying he made wild and crazy choices that had a profound effect when he really did not make wild and crazy choices? Old people sometimes look back, find their lives lacking, try to rationalize, justify, exaggerate. Young people do the same, but they do not fit the "ages and ages" hence phrase.

So we disagreed.

He still thought I was wrong (and a wise guy), but he acknowledged I backed up my interpretation with detailed examples. It required looking at the poem very closely. Looking at phrases, not huge chunks. Looking at patterns and contradictions and trying to apply them to the real world.

Read closely!

comparing and contrasting

Comparing and contrasting not only gives you more material to write about, but it often dictates how you will focus your analysis (your paper's thesis) and what parts of the work you will look at or not. For Paper 2 you will be comparing/contrasting three poems. Here we are going to look at the poem "Cinderella" and the folk tale on which it was based--"Aschenpeuttal" (the Brothers Grimm version of "Cinderella").

BE SURE YOU READ BOTH (they are on Etudes under Resources > Additional Readings). DO NOT think of the syrupy Disney version (based on Charles Perrault's "Cinderella") as you go through this part of the lecture. It is the wrong version; it will not make sense. Also, be sure you look up any words/phrases/references you do not know (by the way "blackjacks" is not a reference to a card game here).

Have you read both? Have you looked things up?

Sexton's modern poem is a re-telling of the classic tale collected by the Brother's Grimm. She retains the basic plot (absent father, wicked stepmother, prince inviting her to the ball, the gold, not glass, slipper, etc.), the supernatural element (the dead mother who looks after her from heaven and who calls on the birds, who do not sing, to pick up the lentils), and all of the violence (the partially-amputated feet and the eyes being pecked out by birds).

However, Sexton's poem has many differences as well. First, the language is modern and wise-cracky (satirical). She uses phrases like "gussying up" (l 45) and she keeps reminding the reader that they already know "that story" (ll 5, 10, 21, 109), and some of the references are odd and modern, such as the two stepsisters having "hearts like blackjacks" (l 29) and the ball being "a marriage market" (l 42). One reason is she is writing to a more-modern audience, and she has updated the language to meet the needs of current readers. There are other differences, though.

The first four stanzas of the poem are not in the original story at all. The examples of someone winning a lottery and making a fortune, the servant who marries a wealthy husband, the investor who is lucky enough to make a fortune, and the accident victim who calls up Larry H. Parker and collects millions of dollars in damages--these are all modern-day Cinderella stories, rags-to-riches stories. Other modern examples are seen in movies such as Pretty Woman.

All of these examples are real. Some people actually do make millions of dollars when they buy the winning Power Ball ticket, and their lives often change dramatically. This seems to reinforce the happily-ever-after ending often associated with various Cinderella stories, such as "Aschenpeuttel," where the poor girl is taken from her slavery and is made the beloved princess of the land, married to a dashing prince.

The examples, though, all happen fairly rarely. Millions play Lotto, but few win. Very few housekeepers or nannies actually marry their ultra-rich employers. Some invest and make fortunes, but the bursting of the real estate bubble and the tech stock crashes saw millions losing homes and life-savings. As often as not vicitms of extreme accidents are saddled with impossible bills, or they die. These added stanzas suggest that rags-to-riches is possible, but it is not likely.

Sexton also adds on a long section at the end of the poem. The narrator does not acknowledge the two are happy; she suggests it is just a rumor--they "lived, they say, happily ever after" (l 101). The manner in which they lived is described with an impossible list:

like two dolls in a museum case
never bothered by diapers or dust,
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
never telling the same story twice,
never getting a middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.
Regular Bobbsey Twins. (ll 102-108)

Houses have dust; babies produce dirty diapers; real people sometimes disagree and sometimes repeat themselves; real peoples' bodies change; people do not always smile (nor do they live for eternity). In the end they are being compared to ideal characters in a children's story, and that is what they are--characters in a story, not real.

Certainly readers know that "Cinderella" (in its various forms) is a tale, not reality. However, Sexton is attempting to make readers see, that living a life expecting to win the lottery or expecting a handsome man (or woman) to come along and "save" them is unrealistic. Most people's problems do not magically go away. They need to work on them; they need to save themselves.

an admission: you may have noticed...

My comparison/contrast here is not quite a full comparison/contrast. Yes, I do mention similarities to the story, but a fully-developed paper would also have drawn some documented/quoted examples from the story. Instead, I gave a very quick comparison so that I could get the the part of the analysis I thought the class would learn most from. I can only type so much, and you will only read/absorb so much. There is plenty here to give you the idea :)

just some thoughts

OK, two distinctive elements of poetry are sound and form. There is much to be said about both; however, unless you are going to be a full-on English major or a poet/songwriter, you can generally appreciate them without knowing the many, many terms and choices. I am going to, therefore, cop out and give you a few general thoughts on both, and if you are really interested, you can easily look up more techniques in any Literature Anthology (English 102 textbook) or just do a quick search for "forms of poetry" and "sound devices in poetry" :)

sound

Poetry is musical (much of the time). In fact, much of what you might sing along to when you listen to music is lyric poetry (we get the word lyrics from this). Once again, this might seem counter-intuitive. Aren't the sounds from the musical instruments the "musical" parts? Aren't the lyrics something else? The reading parts, maybe?

Yes. Sort of. Let's look at a bit of one of my favorite songs from the 21st century--"Airplanes":

[Chorus: Hayley Williams]

Can we pretend that airplanes
In the night sky are like shooting stars?
I could really use a wish right now
Wish right now
Wish right now
Can we pretend that airplanes
In the night sky
Are like shooting stars?
I could really use a wish right now
Wish right now
Wish right now

[Verse 1: B.o.B]

Yeah, I could use a dream or a genie or a wish
To go back to a place much simpler than this
'Cause after all the partyin' and smashin' and crashin'
And all the glitz and the glam and the fashion
And all the pandemonium and all the madness
There comes a time where you fade to the blackness
And when you starin' at that phone in your lap
And you're hopin' but them people never call you back
But that's just how the story unfolds
You get another hand soon after you fold
And when your plans unravel in the sand
What would you wish for if you had one chance?
So airplane, airplane, sorry I'm late
I'm on my way so don't close that gate
If I don't make that then I'll switch my flight
And I'll be right back at it by the end of the night

No, I am not forgetting or dissing Eminem's part (he adds a lot to the song), but this gives us a lot to work with already.

Even from a distance, you can see (this has to do with FORM below) that the chorus looks different from the verse(s). The lines are shorter in the chorus; they are relatively uniform in length in the verse. Interesting. Back to sound.

One sound effect often used in music is rhyme. It may be quibbling to say that "now" rhymes with "now" rhymes with "now"--these are just repeated lines. Then again, repetition is another sound effect. Another sound effect is created with all of the sibilant S's in the chorus; it makes one line flow smoothly into the next, and thst is at odds with the more jarring, staccato lines of the Eminem section (not included here). Why is that important? Well, the rough-sounding parts describe the harships following "making it" and the difficulty holding on to the original dreams; with success comes a grind, an increasing battle to be relevant, jealous rivalries, an unrelenting schedule. The chorus is soft and dreamy and gentle; B.o.B. wants to pretend that the airplanes are shooting stars (you can wish on a falling star). He's dreaming of "yesterday ... was just a dream / But those days are gone."

The choral section not only has rhyme (a sound effect): "wish/this," "crashin'/fashion," "madness/blackness," but it also has a fairly regular "TE-tum" sound (rhythm) from accented and un-accented syllables that comprise a relatively consistent line length (meter). Pauses, accents, repeated sounds, rhyme, that "Te-tum" and so on all add sound effects that make listenters (of sung or read poetry) nod heads and tap toes.

form

Some break poetry into two large categories: closed (fixed, formal) and open (free verse...but not blank verse; blank verse is actually a closed form often associated with Shakespeare). It's a pretty convenient way to break things down, but it is overly-simple and a bit deceptive. It often makes non-poets imagine that just tossing words on the fridge (like Magnetic Poetry) is freeeeeeeee verse. Free=no rules. Wrong. Go back to the "l(a" poem; there is nothing random about that poem; e e cummings thought hard and made a lot of choices. The difference is that the line and/or stanza patterns are not regular (closed/fixed/formal).

The chorus from "Airplanes" (above) is pretty free. Yes, there are repetitions and such, but line lengths vary; there is no clear rhyme scheme, and so on. The B.o.B. verse is more formal, wich a fairly regular line length, and sound patterns (rhyme, rhythm, meter). It's not completely rule-bound, but it still follows a fairly consistent pattern.

There are tons of specific forms that poets may choose to write in (some not necessarily ruled by line structure or end sounds). Some of the more popular English teacher like to point out and trot out are the sonnet, the villanelle, the sestina, terza rima, and the haiku. We will look closely at this last one in a moment. This is just a small sample of closed forms, but if you'd like to see several samples of both closed and open form...

haiku

First watch Beavis and Butthead in "For Better of Verse" (this has the controversial "light it dude" segment, by the way

Well, there you have it. A haiku is an ancient Japanese form (still quite popular; there are majore competitions in Japan) with a fixed form. The form is based on syllabics. Each (very short) poem has three lines. The first line is five-syllables (not five words; the word television, for example, is four syllables: tel-e-vi-sion), so if you used that word in the first line, you would have only one syllable left; you might produce something like

Television shows

"Tel-e-vi-sion shows" is five syllables; that's it for line one. Line two is seven syllables long, and line three is, again, five syllables long. If we expand on what we started:

Television shows
Such as Beavis and Butthead,
Are guilty pleasures

Count it out; I recommend using your fingers (really): "Tel-e-vi-sion shows" (5) / "Such as Bea-vis and Butt-head" (7) / "Are guil-ty plea-sures" (5).

There is no need to rhyme; there is not regular rhythm/meter; there isn't much. The form is very specific, and the limitations do have effct. For example, I think the last line might be better if it read "Are my guilty pleasures" (not it's about me), but "my" gives me a sixth syllable, so I had to decide what to keep and what to cut. The poems may have unexpected twists, thoughtful saying, or simple "ah" moments (like looking at a lovely snapshot and responding, "Ahhhhh...."

Often writers (this is what you will be doing on the discusson board this week) will create a haiku suite--a number of haiku on a related topic (space travel, bugs, dating, sunsets, whatever). Here is a quick haiku suite on the six animals who have lived with us since we moved into this house (three, alas, are no longer living with us, but they are alive in our memories):

Gentle Tippi cat
Once wore a sombrero
And never complained

Chutney cat was fierce,
was a Kitler cat, who scared
my mother-in-law

Vinny: red-zone dog
Betty White at the shelter
said, "He's great with kids!"

Suki-Suki's sweet
Often eats from the dog's dish,
but she licks his face

Jamhal's a feral cat.
Graceful, skinny, curious
His world's always new.

With the saddest face,
Sounding like a motor boat:
Lily bluh, bluh, bluh.

sometimes it does not seem to work

Look up sample haiku on the internet (and elsewhere). It's fun!

On occassion, you will find some that do not work; that is, they do not exactly fit the 5-7-5 syllable pattern. In most cases, these are poems that have been translated. Syllables often do not translate exactly from Japanese (or other languages) to English, so translators try to retain the feel of the original which may require one syllable more or less here or there. Here are a few sample haiku from, arguably, the master of all time, Matsuo Basho (1644-1694):

On a withered branch
A crow has alighted:
Nightfall in autumn.

None is travelling
Here along this way but I,
This autumn evening.

Won't you come and see
loneliness? Just one leaf
from the kiri tree.

Hmm.... What poem might that last haiku have inspired?

Copyright © John Corbally