where does genius end and pretension begin?

Now i lay(with everywhere around)

me(the great dim deep sound

of rain;and of always and of nowhere)and

what a gently welcoming darkestness--

In an attempt to broaden my horizons, I've recently made a concerted effort to read new poets. At the library I checked out Mary Oliver, then — as an indulgence — Sappho, and finally — on a whim — E.E. Cummings. Cummings and Oliver couldn't be any more different. Oliver's poems have a deceptive sort of depth; her invigorating sentences grounded in the natural world give way to questions of life, the soul, and philosophy. Cummings, on the other hand, is far less sly — or far more, depending on how you look at things. While Oliver's poetry is approachable for a casual read, Cummings is the complete opposite. He abstracts, intertwines, deconstructs, and obscures.

What does it mean to obscure a poem? Is it a conscious act? If so, is it a malicious or an ingenious one? The line between 'profound' and 'shallow' feels all too thin. One could imagine Cummings awash in his own self-aggrandizing praise, but he could equally be a humble crafter, a genius of the mind. Which is Cummings? On which side of that line does he fall? In fact, where is that line?

In the early 20th century, female poets were a rarity. Even as they gained prominence within critical circles, it was through a particular brand of poetry that leaned heavily towards beauty, frills, or other feminine ideals. There was a widespread view that women were simply suited to this watered-down "the flowers are pretty" type of poetry, as if anything more introspective were impossible within the female mind. Even those poets that escaped these confines were regarded poorly rather than praised.

now i lay me down(in a most steep

more than music)feeling that sunlight is

(life and day are)only loaned:whereas

night is given(night and death and the rain

Around the same time, a different renaissance was happening: free verse was gaining popularity over traditional verse, and the old eastern institutions felt threatened. These two debates converged as women began to write with fervor and all began to experiment and push the bounds of what could be considered "poetry". In that time, one of many pioneers in women's poetry emerged, a poet who blended traditional verse, traditional "feminine" expectations, and a depth of reflection that none could deny: Sara Teasdale. Teasdale's collection, Love Songs, was immensely popular, winning the 1918 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the first winner in that category. As evidenced by the name, she found her way to the hearts of critics through the very stereotypes placed upon her. She leaned into poems about nature, flowers, love, and men, but she also innovated, pushed bounds, and charted her own path.

Teasdale, however, was not part of the new age movement championing free verse. She had other priorities:

What Teasdale prized in poetry was its ability to "deepen our sense of living"... Traditional verse had an advantage that free verse lacked—"it is so easily remembered."

(Schoen 1986, 99)

In a letter to her husband, she expanded:

My main idea is that... poetry has to have a certain smooth-flowing quality in order to be easily memorized—and that to be easily memorized is one of the reasons for poetry... One is absolutely forced to believe that the melody is in itself valuable—only valuable when it is unforced and fresh and inevitable.

(Schoen 1986, 99-100)

That being said, Teasdale prioritized content over form:

If a poem is of any value it must spring directly from the experience of the writer—not necessarily from an external experience but at least from a spiritual one. If a poem is sincere and springs from deep emotion, no matter what the form, it will be of value to us.

(Schoen 1986, 101)

These, to me, feel like two different points that can be distilled as follows:

1. Poetry, like music, has value that originates purely from rhythm. Further, rhythm facilitates memorization, which is one of the key functions of poetry.

2. The content is far more important than the form of a poem.

I tend to agree with both of the above. I can enjoy and cherish a free verse poem as I would a traditionally structured one, but when the cold winds sweep over the dense, hardened sand of Oregon beaches, it will not be the words that come to mind, but the rhythm.

Teasdale, ironically, was often criticized for the "monotony" of her poems. Carol B. Schoen, in her 1986 biography of the poet, explains why:

The brief half-line ending of each stanza, the standard practice in Sapphic tradition, lends a sense of weightiness and finality to each part of the poem. Her adeptness with this particular form was so great that, in fact, it threatened to make the extended reading of many of her poems together seen monotonous and formulaic, often obscuring the real virtues of any particular one…

This was not helped by Teasdale's attention to theme, often grouping poems in her collections by topic or sensation. In my first essay, I analyzed one of these sections in particular:

sara teasdale and her beach poems - Cat Café

better than dune 2

It may be one of my favorites, but Schoen is right, the criticism feels evident.

Yet, there is something to be said about consistency and simplicity. Consider the following poem:

We are two eagles

Flying together

Under the heavens

Over the mountains

Stretched on the wind.

Sunlight heartens us,

Blind snow baffles us,

Clouds wheel after us

Ravelled and thinned.

We are like eagles,

But when Death harries us,

Human and humbled

When one of us goes,

Let the other follow,

Let the flight be ended,

Let the fire blacken,

Let the book close.

This poem was fairly easy to memorize, so much so that I did exactly that on a bus ride to Bologna simply because I liked it. There is a value in memorization, in having other people's words in your head. Not to think for you, but rather to speak through them, to convey your words as others have conveyed with much better success. It is because of this that I have snippets in my head, collections, literary knickknacks that will stick with me forever.

As Teasdale mentioned, the issue with free verse is that it is far less conducive to this kind of impromptu memorization/recitation. Does that diminish its value? Depends on the reader, I guess. That being said, the inherent complexity of language associated with free verse rather than traditional verse can feel... pretentious.

are given;and given is how beautifully snow)

Poems, when written in free verse, are akin to an un-cracked nut or an unsolved puzzle. The traditional verse poet need not spend hours obscuring when they already spend hours crafting rhymes — the complexity is the rhythm. The free verse writer, however, runs the risk of appearing "elementary" without extensive convolution. It is this tendency that runs the risk of turning potentially good poetry into an inside joke only the author understands. What is the point of poetry if it makes the reader feel like a detective? Metaphors exist not to serve as clues but rather a way of expressing what otherwise could not be expressed. What I mean is, free verse poetry can often take literary structures and convert them from tool to weapon. Additionally, as stated previously, the lack of rhythm means the lack of a savior. "If the lyrics are bad and the music doesn't exist, how good is the song?"

Poems should not be cracked like nuts, they should be appreciated, understood, and cherished. The line, then, between beauty of word and obscurity of word is increasingly blurry.

now i lay me down to dream of(nothing

i or any somebody or you

can begin to begin to imagine)

In his seminal work, Ways of Seeing, John Berger explores the ways in which art — specifically paintings — are mystified by the very people who claim to appreciate them. Here, he criticizes the description provided by an art historian of one of Franz Hals' final works:

The compositional unity of a painting contributes fundamentally to the power of its image. It is reasonable to consider a painting's composition. But here the composition is written about as though it were in itself the emotional charge of the painting. Terms like 'harmonious fusion', 'unforgettable contrast', 'reaching a peak of breadth and strength' transfer the emotion provoked by the image from the plane of lived experience, to that of disinterested 'art appreciation'. All conflict disappears. One is left with the unchanging 'human condition', and the painting considered as a marvellously made object.

Mystification is thus a tool used, knowingly or unknowingly, to divert art criticism from the meaning of a particular work to the style in which it was crafted. In the process, it dilutes political messaging, disregards artistic intent, and shifts all praise to "technique" — something which of course can only be properly appreciated by the educated elite.

This type of mystification occurs across all of the artistic disciplines, yet its influence has most visibly penetrated the free verse discourse. Is a poem good because its message and form combine to create a sum greater than its parts — a harmonious function? Or is it simply good because the craftsman knew what he was doing? Are we — the reader — simply unable to understand his profound message?

Many view all poetry this way, and to a certain extent, I understand where they're coming from. Poetry can often feel like this foreign, unwieldy thing that only the educated understand. Yet, not all of poetry is like this. A simple poem can be equally as valuable as a complex one. It is only that pressure for complexity that births the shelled walnut and thousand-piece puzzle.

I don't want this to be misconstrued as a criticism of *all* free verse poetry. Rather, it's a sentiment that I have observed both within myself when reading free verse and have heard from others regarding poetry as a whole. It is frustrating to feel left out. Likewise, it is frustrating to read something which believes itself to be profound yet is let down by a juvenile form. Mary Oliver's Wild Geese, in all its splendor, seems to hit the deadeye between these two extremes. It is my opinion that most or all good poetry strikes this same balance.

something which nobody may keep.

now i lay me down to dream of Spring.

When I began reading Cummings, I worried that I would find his poems too far to the "obscurity" extreme. In fact, I did find many poems which struck me as particularly self-indulgent. His satires, in particular, felt like an unnecessarily complex joke — one which predicates on the target not being able to understand what Cummings is saying. Does this, as Teasdale posits, "deepen our sense of living"? I would argue not. However, Cummings' poetry was not without its gems. One of my favorites, Now i lay(with everywhere around) his been interspersed throughout this essay. I find its slow, winding path to the ultimate line a beautiful way to structure Cummings' admission on uncertainty and change.

Even Now i lay's cadence has a certain sort of rhythm, despite lacking traditional structure (both rhythmically and grammatically). Cummings' meandering cadence and use of repetition combine to create a beautiful, uncertain experience which reflects its subject: Spring. Would this have been possible within a traditional rhyme structure? Maybe, but maybe not. Yet again, to use the Teasdale litmus, does this "deepen our sense of living"? 100%. Thus, the form is of no matter, the poem "is of value to us".

And, perhaps most importantly, Now i lay, when compared to other Cummings poems, is easily remembered. So when the Spring comes, when I hear the great dim deep sound of rain, and when I lay myself to sleep, Cummings' words will come to mind in a manner "unforced and fresh and inevitable".