I Am Not a Poet

An aspiring novelist in a poetry class revealed to his online community that he did not like poetry much. I assumed he meant writing it, because how could anyone not like poetry? But then I thought about my own experience with poetry over the years, which has been little, and I realized I am not particularly drawn to it either, though I have appreciated some good poems in my life.

The following lines then rolled out of my fingertips with ease. The first line being a tragically common springboard, but that is how the novice poet dives:

I am not a poet and I know it.
I wonder though, reflecting so,
if narrative is comparative.
These lines I write, the phrases broken,
like poetry spoken,
are prose when put back together.
Clauses and sentences make a paragraph, clever.
Cadence and flow by syntax and diction;
a must in true-story telling as in fiction.
Poetry, then, is word-play, say,
and a narrator’s a poet but won’t see it that way.

Yes, it is crap. I have no clue what type of structure it may reflect, if anything, or whether it is one stanza or several grotesquely stitched together like Frankenstein. It is a rhymer, for sure, an amateur’s game. If any scheme is reflected, it eludes me. But the flow seems fluid, and that is all that mattered to me.

I then did what the poem seems to require, string the lines together:

I’m not a poet and I know it. I wonder though, reflecting so, if narrative is comparative. These lines I write, the phrases broken, like poetry spoken, are prose when put back together. Clauses and sentences make a paragraph, clever. Cadence and flow by syntax and diction; a must in true-story telling as in fiction. Poetry, then, is word-play, say, and a narrator’s a poet but won’t see it that way.

I prefer the unbroken flow of the paragraph over the stack of lines. The paragraph loses nothing, aside from the third sentence being illogical in that format. It still reads and sounds more melodic to my ears. Perhaps it is poetry with lines laid out like chopped liver that puts me off from reading or writing more of it.

Diction comes easier to me when I’m not fully absorbed with syntax simultaneously, but it is kind of a one-two shuffle-step progression. Do good poets do that as well? Write in paragraphs first, then fudge it out into stanzas and broken lines? I suppose not. A sestina would be difficult in that way, but an elegy might be easier.

In a week’s time I will forget what sestina means.

On the matter of rhyming (and overdoing it), there are various kinds of rhymes used in that abomination. I presently attempt to identify the species with help from what is probably not the most authoritative reference, literarydevices.com:

1. ‘poet . . . know it’ — A rhyme of no particular type, as far as I can tell. It’s certainly not any kind of perfect rhyme, nor does it match any generic variety like those noted at bottom. It’s a rogue, and that’s okay with me.
2. ‘though . . . so’ — A perfect rhyme of type single: perfect because the rhyme has a matching sound; single because the rhyme stress is on the final syllable.
3. ‘narrative . . . comparative’ — A perfect rhyme of type dactylic: dactylic because the rhyme stress is on the antepenultimate (third from last) syllable, a rather special thing.
4. ‘broken . . . spoken’ — A perfect rhyme of type double: double because the rhyme stress is on the penultimate (second to last) syllable.
5. ‘together . . . clever’ — A perfect of type single.
6. ‘diction . . . fiction’ — A perfect of type double.
7. ‘word-play, say . . . way’ — A perfect of type single across three words.

As I learned and probably already forgot, a rhyme type is determined by how many common syllables can be stressed right-to-left from the ends of words. LD says dactylic rhymes, like no. 3 above, are the most rare in English use, so that one, at least, feels like a win.

And while there is a ‘perfect’ type of rhyme, there is no imperfect in relation. If the rhyme is not perfect, it is simply a generic rhyme, like one of the following:

• Near rhymes, which have the same sound but unstressed syllables (e.g. ‘ring’ and ‘tiring’)
• Eye rhymes, which have similar spelling and appear to rhyme, but do not (e.g. ‘food’ and ‘good’)
• Identical rhymes, which are not true rhymes, actually, but homonyms (same spelling and pronunciation but different meanings), a different literary device.

Identical rhymes are looked down upon in English as a lazy way out, understandably. I think eye rhymes should be frowned upon as well if you are really trying to write rhymes. In French, identical rhymes (rimes riches, meaning ‘rich rhymes’) are respectable. I can’t think of any offhand.

‘Rime’ is also a word in English, a synonym for ‘frost’. It is pronounced the same way as the French word for rhyme. And with that bit of insight, I will indulge you with one last amateur trick: I rime this line with rhyme, and alliteration for time.