Lesson 9: Of Verse & Versification, or Why Poetry? Why Now?
Lesson Objectives:
 Contextualize the place of poetry in the narrative tradition.
 Answer the question - why poetry, why now? – using “evidence” from poems by Edgar
Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Marianne Moore, Archibald MacLeish, Frank O’Hara, and
Billy Collins.
 Complements the verse of Poe, Whitman, Moore, MacLeish, O’Hara, and Collins with
evidence gleaned from “manifesto” statements by Dylan Thomas and Frank O’Hara.
 Begin the poetry block by examining in detail Edgar Allan Poe’s “Sonnet – To Science.”
Handouts: Identify handouts sent to cadet email accounts/posted on course website:
 Poetry Block - Supplemental Handouts
 “Sardines” – Michael Goldberg
 Analysis (Example) of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Sonnet – To Science”.
Pedagogical Intent: This lesson begins the poetry block by focusing upon the question, why
poetry, why now? It aims to make poetry relevant to cadets. After reading excerpts of Dylan
Thomas’s “Poetic Manifesto” aloud, we will listen twice to Billy Collins read his poem, “Japan.”
Cadets will begin their analysis of poetry by assessing Collins’s “Japan” with respect to the
excerpted elements of Thomas’s manifesto in a free-writing exercise. We will then examine in
detail Edgar Allan Poe’s “Sonnet – To Science.” The class will conclude with a brief discussion
of similar themes, ideas about poetry, expressed in the assigned poems of Whitman, Moore,
MacLeish, and O’Hara.
Scheme of Maneuver:
 Why Poetry? Why Now?
 Dylan Thomas, from “Poetic Manifesto,” written in 1955:
o “I, myself, do not read poetry for anything but pleasure. I read only the poems I like.
This means, of course, that I have to read a lot of poems I don’t like before I find the
ones I do, but, when I do find the ones I do, then all I can say is, ‘Here they are,’ and
read them to myself for pleasure” (1066).
o “What does it matter what poetry is, after all? If you want a definition of poetry, say:
‘Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails crinkle,
what makes me want to do this or that or nothing, and let it go at that. All that matters
about poetry is the enjoyment of it, however tragic it may be. All that matters is the
eternal movement behind it, the vast undercurrent of human grief, folly, pretension,
exaltation, or ignorance, however unlofty the intention of the poem” (1066).
 For appreciation of Dylan Thomas’s “definition” of poetry, listen to Billy Collins reading his
poem,“Japan”:
o http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfo0ok_billy-collins-japan_creation
o Listen twice.
 Have cadets write for seven minutes, considering Collins’s theme.
 Examine in detail Poe’s “Sonnet – To Science.”
o See handouts.
 Revisit Thomas’s “Poetic Manifesto”:
“You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it technically tick, and say to yourself,
when the works are laid out before you, the vowels, the consonants, the rhymes, or
rhythms, ‘Yes, this is it. This is why the poem moves me so. It is because of the
craftsmanship.’ But you’re back again where you began. You’re back with the
mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes
and gaps in the works of the poem so that something that is not in the poem can
creep, crawl, flash, or thunder in. The joy and function of poetry is, and was, the
celebration of man, which is also the celebration of God” (1066).
Whitman, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”
o How are Whitman’s astronomer and poet similar? Different?
o Like Poe, Whitman juxtaposes “science” and “nature” - with an eye towards
assessing man’s changing understanding of the world in which he lives.
 Can poetry provide “proofs,” “figures,” “charts,” and “diagrams”?
 Does poetry afford one the ability to “add,” “divide,” and “measure”?
 At first glance, no – but, then again, perhaps poetry DOES afford one the
opportunity to provide proofs, to analyze figures, to offer “charts” of a sort…
Poetry certainly offers one the ability to “add” to the world…or to “divide” it
– and certainly to “measure” it.
o Again, Whitman posits science and the arts as “natural” antagonists.
o The poet, unlike the astronomer – who lectures to much acclaim in a crowded lectureroom – the poet wanders off by himself into “the mystical moist night-air”.
o The astronomer studies, charts, diagrams, adds, divides, and measures the cosmos.
Conversely, the poet, off by himself, gazes “up in perfect silence at the stars.”
o Poe, too, relies upon the “mystical” in “Sonnet – To Science.” Discuss the similarities
and differences between the two poems.
o Examine the poet’s actions – what he “does” in the poem:
 “I heard”
 “I was shown”
 “I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured”
 “I became tired and sick”
 “I wander’d”
 “[I] look’d up in perfect silence”
o Examine Poe’s, Whitman’s and Moore’s use of the following adjectives:
 Poe – “true” daughter
 Whitman – “perfect” silence
 Moore – “perfect” contempt
Marianne Moore, “Poetry”:
o Moore edited and revised this poem extensively throughout her life.
 1919/1921 – 29 lines – in Poems.
 1924 – 13 lines - in Observations.
 1935 – 38 lines – in Selected Poems (with an introduction by T.S. Eliot)
 1967 – 4 lines – in Complete Poems.
o Moore examines the role of poetry in a modern, materialistic society. In essence, like
Archibald MacLeish, she tells us what poetry should “be.”
o She makes a very clear distinction between “good” (or authentic or genuine) and
“bad” poetry.
o
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o She insists poetry should be accessible, “genuine” – and deal with the “real” world.
 Poetry provides “a place for the genuine” (Line 3).
 Poets must be “literalists of the imagination” (Line 21-22) – derived from
Yeats’s discussion of William Blake, in which he critiques Blake for being a
“too literal realist of imagination.” Ideas of Good and Evil.
 Poetry should provide “imaginary gardens with real toads in them” (Line 24).
o “[B]usiness documents and school-books” (Line 17) – from Tolstoy.
o What distinction does Moore’s speaker draw between “half poets” and “literalists of
the imagination”?
o Some things to consider:
 Is Moore’s speaker being ironic when s/he says “I, too, dislike it” (Line 1).
 Is poetry “all this fiddle”?
 But, if one approaches poetry, or “all this fiddle” with “a perfect contempt for
it, one discovers in it, after all, a place for the genuine.” (Lines 2-3).
 Reality (whether “Hands that can grasp, eyes that can dilate” or “hair that can
rise if it must”) makes poetry “genuine” (Line 3) and “useful” (Line 7).
 Note the negative connotations/denotations associated with:
 “contempt” (Line 2)
 “derivative” (Line 8)
 “unintelligible” (Line 9)
 “half poets” (Line 19)
 “insolence” (Line 23)
 “triviality” (Line 23)
 What is “the raw material of poetry” (Line 26) ?
 Note Moore’s use of “raw” and “rawness” as necessary for “genuine” poetry.
 Compare/contrast Moore’s “take” on poetry with Poe’s and Whitman’s.
 Compare/contrast Moore’s “take” on poetry with MacLeish’s.
o MacLeish, “Ars Poetica”:
 Translates to “Art of Poetry”.
 Long Ars Poetica tradition, including Aristotle, Horace.
 MacLeish was a prominent modernist poet, later perhaps the most influential
Librarian of Congress ever.
 The poem’s ending: “A poem should not mean / But be.” is considered
something of a modernist manifesto.
 The poem is a long litany of what a poem “should be”:
 “palpable and mute” (Line 1).
 “Silent” (Line 5).
 “wordless” (Line 7).
 “motionless in time” (Line 9).
 “equal to: Not true.” (Lines 17-18).
 Examine how, like Whitman and Poe, MacLeish links poetry to nature.
 What do we make of MacLeish’s moon imagery?
 What about his use of fruit, stone, moss, birds, twigs, trees, a maple
leaf, leaning grasses, and the sea?
o O’Hara, “Why I Am Not a Painter”:
 Written in 1956.
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Michael Goldberg – painter known for his abstract expressionism. Of the New
York School of painters (most notably, perhaps, Willem de Kooning and
Jackson Pollock).
 O’Hara actually published the collection, Oranges: 12 Pastorals in 1953.
 This poem suggests a “real” scene in which two friends – a poet and a painter
– separately (though not independently) work at their craft. The painter paints
a painting entitled “Sardines,” the poet, a prose poem – which turns into a
collection of twelve poems – entitled, “Oranges.”
 The poem “feels” real – or at least strives for verisimilitude. O’Hara
(obviously a “real” poet) seems to take on the role of the speaker of his poem.
He calls upon his “friend,” Mike Goldberg, a prominent mid-century painter,
and finds him working on a painting. The painting has SARDINES in it…
Ultimately, though, the final painting only has letters, signifying nothing. The
poem’s speaker writes a line about the color orange – then a whole page –
then a poem – then a collection of poems…all without, he insists, a single
reference to orange in it. He then titles the collection “Oranges.”
 This is ostensibly a poem about a painting “about” sardines that has no
sardines in it and a poem (or collection of poems) about oranges with no
oranges in them.
 Consider whether this is a poem about the differences between painting and
poetry – or the similarities.
 Consider the poem in terms of:
 O’Hara’s thematic interest in abstraction vs. realism.
 Form / structure vs. “meaning”
 Form / structure vs. artistic intent.
 End results – did either artist “know” what the final product would
look like? Note that “editing” and “revision” results in quite different
end results than originally intended.
 Examine what the speaker means when he insists: “It is even in / prose, I am a
real poet” (Lines 24-25).
Where else might we find “poetry”?
o Are music lyrics poetry?
 Lyrical poetry.
o Rap music – discuss Kelefa Sanneh’s New Yorker review essay.
Looking Ahead:
 Lesson 10 – Of Fathers Literal & Figurative
o Whitman, “Crossing Brooklyn Bridge” (NAP 684)
o Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz” (NAP 955).
o Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays” (NAP 968).
o Ginsberg, “A Supermarket in California” (NAP 1067).