“Chapterfive” in “Chapter Five”
CHAPTER FIVE
Endings and Beginnings
“Who are the ancestors of your poetry and now are their descendents?” - Joy Harjo
Very rarely does a poem arrive perfectly packaged from beginning to end, hand-delivered by the muse. We read a poem from title to last line, but rarely is it written in this order. I’ve heard poets describe pulling up poems drafted years earlier, and in the revision, only a couple lines or images from the original remain. Some poems are published in a literary magazine with one title, but appear in a full-length collection under a different title. Often, a chunk of lines or stanzas need to be cut away from the start of the poem. I call this “throat-clearing” revision, just like a person might clear their throat before speaking into a microphone, it can take a bit of writing before the poem finds its true subject. In her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet and memorist Maggie Smith breaks the fourth wall, discussing how to end a memoir in the midst of continuing life events, and turns to poetry for advice. She recalls what Stanley Plumly said about poems, “They begin in the middle and the end in the middle, only later.” This is equally true of the writing process.
First, think about how you approach a poem you’re about to read. What on the page do you take in? What do you disregard? An irony about titles is that we often scan them and don’t let the information inform the rest of what we read.
Titles
Read a poem’s title and let it sit with you, because even though titles can be such a small thing, their weight is informative. Below are some titles from the NAR’s summer/fall 2020 issue. Read each title and pause. After reading the title, what do you expect the poem to be like? How did the title set up your expectations for the poem?
“Elegy Walking Through the Woods” by Richard Jackson
“Short Hike in the Chon-Kemin Valley” by Raphael Dagold
“Idiom” by Rebecca Foust
“Self-Portrait as Scientific Observation” by Hayan Charara
“Aubade as Prey” by Alex Mouw
[Ron gone, released] by Ted Jean
“Ode to Running” by Adam Scheffler
“The Reunion” by Alice Friman
“Leaving the Funeral of My Ex-Lover’s Mother” by Jamin Warburton
Some titles, the like Warburon’s and Dagold’s poems, “Leaving the Funeral of My Ex-Lover’s Mother” and “Short Hike in the Chon-Kemin Valley,” are evocative and create a fictionesque-exposition, so much so, you might expect yourself to be dropped into a scene or meet a character. Titles like this set up more of an expectation or guide for how to read the poem. As the reader encounters the first line they have both more information and expectations than when a poem is more broadly titled like “Idiom'' or “The Reunion.” When the reader has information and expectations, then the poet has choices. Do they fulfill these or subvert them and swing the poem in a wild, new direction? When a poem is more broadly titled, there are equal options. Will Foust open her poem “Idiom'' with an idiomatic expression, a metaphor, image or something else? Some titles give a lot of information, such as the poem below we published in the NAR. From the title, we can deduce it’s a love poem, and the phrase, “love song” references T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” We know where the speaker considers their home, Peterborough, and where they are traveling, on Route 140. Compared to the poem, the title contains much information. I’ve heard titles like this described as interstate onramps to a poem, because they offer so much direction and information about the poem.
Love Song for John on Route 140, Coming Home from Peterborough by Tom Daley
Wrinkling home on Route 140,
I think of the frank loveliness
of the day, the air clean
& clear, the sky scraped
down to its blue lubricities,
each cloud seldom & singular,
adrift as a paroled convict.
I take your hand in mine
with the wistfulness
of an old fever, & think
how fortunate I am
to be kept so coolly
& lovingly in the bounds
of your heart. Love songs
have taken precedence
over prayers in the great
welter of the popular
imagination
so I offer you this one
without melody or refrain,
one that steers straight
& even as it sustains.
Other poems will tell you about their form and occasion right there in the title, like “Aubade as Prey.” An Aubade is a short poem, usually spoken lover to lover at the break of day. Other titles will signal other types of poems and even forms, such as elegy, ode, lament, or sonnet. It’s worth noting that some poets chose to not title their poems. Shakespeare’s sonnet and Emily Dickinson had their work ordered and numbered posthumously, based on the best available chronological information. Other times a poet might choose to not title their work and the first line of the poem stands in for the title, but the first line is set apart in the title space with bracket’s like Ted Jean’s poem [Ron gone, released]. Read the entire poem below. What do you notice about it? Why do you think the poet chose to not title this piece?
[Ron gone, released] by Ted Jean
Rone gone, released
in some presumably
state sanctioned sooty furnace
to hydrogen, discredited carbon
and feathery blonde ash
in an unsealed gray shoe box
in the passenger seat
on the silent drive home
on the mantle over a
wine fueled fire with friends
on the desk by my elbow
at the midnight window
as sleet through street light
appears to rise in flames
Of course, all titles are important, but I posit that poem titles can do more signaling about the content to come than other genres. In poetry, a title can signify a form such as “Sestina” by Elizabeth Bishop or “Sonnet with a Different Letter at the End of Every Line” by George Starbuck” or “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Reservation” by Natalie Diaz. Titles can also indicate types of lyric poems that follow a specific manner or style: ode, lament, aubade, elegy, pastoral. Examples are: “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats or “Ninth Elegy” by Ranier Maria Rilke.
Like in other forms of art, poets might use a style of painting or music, and words such as “self-portrait, “still life, “triptych,” “song,” “hymn,” and even “poem” as part of the title. A preposition can start some titles, such as Marvin Bell’s “To Dorothy. Prepositions such as “to,” “for” or “on,” might serve as a dedication or occasion, as in Ben Johnson’s (1572–1637) short poem, “On my First Son.” Then, there are certain types of poems that signify a convention, like a poem written for a wedding, or a spring poem, written on the occasion of spring emerging, noting that below all that greening, new life, spring is really a messy, muddy business as William Carlow William shows in “Spring and All.” Ars Poetica is Latin for “the art of poetry,” and these poems offer meta-commentary on the art or act of writing a poetry
Poets create similar titles for poems in a series, like John Berryman’s Dream Songs, titled “Dream Song 1” “Dream Song 2,” and so on. The contemporary poet Jane Hirshfield has a series of poems titled after the scientific process of assays: Interruption: “Possibility: An Assay,” “To Spareness: An Assay,” “To Opinion: An Assay,” to name a few.
Sometimes, writing a poem is easier than coming up with its title. If you find yourself struggling to title a poem you’ve written, try this trick described by Marvin Bell: go three lines up from the end of the poem and five words in. Here, you’ll likely find a word, a few words, or a phrase for your title. Maybe you’ll find your literal title right there: three perfect words in a row, or an approximate title, or the title’s inspiration. This trick really works, because as Bell explained, at this point the poem is circling its [rhetorical heart] (my phrasing).
Epigraphs
An epigraph is a short quotation at the beginning of a book, chapter, or poem. If occurring at the beginning of a book or chapter (as in this text), the epigraph can serve as a kind of dedication or stage setting for the subject, and if it occurs at the beginning of a poem, it can serve the same aforementioned purpose, but also provide historical context for the poem, like “The Invention of Ether,” a poem below by Katy Aisenberg that won the Hearst Poetry Prize. Epigraphs can help gloss and provide context for a reference the reader might not garner from the poem itself.
Pause after the title and epigraph. After you read each, what can you deduce from the title? What about the epigraph? What more do you expect to follow? How would the poem be different if the epigraph weren’t there?
The Invention of Ether by Katy Aisenberg
October 1846, Boston MA.
In the red brick city, under the blue glass dome
Twelve doctors removed a tumor from the woman's jaw.
The only sound was their occasional organized chatter
And her easy breathing.
The day they first used ether no one knew
How much we would have to forget.
All over America citizens opened their mail
Ripping their triumphantly new American stamps.
They had no thought that their civil country would suddenly split in two
Like a woman laboring to bring forth an unwieldy child.
They walked to the bank with gold firm in their hands.
Buildings stayed balanced with no peculiar thought
To the slightest sweetness in the air, the small hiss of gas
As souls escaped into the atmosphere.
The world was a white and sunny ward.
There is so much to remember to forget,
She murmured before sucking deeply from the glass tube
And counting to three under the blue Bullfinch dome.
Dr Morton controlled her breathing, Dr Warren proclaimed
She feels no pain.
Endings
When a poem really lands its ending, you can feel it. You might see the ending coming, but more likely probably not, and the poem takes off in a new direction. Some poems referenced in this text that have killer endings are Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” and James Wright, “A Blessing.” They are all sharp, unexpected, and perfect.
Just as first lines can be difficult in some poems, endings can be as well. As an editor, I read thousands and thousands of poems a year. Some poems I read continue on well past where they should have ended, which often occurs when a poet doesn’t trust that they’ve said what they wanted to when they said it in stanza two and stanza seven. An image might repeat or a new metaphor might introduce a concept that was perfectly illustrated with a previous metaphor. Some poems meander, and never find their finale. Even though a volta is used in discussions of sonnets, it’s a helpful idea for ending all poems. In Italian, “volta” means ”turn,” referring to the turn of argument or thought between the octet and sestet in a Petracharn sonnet of between the first three quatrains and the heroic couplet in a Shakespearean sonnet. A great example is “Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” where the speaker spends the first three quatrains weighing his girlfriend’s appearance and way of being against the beauty standards of the time and finds her wanting, but says he loves her anyway and she’s beyond compare in the last two lines.
In tanka, a Japanese poem of thirty one syllables, usually written like 5/7/5/7/7 there is also a turn that occurs around the third line, dividing the poem roughly in half. The first two or three lines are called the “kami-no-ku” or upper poem and the last two lines are the “shimo-no-ku” or lower poem.
The sonnet and tanka examples are not a formula for all poems, but a reminder to the writer that there needs to be a change, a shift in the wind, a perception that is earned and delightful. Some poetry teachers have advised students to always end on an action, the thinking being that verbs and actions connote energy are therefore inherently dynamic. Others have advised to end on an image, which can offer the opportunity for powerful and evocative figurative language. Personally, I have found that there’s no “one size fits all” way to end a poem. You will need to find your way out of each poem you write.
Below are two poems that first appeared in the NAR. The first poem, “Geneva Avenue” by Kristen Abel is an aching recollection of abandonment and for fear of spoiler alerts, I won’t say too much about the second poem, “Self-Portrait with Curses at 35,000 Feet” by Hayan Charara, except to note that all of Charara’s work we’ve published in the NAR end with a smack to the head you didn’t see coming. These two poems end so differently–one with a bang and one with a whimper, and yet both are about loss, They end wildly differently, and had to come to their own reckoning.
Geneva Avenue by Kristen Abel
The front door was always open. The dog always slept half in, half out.
Afternoons, I’d watch the neighbor girl smoke her father’s cigarettes
Out on the front porch. He’s cool with it, she’d say. He’s cool with
Pretty much anything. I’d turn down a drag. I’d use my shoe to nudge
A lemon dropped from a nearby tree. Nights, I was in charge.
I’d make my brothers bologna sandwiches, one with syrup and two without.
Sometimes we’d sit on the side steps and listen to the summer rains.
One night, the neighbor girl’s father threw a party.
I could see my father’s face from the kitchen window, bright with beer
And torchlight and the telling of some wild story. I was washing dishes.
My brothers were in the other room watching Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.
I slotted a plate into the drying rack. I looked across the yard
littered with skateboards and lemon trees. It was a clear night. I was thirteen
and alone. That’s all. Nothing bad happened. When people ask me
Why I don’t visit anymore or call, why I can’t forgive, I say
There’s nothing to say. There’s nothing to forgive. I finished the dishes
and went into the other room. I wasn’t hungry and I’d already seen
the movie anyways, twice, so instead I watched my brothers eat.
Self-Portrait with Curses at 35,000 Feet by Hayan Charara
On a flight to Detroit
the guy next to me
told me about his shitty job,
his dumb,
slobbering dog,
his good-for-nothing
kids, two of them–
assholes–and his lying,
cheating wife.
Moving
at 500 mph
above the earth without
feeling it,
I listened to him go on
and on, his pain
bad to worse–
to what wisdom
does suffering
give birth?
–and must we always
learn from it?
Earlier
that morning,
my mother had died,
and going back to her,
once
and for all,
I would find out.
But first
I had to suffer
Bob–
fucking Bob.
Exercise 1: Begin with the End
Use the last line of a poem you’ve written that is still in the revision stage, or borrow the last line of a poem from this chapter (listed below for your convenience) and make it the first line of your poem for this exercise. You can make small alterations like adding articles, prepositions, etc.
- appears to rise in flames
- more being than I can hold springs up in my heart
- she feels no pain
- fucking Bob
- the movie anyways, twice, so instead I watched my brothers eat.
- as what he loves may never like too much.
- grip down and begin to awaken
- as any she belied with false compare
- Zion or Oklahoma, or some other hell they’ve mapped out for us
Exercise 2: Pick a Title Style
A number of ways to title a poem were discussed in this chapter. You can use any one of these (use a form, preposition, or write a poem using a lyrical convention like an abode or elegy).
Exercise 3: Use the News
Write a poem like Frank O’Hara’s (1926–1966) “The Day Lady Died,” which is a kind of elegy for Billie Holiday. O’Hara’s poem ripple with life, even in the midst of elegy, a poem of reflection, particularly to grieve the dead or what’s lost. Use the structure of O’Hara’s poem to write your own, which you can base off a current or historical news headline. You’ll notice that O’Hara’s poem uses:
- an event that makes national news or on the day you lost something important to you
- time or chronological events as the speaker goes throughout his day
- includes copy or text from what the speaker reads
- there is a personal “I” that moves to a collective “we” by the end of the poem
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