Read The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing Online
Authors: Richard Hugo
Tired of fishing
boys throw a dog off the bridge.
Putting it together:
In St. Ignatius, swallows hit
the dead end of sky
then turn on themselves. Long ago
Indians thanked the church
and changed into trees. Tired of fishing
boys throw a dog off the bridge.
But three lines in a row we’ve withheld the subject a moment. Too much stylistic monotony? Let’s pop the subject home first at least once:
Swallows hit
the dead end of sky in St. Ignatius
then turn on themselves. Long ago
Indians thanked the church
and changed into trees. Tired of fishing
boys throw a dog off the bridge.
Note that the monotony of self-introspective life in St. Ignatius is implied by the approximately equal length of the sentences (word count fourteen, ten, ten, syllabic count eighteen, fourteen, twelve) and the relatively flat tone. Connections are not stated, yet we know the three statements are connected. They are connected because the same poet wrote all three. That is, they are products of one vision that, along with style, becomes the adhesive force. This adhesive force will be your way of writing. Assume the next thing belongs because you put it there. The real reason may be clearer later.
Whatever the merits of the stanza (the inevitability of the progression remains in doubt, a risk normal to the flat tone), at least it moves from one thing to another without excuses and for no reasons external to the poem, such as narrative logic, or description. When writing assume the right of all things to be resides in the things themselves.
But that can get you in trouble too.
Check Your Barometer
Feeling alone, they reach for stars,
Making sure they have ten sides.
Higher, puffs of cotton hang motionless,
Suspended.
Mist fills the air and drops of water
Too heavy to stay aloft make targets on a mirror.
Men from the tower will never believe.
They are protected.
Dead, grey with what might be age, the tree
Becomes encased in flame
Heat.
Trails of perspiration race down the furs
It will be gone soon
That will give the snow a chance to melt.
Flat-toned as the St. Ignatius stanza is, we had a sense of someone behind it. In this poem, the world seems separated from the poet’s capacity to respond to it. What is missing is a stance. Since I believe any stance, no matter how melodramatic, is preferable to none, I’ll rewrite the poem and take liberties to simulate some inner landscape that, if not now missing altogether, is at least negligible.
They hate me, the men who reach for stars
and save for export those with ten sides.
Outside my window, puffs of phony cotton
on the cottonwood hang high as stars
and I can’t reach them. Mist dots my mirror
mornings, and my face stays vague.
Men in the tower, between the big dipper and dew,
with disdain look down where I wave.
Grey with age, with fatigue, some day the cottonwood’s
bound to explode in flame, the sweat
that runs the bark will be my sweat,
some old shame perspiring again, the hurt.
The cotton will drift down warm to my hand.
The snow will run.
Not much better, but certainly, in all its corn, more human. Perhaps, in some ways the first poem seems just as good, but did anyone write it? At least a fool wrote the second version.
Formal verse can help the young poet locate things to say but can also obligate him to say things he wouldn’t say except to fill out the form. Here is a far better than average try by a young man just starting.
From Eola, Illinois, in the Summer
1.
My brother left today before the storm.
His Buick raised the dust along the road,
then he was gone. He left behind the farm,
and, in the place we once had talked, there showed
the weathered white of planks our barn turned old.
The roads are paved for miles beyond our town,
where the women sit the afternoons alone.
And somewhere east Chicago grates across the ground.
2.
Our cows have eaten grass turned brown so long
and wind just barely lifts and stirs the leaves.
We’ve lost our dogs. Our summertimes are wrong,
our town grown old with heat. And no one gives.
At home, in stores, our men complain of sleeves—
their sleeves too warm, too long for August days.
But then, we like our town and all its ways.
We never went so wrong they had to build a bar.
3.
The afternoon he went away we sat
outside the house to eat and talk out loud.
We said that Illinois was always flat,
so goddamned flat it wanted to be plowed.
We hate the mountains. We would rather crowd
or sprawl across the plains. Our farms are dead.
But while we talked the clouds rolled in like lead,
so hot and dark we finally moved inside to talk.
4.
That something hard about the storms out here—
we watched it move among the farms to ours
and felt it shake the tree. We heard it near
the gate, then rain began to pelt the cars
and slosh the yard and spatter down the flowers.
For once, at least, the streets could look that bare
without excuse—but who would ever care?
We have our houses still, my friend, and they are white.
5.
So nothing came, and nothing went, it seems.
We all had talked about the chance of hail,
tornados, floods. But now we know they’re dreams,
and all that ever really comes is mail.
And sitting on the porch, it’s just as well.
But sometimes thoughts about those raging storms
that crack the peaks creep up and touch our arms.
We hate our lives. We hate our farms.
Obviously there’s much padding, but there’s also more honesty than usual for an early poem. Two problems strike me as important. The form is often forcing the poet to make the line unit a unit of grammar as well as of sound. This could easily be remedied. For example:
The afternoon he went away we sat
outside the house to eat and talk. We believed out loud
that Illinois [etc.]
The poet said “talk out loud” because he wanted to make the rhyme, and the easiest way to make it is to make the unit of sound also the unit of sense. Consequently he is over-end-stopping, padding, and being redundant. The form is forcing him to excesses of words.
The other problem is a failure to realize that rhymes are often effective if they come at unexpected moments. Let’s go to work on the last stanza.
Nothing came. And nothing went. It seems
we talked and talked about the chance of hail,
tornados, flood. Now we know they’re dreams.
All that ever comes is mail.
It’s just as well.
Sitting on the porch we dream those storms
that crack the peaks and tingle in our veins.
We hate our lives. We hate our farms.
That isn’t right either. But we are getting there. A sudden shortening of the line from the established pattern can make a rhyme more interesting. (I don’t know why he numbered the stanzas. I forgot to ask him.) Of course, there’s much more work to be done.
A few possibilities. Since he’s padding, the form may be too big. He might try a seven-line stanza, rather than an eight. Given that English is deficient in good full rhymes, he might consider using slant rhymes to give himself more chances. Too many of his rhyme words are words that can be used only as one part of speech. Others could be used more than one way. “Farm” and “storm” can also be verbs, for example, but by limiting them to nouns he increases the possibility he will write end-stops. For all the faults of the poem, the effort is commendable. The impulse to write seems strong and immediate, and he should learn much working this way.
Let’s take one more complete poem because it demonstrates several important problems.
Cycle
Old, one of the first to know; he senses
but does not care.
There are no fathers and sons, only old bucks,
and young ones,
He is tough, strong, in his prime at five, or
six.
Ready!
He tests the air in impatience, his nose impassioned
from the burning smell.
Real memory is beyond him, but lying somewhere
in the unmeasured distance is instinct.
Testicles pulsing with life, becoming strong
after the long dormancy of winter, flood his
body with hormones of desire.
Restless, he urinates, paws and stamps, his
range smelling to high heaven.
She is ready, close to estrus.
She came easier than the others,
His defense still smooth and shiny
Madness, heat, fondness nearly between them.
This is a good example of a poem that does not move. It contains more information than is necessary. The poet is milking every last detail out of the situation. He is depending on the drama of the event, the mating of deer, to carry the poem. The suspense lies outside the poem, and by referring to that suspense, the situation itself, the poet hopes to build suspense in the poem with rhetorical devices: “testicles pulsing with life,” “Restless, he urinates, paws and stamps,” “She is ready, close to estrus.” The Swan is fooling around and Leda is getting ready.
The first seven lines are description, characterization, and scene-setting. When the poem says “Ready!” it really is asking if we are ready for the poem to begin. The poem is starting way too early.
The poem cannot be written because the poet reduced the possibilities by sticking with one established subject. He wanted one subject to carry the poem and felt that everything must refer to what prompted the poem. Here are some things the poet could have done to avoid trying to wring every last drop of drama out of a single event. He could have located the event. Where did it happen? Was there a river nearby? If not, does the poem need one? If so, put it there. A wheatfield? A mountain? What if the deer mated in an abandoned mining town? That would give the poem many more things to work with. For example, the following words would be available: sluice, flume, gold, silver, ore, slag, lead, graves, miners, church, photos, gun, rifle, grub, shaft. Certainly with words like those available the poet need not have been forced by the limitations he put on himself to use “impassioned,” “unmeasured distance,” “instinct,” “life,” “dormancy,” “hormones of desire.” If he had located the poem, he might have found a vocabulary that could make the poem dramatic in itself. What if the deer mated on the streets of Butte? How do deer mate in Burma? The poet might have expanded the possibilities, even if he had to fictionalize the situation to do it. He could have introduced elements that are alien to the subject yet could be part of the scene: rattlesnake, bison, wheat, avalanche. How about elements that could not be part of the scene but could be part of the poem: submarine, pyromaniac, tyrant, crocodile, gangster, saint, begonia—but, you may be saying, how could
they
be part of the poem? That may be the wrong question. Asked seriously and often it could lead you back to those frustrated hormones of desire.