Preliminary Notes on Poetry

The first three poems introduced us to one key concept – that the "voice" we hear as we read a poem should not be called that of the poet, but rather that of the "speaker." Moreover, the actual speaker is sometimes a little tricky to identify, as there may be more than one speaker.

In "We Real Cool," by Brooks, the "speaker" is probably all seven of the pool players.

In "The Terrorist, He Watches," by Szymborska, it is more difficult to say for sure who the speaker may be. He could be the terrorist, even though line five explains that "[t]he terrorist has already crossed to the other side of the street." Some people do refer to themselves in the third person! He could be someone who has been working with the terrorist. He might even be some omniscient observer. Whoever the speaker is, he is also a rather cold-blooded individual, who does not seem at all upset about the killings.

In "next to of course god america i," by E. E. Cummings, there are two speakers. Note that our military windbag delivers the first 13 lines of the poem (in quotation marks!), while it is clear from the last line that there is someone else – another speaker – who is reporting what the windbag said. [Note also that this is a "fractured" sonnet, not unusual for the 20th century!]
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I do not wish to belabor the various poetic feet and lines, since all I expect students to identify is the pattern of iambic pentameter. This is the meter of both blank verse and the sonnet.

Note the following: (1) the pattern will be prevailingly of one sort or another, though it is rarely exclusively so; and (2) the poem should never be read as though an exercise in meter and rhythm!!

Students should understand that the sonnet is one of the most important poetic forms. It is 14 lines in length, and for the most part in iambic pentameter. This means that most of the lines will have ten syllables.

The two main styles (and there have been some adaptations in more recent times) are the English (or Shakespearean) sonnet and the Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet. It is not necessary to memorize the rhyme schemes, since the two are easily distinguished from one another. The Shakespearean sonnet always ends in a rhymed couplet! If the last two lines line, the sonnet is English; if they don't, it's Italian.

Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73" offers a perfect presentation of the English sonnet. Note the rhyme scheme, which ends in a rhymed couplet ("strong" and "long"). Note how he draws three wonderful comparisons -- to the calendar year by perhaps mid-December, to the post-sunset "twilight" (i.e., very late in the day), and to the dying embers on the burned-out shell of a log in the fireplace. These show that the speaker is old and probably approaching death. Then the couplet reveals how much the younger person loves him, even knowing that he will not be around too much longer!

One final distinction: Blank verse and free verse. Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter, and is found throughout much of Shakespeare. Free verse has no clear metrical pattern, and is usually unrhymed. Students must know the difference!