The Poet’s Plight
I sit at dusk and bear the scorn, sarcastic talk
Of friends, and brood upon the metric skills of mine;
They praise their sugar coated art as deep, refined—
So smooth, concise, unbound by rules to fall in line
While poets lie forgotten under hoary rhyme;
But my iambic verse must taste as harsh as brine.
The reject list is safely tucked away in mail,
A one-eyed monster wakes and feeds on all it drinks—
It sips the lemonade of anguish brewed in me
From tears and jinx, its shifting form forever shrinks
And swells. These nightmares disappear to come again,
I glimpse Medusa’s head atop a desert sphinx.
Yet still I dream of dactyls dancing near my door,
As trees compose immortal sonnets; trochees take
A nap on camping hammocks, ballads ride the breeze
Through whistling willows; odes enshroud the icy lake.
However, my existence offers little chance
To mend the modern style or write for writing’s sake.
But someday someone, sitting all alone, may take
A path to what I penned in darkness, when he thinks
Perhaps such verse may yet regain its waning shine.
Satyananda Sarangi is a young civil servant by profession. A graduate in electrical engineering, his works have featured in The Society of Classical Poets, The HyperTexts, Shot Glass Journal, Snakeskin, WestWard Quarterly, Sparks of Calliope, Page & Spine, Glass: Facets of Poetry, The GreenSilk Journal and elsewhere. He currently resides in Odisha, India.
Beautifully written, my friend, and I get a lot of meaning and solace from your poem.
Thanks a lot for finding meaning and solace in my poem (the best return for any poet).
As most folk know, I’m mostly a practitioner of metrical, rhyming poetry. That said, on occasion I’ll dabble in the lyrical freedom of free verse. And if someone uninitiated in formal poetry wishes to express their feelings towards the love of their life or their cat or a splendid, so what if they do so in free verse. Who am I to berate them.
I’m also writing a book at the moment, a more literary effort than I’ve done in the past, and these formal poetry tool creep in. Alliteration, simile, metaphor.
Although I understand your preference for traditional poetry, as per the site’s membership, Satyananda, I don’t understand why we have to dismiss out of hand the work of poets with a different style. But then, that’s just my opinion.
Thanks for the thought-provoking read.
I don’t think Satyananda is dismissing free verse in this poem — he’s complaining in the first stanza that certain friends of his are expressing scorn and sarcasm for his rhymed and metrical verse. His “Plight” is that they refuse to take his verse seriously. The second stanza describes his suffering and anguish over this contempt, and the ending of the poem expresses his hope that some day in the future his work will be appreciated.
He says nothing at all against the free verse practices of his friends.
I’ve never believed in berating somebody, especially based on their style of writing and preferences. Free verse is most welcome – it’s an offshoot of breaking traditions and trying to reinvent oneself in this era. I’m open to most of it – even I have written in free verse with and without rhyme as well as formal verse with and without rhyme. But the point here is not about criticism of free verse, but criticism of one’s style. I am a simple person who believes that one’s taste and inclination towards a particular style and form have more to do with how they lead their life rather than writing for masses. If poetry is not a reflection of life itself and has to be written only to appease the readers of either post-modern or traditional poetry, then we may not need poetry at all. More than 90+ rejections for rhyme and rhythm is something like punishment for discipline. We live in an era where we cannot even talk dismissively about our own selves getting dismissed by others.
Anyway, it’s always a pleasure to have your thoughts on my work.
I understand your point, Satyananda. There is no sense in attacking a particular writer on the basis of his stylistic choices, simply because you don’t happen to share them. But the generalized attack on metrical, rhyming, and formal verse today is rooted in an unspoken orthodoxy promoted by mainstream teachers, publishers, critics, and editors. This orthodoxy is based on the arrogant assumption that traditional forms of verse composition are somehow unacceptable and taboo.
Joseph Sir,
The arrogant assumption also includes the perception that most traditional poetry forms (both in the English-speaking world) impose dogmas which are nothing but legacies of imperialism and colonialism. I dismiss this perception because formal poetry is a greater challenge for people for whom English is not their first language. Still these poets decided to go into the blast furnace, learn the technicality of syllables and employ meter while writing. In my own case, though the English language was familiar to me since childhood, I had to spent considerable number of years in understanding the pronunciation, stressed and unstressed syllables. That discipline of learning by oneself can never be unacceptable, even if ridiculed.
Thanks a ton for taking a stand for me on most occasions.
I’m with you 100%, Satyananda. Yes, each has its place in the realm of literature, but the virtue found in ‘verse’ is what lets ‘lyrics’ repeatedly earn millions of dollars for recording stars. Nothing I’ve ever encountered in ‘free verse’ holds a candle to what I’ve encountered in the finest metered rhyme, or ever will IMO, and I’m firmly convinced that R&M is, once again, the preferred medium for millions of poetry connoisseurs. At least it is when I recite to large groups comprised of mostly over-50s, if that’s any indication…
Great job on what I perceive as avery important issue to the ‘genuine poet’.
Why I Prefer to Write in Rhyme
When it comes to poetry, I strongly disagree
with persons who consistently impugn
Bards who work to pen their thoughts in finely metered rhyme,
who focus on not only what is said,
But — much the same as virtuosos, when they play their part –
keen to know their instrument’s in tune —
Strive to hone their every line and ‘symphonize’ their words
to make them more like music when they’re read.
Dear Sir,
It’s so heartening to read your opinion, bolstered by the encouraging lines on finely metered rhyming verse. Best wishes!
I love the imagery of “hoary rhyme”; the tartness conveyed by “the lemonade of anguish”; “dactyls dancing”; ballads that “ride the breeze” of “whistling willows; and odes that “enshroud the icy lake”. Interesting scheme with only even numbered lines that rhyme, and I notice that the final stanza repeats the rhymes of stanzas three, two, and one in that order. I think that “sugar-coated” when used as an adjective should be hyphenated.
Thanks a lot for your appreciation about the imagery and the rhyming scheme. I was just trying to give the poem a unique effect in rhyme scheme – the ending line rhyming with the first stanza was more like a closed rhyme scheme though unconventional.
This is a beautifully written and effective piece of confessional poetry. You skillfully build sympathy with the reader, giving a glimpse of dejection and near-despair all suffered globe of the art. I can tell it comes from the heart, but you built pathos with a clear detachment which makes it effective. And you end on a note of hope, sweetening the bitter draught and showing why you persist.
As a side note, it is always the supposed flouters of tradition who are the most dogmatic. People who have no poetic skill are the first to ridicule crafted work. Thank you for portraying this so effectively.
I remember writing this poem about six years ago, which eventually got rejected six times because perhaps people believed that this piece was ineffective – the major reason being the language and tone of the poem. But perhaps, it was more about truth – a confession of being ridiculed.
Glad to have your thoughtful reflection on this piece. Means a lot.
Satyananda, what a beautiful poem – one of your finest. You capture the plight of the poet with exquisite imagery, tangible disappointment, and heartwarming hope. I love it! Very well done indeed!
Greetings Susan Ma’am.
I tried to make images from what I felt after each rejection, portrayed my disappointment from how I felt after being ridiculed for sticking to meter and rhyme for a decade of writing behind me.
But I get heartwarming hope from your compliment.
Satyananda, you’re quite right that lack of appreciation hurts, especially when it comes from friends (or one-time friends) praising themselves and their own efforts, with little or no consideration for others who work differently. I hope you don’t suffer much in the way of nightmares that you use to describe this situation in your poem of the poetic psyche. When you speak of pleasant dreams of formal poetry, I think as well of time needed for the writing. The time you could spare from your day job to spend on this one served you well. I admire particularly the effective rhyming in a scheme you created as you wrote, where internal rhyme is also important. This is a very contemporary and sophisticated method of mending modern style and writing for the sake of those who do appreciate you, including myself.
Margaret Ma’am,
Lovely words from you made my day. There’s no substitute for admiration one gets in the most sincere form and in case of this poem, your admiration is right up there!
Best wishes.
I really like this one, Satyananda! I struggle to find a point of praise which has not already been surfaced or revealed by other commenters. So, I will just give you a hearty “Bravo!”
Thanks a lot for appreciating this one, Sir !
Best Wishes…
Satyananda, I enjoyed reading your poem. As a new practitioner in writing poetry, I was drawn to rhyme and meter due to music lyrics. I believe that more will gravitate toward formal poetry in the future (hopefully) , thus, making your final stanza apropos (which I thought was brilliant.) Thanks for sharing your poem.
Greetings!
Your comment on revival of formal poetry in future has filled me with more inspiration. More power to your pen.
Best wishes
S2 – this long game/long arc that we poets run; not facile. Your message, well writ and tender, tells the truth. Tolkien did make his dwarves (short game/short thinking) essentially good, most of them. Athens Y Camp, where I spent summers, had a classic hymn, a poem we would sing: “2 Oft we tread the path before us with a weary, burdened heart / Oft we toil amid the shadows, and our fields are far apart: / But the Savior’s “come, ye blessed,” all our labor will repay, / When we gather in the morning where the mists have rolled away.” The title, by Ann Herbert Barker: “When the Mists Have Rolled in Splendor” – https://hymnary.org/text/when_the_mists_have_rolled_in_splendor
Thank you so much for these words.
Best wishes!
Hi Satyananda – your poem communicates very effectively the isolation many formal poets feel in a literary culture often suspicious of metre and rhyme. Its strongest moments, I think, come in the playful personification of poetic forms themselves — dactyls, trochees, ballads, and odes moving through a dreamlike landscape. Beneath the humour and fantasy lies a sincere defence of craftsmanship and tradition, culminating in a quietly hopeful ending. Excellent.
James, it’s quite true that poets working in metrical forms face a good deal of ostracism and contempt from partisans of free verse and the other new, surreal ways of composing “poems.” But there is an opposite danger, and that is from those who preach that no verse is metrical if it doesn’t not follow the exact template of definitional rigidity — that is, iambic pentameter MUST be decasyllabic, with five unsubstituted iambs; or trochaic tetrameter MUST be precisely four trochees in the space of eight syllables. I think that this definitionist tyranny is just as harmful and constricting, as well as being contrary to all accepted traditionalist practice in English verse.
This issue has been discussed here at the SCP several times, and I ventured to suggest that the push for perfectly exact meter was a false-flag operation run by the Free Verse establishment as a way to stifle the nascent formalist movement, by pushing it into becoming a straw-man for easier attack.
I have no cause to argue with you at all, Joe: as you well know, I am a practised practitioner of ‘anomalous’ meter! And you are quite right, too, about the FV establishment and the setting up of straw-men to attack; it’s an embedded principle and mode of operation of the Left generally: to deliberately fail to understand the real issue and attack the ‘seeming’ one.
James, yes, I know — we both agreed on this matter when those discussions happened a few years back. I only brought it up because I feel that the “perfect meter” partisans are still a danger to the nascent revival of the traditional forms and meters of English verse. They tried hard to push their viewpoints here at the SCP, and it took a lot of fighting to drive them off.
James and Joe, I’m reading this discussion thread with much interest because it deals with a concern I have with my own poetry. I believe that deviations from “perfect meter” should always be in the interest of enhancing one’s work. Poets should know their craft and develop the skill of writing poetry that adheres to meter in order to make a meter-break effective, otherwise we’ll have off-key poets with tin-ears claiming they write the way write because it’s fine to do so. Isn’t it important to know the difference between syllable counting and the wonder of a melodious flow or a purposeful emphasis? In order to make that crucial judgment, meter must matter… a lot… until a poet is fully fledged. Some poets are simply gifted and no effort in this direction is required… but the majority aren’t, which is why I’m asking.
Susan, I agree that any deviation that one makes in a poem, whether in meter or in rhyme or in any other area, should be done to enhance the work — that is, make it a better poem. This means that in an expertly and professionally done poem, the deviation will stand out as inevitable and natural and acceptable (as happens with all of the allowable substitutions that occur in iambic pentameter and other metrical lines). And that also means that the poet will have to show a full mastery of the pre-existing and accepted rules in the rest of the poem. This can’t happen in completely free verse, where no “deviation” of any sort would be distinguishable from the rest of the text. That’s why T.S. Eliot said that “No ‘vers’ is ‘libre’ for the poet who wants to write well.”
Syllable counting is OK when someone is learning about verse for the first time, but he also has to learn about the proper stresses, and after that how the stresses can be varied within the template of the “ideal” line. He has to learn that a syllable can sometimes be added, or sometimes omitted, in a regular line. For iambic pentameter he also has to be aware of the possibility of a headless iamb (what I call the choriambic start) when a line begins, and also the possibility of a feminine ending. He has to understand enjambment, which some of the “perfect-meter” fanatics condemn as an unforgivable fault, even though one hundred end-stopped lines is as painful as root-canal dentistry.
The perfect-meter partisans are still out there, chugging away at their ten-syllable, end-stopped, unrelentingly iambic lines. The po-biz establishment will be using them as “examples” of how to discredit the rest of us.
Joe, thank you very much for taking the time to explain this to me. I never stop learning and the more I learn about the fine-tuning of poetry the more I come to appreciate the craft. This is why I love the comments section. Your root-canal analogy will remain indelibly etched in my brain. I’ve informed my muse to indulge in a tad more enjambment.