ModPo 23: another Loneliness

It has been a little while since I've posted a gushing recommendation for the fabulous Modern and Contemporary American Poetry annual course (more like a symposium cause we keep coming back) affectionately known as ModPo and I've been dipping in for a few years but this year I'm doing the whole thing - main course, all poems, all essays - full in.  It's about my tenth time (I've been doing this course since it started 12 years ago) but a) I'm still finding new things - or as I said in the discussion forum when I phoned in, I've changed, the world has changed, and I bring my new perspective to the same poems and b) there is a lot of new material - some brought into the main course and some crowd sourced in the community section.  It's as wonderful as ever and if you haven't signed up you can still just jump right into the river and you don't have to do anything at all, or you can read one poem, or you can do full immersion or any variation of that.  But know that whatever you decide you will be welcomed and encouraged and will gain something from it - from the reading, for your writing practice, and for your sense of poetry and art and life.  In the past I've posted up my 4 essays as a way of keeping track and maybe helping others who might be interested in these pieces and I'm going to do that this year, starting with the first essay (just finished the second but I'll leave it a few weeks till I post here and might edit a bit based on feedback first) which is just 500 words on a poem by Emily Dickinson:

There is another Loneliness— That many die without Not want or friend occasions it Or circumstances or Lot

But nature sometimes, sometimes thought And who so it befall Is richer than could be divulged By mortal numeral—

My essay, titled "Loneliness as Superpower" follows:

Emily Dickinson’s“There is another Loneliness” begins, as many Dickinson poems do, as if she were responding to being called lonely or to a conversation where the word “loneliness” had been used in some conventional way, that is, a lack of social interaction (“want or friend” or maybe ‘want of friend’). The use of the word “another” seems to reference that implied context. The Loneliness (with an upper case L) that Dickinson is talking about here is not negative, but rather, a lifesaver (“many die without”). It is something powerful, and rich, and not impacted by “circumstances or Lot” but rather, is innate, as “nature” which she seems to be using here as something inherent - as opposed to nurture rather than the external environment. As so many of Dickinson’s poems are meta poetic, it’s not a stretch to think that she could be talking here of the poetic muse or a singular interiority that has the look of loneliness but is actually a superpower (“Loneliness”), rich and in a way immortal (“richer than could be divulged/By mortal numeral). The structure of the work is the classic two stanza, quatrain form though the two dashes - one in the first line and one at the very end form set of prongs are visually striking while also making creating a very subtle circularity as those dashes, both open, seem to connect the thoughts between the first line with its alternate Loneliness and the end with its mortal numeral as if in some way those two lines were in opposition to one another. One might stretch the concept of a mortal numeral to a kind of spreadsheet or accounting where life is measured by productivity rather than introspection and creativity. These opposing forces continue to shine a positive light on the other Loneliness. Rhythmically, this poem uses the standard iambic pentameter with an ABAB rhyme scheme, though naturally the rhymes are slanted so Loneliness and it are the matches along with without and Lot, thought and divulged, and befall and numeral. At first glance these words don’t seem to rhyme at all, but when reading the poem aloud, the regular meter and the placement of the words does create a rhyme pattern that seems even to the ear. There is very little alliteration in this poem, but there are interesting repetitions, such as the double ‘sometimes’ in the second stanza, and the way that Loneliness and Lot are both capitalised. In the first stanzas the words “There” and “That” in the first stanza and “But” and “By” in the second provide extra emphasis and help keep the sonics regular and contained -as a sort of constraint of form. This creates a lovely structural tension that conveys the power of a deep solitude that might look like loneliness, but is actually the creative imagination.

Emily again: Love reckons by itself — alone

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know about my annual affair with UPenn’s Modern and Contemporary American Poetry course (“ModPo”) taught by the great Al Filreis. I’m on my sixth year.  This is no impersonal MOOC, though I share the course with some 30,000+ students, most of whom will return every year to re-engage with old and new poems, as the course is constantly changing, growing, and offering new ways to interact with both classic and very recent poetry and poets. The course runs for 10 weeks but remains open throughout the year with discussion groups, ongoing interpretations, regular ongoing meet ups and crowdsourced close readings, teacher and student resources and constantly good conversation.  The course always begins with Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, effectively the mother and father of modernism - both representing separate stylistic poles that link and underpin all of the work that follows.  Nothing is mandatory, but I like to do the essays each year, especially as they’re always a little different.  And if you search the blog, you’ll see that I’ve posted each essay up here.  This week’s is a brief 500 word analysis of Emily Dickinson’s "Love reckons by itself--alone”.  Feel free to chime in with your own comments if you’re taken, or just read and enjoy the poem.  Poetry talk is always welcome.  

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Love reckons by itself — alone —

"As large as I" — relate the Sun

To One who never felt it blaze —

Itself is all the like it has —

As with many of Emily Dickinson’s poems, “Love reckons by itself – alone”, begins with an almost puritanical constriction, appearing to spiral inward and tighten, but with each reading the work becomes more expansive, inflationary, even explosive and sensual.  Even by Dickinson’s standards, this is a short poem of a single stanza, and appears, as her poems often do, to be a simple explication about the nature of Love’s grandeur and self-containment.  The closer you look, the less simple the poem becomes, each word informed and changed by the structural context, the Dickinsonian punctuation, the unusual rhythm where tradition and atonality work side-by-side, and the multiple meaning of each word.

The poem begins with one of poetry’s most overused words, and Dickinson throws it straight out there - charging and distorting the word Love through personification, slant rhyme, and odd conjunctions undermining a saccharine sense of romantic love.  Dickinson’s Love with a capital L could be God, or the equal of God in sensuality, or could be the human imagination or Poetry, or our ability to empathise and move beyond our individual selves. Following the word with the verb ‘reckons” turns Love from an abstract idea into a self-referential character, recursive – turning back onto itself as in resolving, self-contained and entire.  Dickinson uses the dashes to set the word “alone” off, making the quality of this self-containment visual.  Then she gives Love a voice, putting the next line in quotations and allowing Love to talk about how large it is, relating the heat of Love to the heat of the Sun, and how that blaze is both the perpetuator of life, and unknowable. Because it’s unknowable, we can only imagine it, even if we think we’ve experienced it, thereby undermining experience. 

There are particular rhythms and rhymes in this poem.  One of the more obvious is the equation of all the capitalised nouns: Love, Sun, One – each of these things not only rhyming but moving forward and backwards on the page to create a rhythm of motion and inevitability.  There is a heavy use of alliteration, particularly the L sound which creates a somewhat languid but progressive rhythm from Love to itself, alone, large, relate, blaze, all, and like.  The dashes not only set off the word “alone”, but then create a series of gaps or pauses which invite the reader to reflect for a brief moment, in those connective spaces.  The ending on the last space leaves the poem open ended, on a sentence which is cryptic enough to allow for multiple interpretation, multiple reading.  Free otherwise of punctuation, the poem is presented as iambic tetrameter, which is subverted by the dashes at the end of the first, third and forth lines.  The second line could be enjambment with the following line (relating the sun to one), or more likely the lack of a dash functions as a full stop/period, as evidenced by the capitalisation of the word “To” next to One.  This allows the third line to mirror poems like “Volcanoes be in Sicily”: a celebration of imagination rather than a celebration of experience.  We don’t need to experience to know what Love feels like (in fact, we can’t get at this through the visceral).  Instead we have all the correspondence (the ‘reckoning’) we need in our imagination. 

Poetry Monday: A liquor never brewed

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while (or who know me) know that I’m a massive fan of the annual event known as Modern and Contemporary American Poetry or ModPo run out of Coursera by the University of Pennsylvania.  The event masquerades as a course, run for 10 weeks by the amazing Al Filreis and his exceptional team of Teaching Assistants and Community Teaching Assistants. You can certainly attend, get your certificate of attainment (or just follow along), and go on your merry way at the end of it (with a totally new approach to reading and appreciating poetry that extends way beyond the syllabus) - that’s enough of course.

For me and many others, once is just not enough.  The course has become an annual excuse to revisit some of the most seminal poets of all time, to do close, but not too close, readings of some exceptional and challenging poetic work.  Al has encouraged former students to come back and keep playing every year, through new material, through mentorship opportunities, new live ‘meet-ups’, new opportunities for interaction, and new approaches.  Though the numbers get larger each year, the intimacy somehow seems to grow too.  This year, there’s a new section for those who either want something a little different or who want to go further and deeper into the work.  It’s called ModPo Plus and it features complementary poetry and its own discussion forum.  Since I’ve done ModPo before, I’m working through all of the normal ModPo material and all the poems in ModPo Plus but focusing most of my discussions around the ModPo Plus material at the ModPo Plus forums.  Most of my essays will have the same topic as they have in previous years, but I’m enjoying revisiting the work and coming to it with beginner’s mind - maybe going just a bit further as I explore my assignment topics.  I thought it might be fun to post those essays up here.  Please feel free to put your own thoughts or essays into the comments.  I like the idea of these discussions spreading outwards and repeat ModPoers are encouraged to facilitate that.  Oh, and if you want to join ModPo it actually isn’t too late.  You can’t get a certificate as the first assignment date is passed, but you can jump right in at Gertrude Stein and join in now.  The community is very warm and inclusive and nothing is mandatory.

Here’s the little essay I wrote on Emily Dickinson’s “I taste a liquor never brewed”.  The full poem can be found here: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/i-taste-liquor-never-brewed-214

Of all Emily Dickinson’s poetry, “I taste a liquor never brewed” is one of the most exuberant, piling image upon image in an extended metaphor.  This poem is somewhat less condensed than much of her other work, freed from constraints by the drunken slur of dash and the repetition of exclamation mark. The quatrains use a ballad form but only rhyme the second and last word of each stanza, and the initial rhyme (“Pearl” and “Alcohol”) is off, which adds to the slightly arrhythmic, wild feel as it flows from first taste to the full satiation of inebriation.

In the first stanza we we’re introduced to what the poet is drinking: a rarified drop, stronger than any produced in the famous Rhine wineries. This ‘drink’ is delivered from “Tankards scooped in pearl”, which is more evocative than specifically semantic, but suggests something like a large shell (mother-of-pearl lined), or perhaps a cloud formation with the sun shining behind.  This intoxication comes from the exquisite beauty of the natural world (eco-poetics at its best).

There’s a sense in the second stanza, through rhythm, image, and punctuation, of a little subversiveness.  The poet has become debauched and drunk, though not on brewed liquor, but on air, on dew, and on the blue sky of summer.  Each dash functions as a pause or even a hiccup, coupled with extensive alliteration to create the rhythms of drunkenness that invite the reader to also partake.  The multi-sensual impact of a blue sunlit sky captured with such precision in “Molten Blue”, provides both warmth and visual appeal, but it’s more than the flower, the sights and scents of a striking summer day. It’s the impact of that day on the poetic imagination that turns it from a moment of experience to something permanent. This is the creative flow or wellspring that the poet taps into (to keep the liquid metaphor going).  It is Emily’s meta-poetic implication that turns this otherwise heady pastoral poem into something quite post-modern.

The extended metaphor of a drunkard at the inn is stretched further in the third stanza, as day becomes night and the poet continues the creative spree.  The landlord might be the foxglove itself, closing petals so that the bee and butterfly, that have had their fill of sweet nectar, can drink no more.  For the poet, the “high on life” inebriation doesn’t end because there’s always more beauty in the endless creative flow in this figurative inn where the tap is always open.

The final stanza shifts from the nature metaphor into a more frigid heavenly one, away from the immediacy of sensual pleasure.  From these lofty heights, beyond the window, an angel (“Seraphs”) or teetotaler saint might look down from a frosty (“snowy Hats”) heaven and disapprove of such excesses of sensual joy. The reader too, who has been encouraged in the first three stanzas to partake, might disapprove of such poetic licentiousness. After all, this is the full sensual experience – sight, sound, smell, touch and taste are all evoked in a reeling swirl that is quite overwhelming.  Of course, we might just join in in this moment of creative power and shared delight and let ourselves be seduced.