The Craft: Nine Fine Contemporary Free Verse Poems

[Kaltica]

Nine Fine Contemporary Free Verse Poems

Please click here if you have not read the preambulatory article, "The Rhythms of Free Verse".

New poets sometimes ask me (though not always in so many words): "Okay, so you don't think the works of 'non-poets' like Kahlil Gibran, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg and Rod McKuen are poetry and you're not impressed by the offerings of 'Mendosa liners' like Billy Collins. So what do you think is good contemporary free verse?"

First, we have to move the emphasis away from poets to poems. With few exceptions, great poets produce a lot of poetry that is mediocre or worse. The converse is occasionally true: godawful poets sometimes hit the jackpot and produce fortuitous freaks. Granted, it never happened for any of the "poets" mentioned above but, as we'll see, it does occur.

Next, we have to be able to demonstrate why something is excellent. "He's da man!", "S/he spoke for a generation!" and "S/he talks to my heart!" are endorsements of the message, delivery and/or the messenger, not the package. Poetry is what remains. For example, of the nine poems listed below, why is a reader more likely to remember the top six poems than the last three?

What follows is a listing and description of the more remarkable poems culled from online fora over the last dozen years or so. I've included enough of each poem to give the reader a feel for their eloquence and craft, with an emphasis on the two things that a knowledgeable editor looks for in vers libre: rhythms and sounds. Yes, trope, original language, subtlety, clarity, brevity and other aspects are important--and abundantly evident in these works--but, more than anything else, rhythms and sonics are what separate free verse from elegant prose with linebreaks.

I don't know whether or not any of these poems have been published, nor am I certain that these are the final versions. What I do know is that one of these poems cheated!

1. "How Aimee Remembers Jaguar" by Erin Hopson
   
2. "Staring" by Charles Cornner
   
3. "There Are Sunflowers In Italy" by Didi Menendez
   
4. "Studying Savonarola" by Margaret A. Griffiths
   
5. "Hookers" by Marco Morales
   
6. "Auditing the Heart" by Frank Matagrano
   
7. "Cooling" by Betsey Houghton
   
8. "Specimen #31, Adult Female" by Sharon Hurlbut
   
9. "In memoriam: Los desaparecidos" by Glenda Cooper
   

There was a 10th poem but because it was posted originally to Poets.org (and because I lost my copy of it in a hard disk crash) it isn't included here. I apologize to those who have seen these poems before.

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1. Easily the most exquisite poem I've seen online is Erin Hopson's "How Aimee Remembers Jaguar". Here are some of the highlights:

II. Afternoon
Teas that smell of fruit and spice, when brewing
produce more steam than common kinds. See
how stunning an iris in a chipped vase looks.
Add lemon scones and clink of cups held by hands
whose touch caused fires just that morning.

Note the rhythms: trochee in the first sentence softly inverted into iambs at the linebreak, then broken by anapests at the second before the emphatic move ("chipped vase looks") into iambs. At the pivotal word "cups" the rhythm masterfully re-inverts into trochee. Note the consistent consonance of "k" sounds. Notice the appeal to all five senses in one strophe: smell, sight, sound, taste and touch--leading to the sensuousness of the latter causing fires. Wow!

In part III we see lines like:

How pliable, the chasm between lovers
where welcome linen soothes the burn.

Don't miss the subtle match of word endings in "chasm" and "welcome" in addition to the more obvious alliteration of "w" and consonance of "l" and line-ending "r" sounds. Most would scan the first line as iambic, L1 ending with a trochee. However, a more esoteric view is fascinating: two second paeons (de-DUM-de-de: "How pliable, the chasm bet-") resolving through an antibacchic (DUM-DUM-de: "-ween lovers") or spondee (forget the nominal syllable, "-ers") into iambs. The number of syllables in the feet create a countdown: 4, 3, 2. This lends both a sense of anticipation and finality to the strophe's monosyllabic ending, "soothes the burn". Exquisite!

Surely this poem can't have more charms, right? Wrong. Check out this from section IV:

liquor makes the laughter
of fleeing friends less harsh. This was the only place
where women could whisper their true names.

Again, the reliance on liquid "l" and soft "w" sounds parallels the intimacy of the setting. The light-handed references to departures and clandestine relationships add tension. Again we see trochees inverted into iambs at the first linebreak. Notice the difference between a trochaic riff (e.g. all of L1) and a trochaic substitution (e.g. "This was" in L2). Again, the alliteration of "w" sounds presages the end, with two amphibrachs leading to a closing "ta-da!": "true names". Magnificent!

About the Author: Erin Hopson (aka "Bellaroo" on Desert Moon Review) is an HIV/AIDS case manager in Muskegon, Michigan. She disappeared from Gazebo shortly after posting this masterpiece. Along with our own DPK, Erin remains one of very few Gazebo newcomers to receive rave reviews.

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2. "Staring" by Charles Cornner

"Staring" may be the best still life or photographic (literally, in this case) poem written in the last decade. I won't include the first five lines. They set the scene: the speaker has found an old black-and-white photograph of his late grandfather (whom he never met). In terms of technique all you're missing in L1-L5 is some nice enjambment and assonance of short 'e' sounds ("never", "bedside", "chest", "dead", culminating in "expressionless") and a cute coupling of "laid" and "lace".

We pick up the action with L6:

expressionless here, his brow
shadowing brown eyes to black.

We cannot help noticing the alliteration of "h" and "b" sounds, but check out the brilliance of "brow" and "brown" bracketing "shadow", the vowels of which might form the same "ow" dipthong. The accenting of every third syllable produces an amphibrachic backbone with a bacchic ("[shadow]ing brown eyes") after an antibacchic ("brow shadow[ing]") substitution. The amphbrachs continue in the next line:

No menace, just gathering. Wind

Nice enjambment on "wind", highlighting its relationship with "gathering" while hinting that "no menace" may be only a comforting gesture. What a subtle way to create suspense!

splits his tie in two. Sleeves

The assonance of short "i" and the consonance of "t" sounds are obvious enough, but note how the sounds themselves are strongest as the tension hits its peak. Don't miss the co-ordination with the rhythm: the sudden change to more urgent iambs heralded by the conspicous spondee and linebreak: "Wind / splits". Now the anticlimax:

roll back from his hands
like geese from winter.

"Geese" hits on the subject of this wonderful simile/image, "sleeves", while "winter" recalls "wind".

He is about to say something.

The denouement leaves us hanging, exactly as the photograph and the mortality of the moment and subject did. This is wonderful, tight writing. Here is the kicker: along the way Charles dropped the best line in the poem! In an earlier draft he squeezed in another amphibrachic gem about "when smiles were compulsory".

About the Author: Charles is a journeyman regular on Desert Moon Review. I discovered that the entire poem can be found in Desert Moon Review's "Gallery" but you may need to join the site to access it. I have read other competently written works by Charles but, alas, nothing comes close to this.

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3. "There Are Sunflowers In Italy" by Didi Menendez

I believe this to be one of the two greatest "filler & killer" poems of our time. "Hookers" (below) is the other. Walter Bergen's "Flight Lessons" from "Remedies for Vertigo" would be a distant third. You've seen such poems: a devastating line (or sentence or phrase) amidst nondescript, innocuous text. If it works the filler serves as buildup or anticlimax. If it doesn't work it's just a great line suing those around it for support. Poor filler & killer poems often result when inspiration collides with laziness or when bad poets have good ideas.

For what it's worth and to my knowledge, this is the only free verse poem that Peter John Ross has ever praised without reservation.

The sunflowers in Italy
are as distant
as the Cuba I never knew
and the poems that you left
when I met you
in that marble room.

Nothing remarkable here, just some assonance of long "u" and short "e" sounds and a roughly anapestic rhythm. Think of this and the ending as bridesmaids at a wedding. Here comes the bride:

You wrote your verses
with your veins
cold against the wall.

The assonance of long "o" sounds, the alliteration of "v's" and "w's", the near rhyme of "veins" with "against" and the steady iamb, broken eloquently only at the startling "veins", along with the magnificent time-shifting of "cold" all serve to support the drama and the trope.

This is the best sentence of poetry written in the last decade. Period.

We see a familiar pattern later in the denouement: iambs becoming amphibrachs before returning to iamb.

Today I walk through the streets of Miami,
crying for what you left.
But you, old man, you cannot mourn.
You have the sunflowers.

Even as filler, this ending is not without its charm. The disparate sounds of the first two lines lend contrast to the assonance of short "a" and consonance of "n" sounds in the last two, collected subtly in the last word: sunflAH-OOwers.

About the Author: Don't let the fact that Didi is the driving force behind MiPoesias or her success with this poem fool you. "The Dead Birds On My Lap" is far more indicative of her work:

I am sure you have met these birds.
Of course you have.

And if you have not,
I am sorry
For even in death,
It is still better to have loved than…

"There Are Sunflowers In Italy" poem is a happy accident. In fact, it's not just a fluke, it's a translation of a fluke. Didi wrote it originally in Spanish and posted it to Zoetrope. When it was translated verbatim into English the startling brilliance surfaced. Then things got interesting. Unable to recognize great poetry even when she authored it, Didi was forced to rely on what critics said about her work. The problem is that, on Zoetrope, all the critiques are the same: 50 words praising the poem regardless of content. (The software there actually has a built-in timer to prevent people from reviewing works they haven't read.) Left to her own devices, then, Didi didn't even include this poem in her vanity blog.

To my knowledge Didi has never submitted "There Are Sunflowers In Italy" for publication. If she did, Didi would present an editor with an intriguing dilemma. Consider things from that editor's viewpoint for a moment. What happens if, committed as you are to quality, you publish a great poem by a terrible poet? Not just an unknown poet, mind you, but a poet with a paper trail of ineptitude from here to Miami. Unfamiliar with this newcomer, your readers are bound to Google "Didi Menendez" and find nothing but ghastly efforts like "The Dead Birds On My Lap" (sampled above). What are you going to say to those who demand to know why you are publishing this nonpoet? It sounds simple for you to retort that you didn't publish those other lousy poems, you published this brilliant one. You are, after all, in the business of publishing poems, not poets. Their argument is completely specious but that doesn't mean that you will want to encounter or provoke it. At the very least, if it came down to an editor's decision between this and someone else's poem I wouldn't like Didi's chances.

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4. No discussion of internet poetry would be complete without mention of its most consistent performer: Margaret A. Griffiths ("Maz"). Here is a short excerpt from her "Studying Savonarola", posted to Gazebo on October 27th, 2005:

but what you are hovers as mist, as the spirit
of water is invisible until steam makes the sky
waver. Say you die, scorched into ashes, say

The onomatopoetic sibilance parallels the hiss of steam. The dactyls transit from and into iambs.

you pass from here to there, with your marigold
eyes, the garden darker for lack of one golden flower,
would bees mourn, would crickets keen, drawing long

blue chords on their thighs like cellists?

The sounds go from soft to hard as the poem segues from the ethereal to harsher reality. Try reading this passage aloud and you'll appreciate the mark of an accomplished poet.

About the Author: Maz posts to Gazebo and PFFA, where she is known as "Grasshopper". As has been noted elsewhere: "Those not jealous of Maz have the most reason to be."

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5. "Hookers" by Marco Morales, was posted to Usenet on January 8th, 1996:

Missing you again
I embrace shallow graves.
Pale faces, doughlike breasts
help me forget.

The metaphoric image of "shallow graves" is one that can haunt readers for the rest of their lives.

A key question for those evaluating "filler & killer" poems is: "By what standards does one assess the filler?" The killer line is a simple matter of estimating its power. The filler is more restrained, acting as a setup or prop for the prima donna line. By definition, the filler isn't meant to be scintillating. IMHO, the filler should be short and to-the-point to avoid the "shaggy dog story" syndrome. Typically, the filler won't draw attention to itself, as with extra stressed syllables (e.g. spondees, antibacchics, cretics, bacchics, et cetera). What sonic and rhythmic devices the filler uses will often tie into the killer line. Note how the short "e" sounds of "embrace" are echoed in the poem's final four words (i.e. "breasts / help me forget") while the long "a" sound of "embrace" and "graves" pops up immediately in "pale faces". The last word in L1, "again", is soon paired by assonance and rhythm with "embrace"--the only other iambic word before the last word in the poem, "forget".

[Kaltica]

Good news!

I don't have Maz's permission to post her poem here but I do have a link to it within Gazebo's archives:

Studying Savonarola, he considers his lover as kindling

- http://www.alsopreview.com/gazebo/messages/10179/3987.html

On another front and with some help from Noldo2 I've managed to track down the elusive Erin Hopson. It turns out that Erin took a few years off to get her Masters degree. She says that, inspired in part by this article, she plans to return to poetry. If that isn't enough good news, Erin has also consented to me posting the latest version of her poem in its entirety:

To sustain a loss without sinking under it: How Aimee remembers Jaguar

For Felice Schragenheim & Lilly Wust


I. Sepia
photographs of women whose lips rejected
the stretched curve of smiles, instead waited
plump and teasing. It was better if water clung
to pinned curls, trickled and pooled in gullies.
Cattails should fringe the water's edge.

II. Afternoon
teas that smell of fruit and spice, when brewing
produce more steam than common kinds. See
how stunning an iris in a chipped vase looks.
Add lemon scones and clink of cups held by hands
whose touch caused fires just that morning.

III. Sheets
sink into the spaces between knees, brush bottoms
of feet. The softest parts pursue something equal
to spoon, fingers trace patterns over smooth
and slick terrain. How pliable, the chasm between lovers
where welcome linen soothes the burn.

IV. Dancing
with head rested on satin covered shoulder
the smell of war and sweat is more palatable.
Dizzying twirl and liquor makes the laughter
of fleeing friends less harsh. This was the only place
where women could whisper their true names.

V. On Outings
there would have been sadness. One used to carry
the blanket and one the wicker basket. With only this set,
comparing the size of footprints is less important.
Beyond the cattails, ash and soot clings to the pond,
but comfort is in the scent of spice and fruits and smoke.

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If you're reading this, thanks, Erin!


Best regards,

Kaltica

[Noldo2]

This is wonderful. An amazing poem that hasn't been read in its entirety for so long. Thank you, and--if Erin reads this--thank you.

Best regards,
James

[Kaltica]

An update:

Erin Hopson's "To sustain a loss without sinking under it: How Aimee remembers Jaguar" has been published on The Hypertexts. (Under "Contemporary Poets" hit "more poets..." and click on "Erin Hopson".) Given that The Hypertexts is primarily a metrical venue--and an elite one--this is quite an accomplishment.

The recent tragic death of Margaret A. Griffiths was announced on Eratosphere on 09-06-2009. I would encourage everyone to read the tributes to this, arguably the greatest poet of our time, and samples of her work, including "Studying Savonarola".

-o-