Veronica Nadalin 

Can You Hear It?

An Essay on Lyric Poetry

Poetry, in particular lyric poetry, stands out from other forms of literature.  It is probably the most overlooked form of literature and poetry.  People praise epic poetry like the Iliad or novels like Sense and Sensibility, but shun lyric poetry as kid’s stuff.   Yet, those works are very long and express just as many ideas as a much shorter lyric poem accomplishes. Many dismiss lyric poetry as simple stuff because of its average length and its often more “simple” language; how hard can it be to put together two words that rhyme together? I retort with, do you know a word that rhymes with “orange”?  I think not.  There is so much to learn, understand, and practice in order to create one’s own lyric poetry and to respect the genre.

Every day people are exposed to lyric poetry, sometimes without even realizing it.  Almost everyone listens to music at some point in their day, whether commuting to and from work or listening to their pod or mp3 player while going for that extra mile on the treadmill.  No matter what genre or style, if a song has words to it, then it is simply a lyric poem with music.

            Before listening to music like teens and adults do, I think that everyone’s first encounter with the lyric poem occurs in the nursery.  Before developing speech, babies are exposed to nursery rhymes in order to learn about speech sounds.  With those nursery rhymes, like “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and “Humpty Dumpty” children develop speech and their memories as well, because the sing-song of the nursery rhymes are one of the easiest forms of speech to remember.  I know that was the case for me.

            Long since my childhood, I have encountered lyric poetry quite often as a literature student.  I have grown a great appreciation for “good” lyric poetry, like by Emily Dickinson’s “A Word is dead.”  Even though there are only six lines, Dickinson uses the limited space to declare something profound.  She expresses that once words are spoken, they are then born, not have died.  I find that the conciseness of poetry is what makes it so amazing and enjoyable to read, even if the subject is considered “depressing.”

In contrast to Dickinson, I adore reading Shakespearean sonnets.  To be honest, I never really noticed the difference between English sonnets and Italian sonnets before seeing the two styles diagrammed in one of the readings.  My favorite part of the sonnet is the couplet at the end.  Like with Dickinson’s style of keeping the message short and to the point, but somehow overwhelming the reader with imagery, Shakespeare never fails to end his sonnets with a couplet that incites emotion.  One example is, Sonnet 47: “Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight/ Awakes my heart to heart’s and eye’s delight.”  The heart cannot help but swell at these lines, especially after it follows the other lines that setup the power that this couplet possesses.

 With all the courses and workshops I have experienced lyric poetry in, I know how easy it is to fall into the trap of having the poetry sound like those nursery rhymes from childhood, so being able to create lyric poetry without that affect takes real talent.  Personally, I have a tendency to fall into that trap, so I have learned to use enjambment to create my rhyme schemes, so that the rhyming is not so obvious.  I also have learned when reading lyric poetry aloud to try not to make it sound sing-songy.  I am not quite sure how to put this into words, but if you know ahead of time that something is going to rhyme, try not to make it sound so obvious.  I imagine a metronome bonging the beat so loud so that the musician can hear it over his instrument; that is what the reader of the poem wants to avoid.  The text for the class suggests techniques such as enjambment or off-rhyme in order to prevent the lines from sounding comical or quaint. Thus, I tried this technique in the rough copy of the poem I presented to the class. However, after my poem’s workshop I learned that enjambment is not always the answer; I plan on practicing on writing poetry that does not use as much enjambment so as to hopefully become a better poet.  When revising my poem, I tried to better develop my rhyme scheme by changing the pattern and to not make the words that rhymed so obvious.  Alicia Costello used this technique for her poem, “The Doorway.”  She broke up her poem into three stanzas, and each stanza had its own rhyme scheme and the words that she used that rhymed together did not sound silly at all, but flowed very nicely because, I feel, the number of syllables in the words that rhymed varied.

            Today when not reading poetry either for leisure or for class, I enjoy spending time listening to the lyrics of songs.  Many songs talk about and state profound things, often times, those lyrics are drowned out by the instruments.  One of my favorite songs, “But Home is Nowhere” on the album Sing the Sorrow by A.F.I. has a track hidden in it, with the lyrics:

I cannot leave here, I cannot stay
Forever haunted, more than afraid
Asphyxiate on words I would say
I'm drawn to a blackened sky as I turn blue
There are no flowers, no not this time
There'll be no angels gracing the lines
Just these stark words I find
I'd show a smile, but I'm too weak

I'd share with you could I only speak
Just how much this hurts me
I cannot stay here, I cannot leave
Just like all I loved, I make believe
Imagined heart, I disappear
Seems...no one will appear here and make me real

I really like song lyrics like these that have a deep meaning because I think that it is much easier to write songs with lyrics that rhyme that are light-hearted and have no true meaning than lyrics that rhyme and do have a deep, complex meaning.

 As learned and emphasized so far in this course, lyric poetry can and should be taken seriously because creating good lyric poetry is a form of art that not many people can exhibit well.

Total time worked on: 2 hrs 25 min