Writing Help 129 | - ☆ Freelance Writer
Apr 06, 2013 | #1
Poetic Terms You Have to Learn
All too often, instructors teach poetry by delving into and explaining individual poems, without regard for the specific process through which this exploration is conducted. Even worse, students are often never told why they are doing what they are doing, and this leaves all but the brightest and luckiest scratching their heads and wondering how they are going to get through the final exam. This series will go a long way toward explaining the nuts and bolts of poetic terminology, but if you read nothing else about poetic analysis and remember nothing else from this series, please, please, make sure that the foundational premise underlying all poetic production, the rule of significance, remains embedded in your brain like a traumatic event or a hot bullet. It is that important.
Despite its importance, however, this foundational term and justification for all poetic texts is known by very few teachers, and almost no students, which is nothing short of terrible. What makes it all the more reprehensible is that it is so elementary, so simple, so obvious (once it is stated), that even an average sixth grader would have no problem understanding and applying it. I discovered this phenomenon without knowing what it was called, along with some of my classmates, early in junior high, and we thought of it as a trick to use to answer questions about and to write essays on poems. This likely happens in every generation, but never gets passed on because it is not taught, and those who possess the secret only pass it on to those they feel they can trust. Basically, the rule of significance states that every poem, no matter what it seems to be about, is also somehow related to human activities, concerns, experiences, relationships, and emotions. Every poem is about the human condition, about you as an individual, and about life in general. It's that simple.
Many of you are saying "What? You built us up for two paragraphs to tell us that? But that is obvious!" I will respond with what I said in the beginning: the rule is not difficult, and it seems obvious once you hear it, but it is by no means actually obvious or well known, and it is devastatingly effective. I have seen countless students get mired down in a poem about trees, flowers, landscapes, various material objects, and so on, unable to get past the surface to penetrate into the core of the poem. None of these students applied the rule of significance, and all paid the price. Even more usefully, the rule applies to individual pieces of poems just as well as it does to poems as a whole. Just as a poem about flowers is also a poem about human life, so too is a line about a flower also a line about some aspect of human experience. Perhaps an example is in order.
In the following poem, the rule of significance is of paramount importance to achieving any level of comprehension:
At a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
petals on a wet, black bough.
Now on first glance this poem, written by Ezra Pound, seems to say very little, if anything at all. The title tells us it takes place in a subway station, but it looks like nothing really takes place. The first line talks about faces appearing in a crowd. The second mentions petals on a bough, and there is nothing before, after, or between them to suggest any connections. However, if we keep the rule of significance in mind, we can make some sense of the poem. The subway station and the faces obviously pertain to human activity already; the petals and bough are therefore the rule's primary targets in this case. The petals must be symbolic of the faces, and the bough symbolic of the crowd. So, this poem is making an observation, which happens to take place in a subway station, about the beauty of human individuality. The crowd is large and bleak, undifferentiated, like a wet, black bough. However, as we look, certain faces jump out at us, and catch our attention; these are compared to petals, the beautiful emergent aspects of the tree in contrast to the bleak branch. So, it seems that the beauty of human individuality can emerge from even the bleakest of places, just as the beautiful petals can blossom from even the bleakest of branches. The rule of significance has showed how the non-human aspects of the poem relate to the human aspects, and we go from complete befuddlement to a level of comprehension in no time at all.
The Rule of Significance
All too often, instructors teach poetry by delving into and explaining individual poems, without regard for the specific process through which this exploration is conducted. Even worse, students are often never told why they are doing what they are doing, and this leaves all but the brightest and luckiest scratching their heads and wondering how they are going to get through the final exam. This series will go a long way toward explaining the nuts and bolts of poetic terminology, but if you read nothing else about poetic analysis and remember nothing else from this series, please, please, make sure that the foundational premise underlying all poetic production, the rule of significance, remains embedded in your brain like a traumatic event or a hot bullet. It is that important.
Despite its importance, however, this foundational term and justification for all poetic texts is known by very few teachers, and almost no students, which is nothing short of terrible. What makes it all the more reprehensible is that it is so elementary, so simple, so obvious (once it is stated), that even an average sixth grader would have no problem understanding and applying it. I discovered this phenomenon without knowing what it was called, along with some of my classmates, early in junior high, and we thought of it as a trick to use to answer questions about and to write essays on poems. This likely happens in every generation, but never gets passed on because it is not taught, and those who possess the secret only pass it on to those they feel they can trust. Basically, the rule of significance states that every poem, no matter what it seems to be about, is also somehow related to human activities, concerns, experiences, relationships, and emotions. Every poem is about the human condition, about you as an individual, and about life in general. It's that simple.Many of you are saying "What? You built us up for two paragraphs to tell us that? But that is obvious!" I will respond with what I said in the beginning: the rule is not difficult, and it seems obvious once you hear it, but it is by no means actually obvious or well known, and it is devastatingly effective. I have seen countless students get mired down in a poem about trees, flowers, landscapes, various material objects, and so on, unable to get past the surface to penetrate into the core of the poem. None of these students applied the rule of significance, and all paid the price. Even more usefully, the rule applies to individual pieces of poems just as well as it does to poems as a whole. Just as a poem about flowers is also a poem about human life, so too is a line about a flower also a line about some aspect of human experience. Perhaps an example is in order.
In the following poem, the rule of significance is of paramount importance to achieving any level of comprehension:
At a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
petals on a wet, black bough.
Now on first glance this poem, written by Ezra Pound, seems to say very little, if anything at all. The title tells us it takes place in a subway station, but it looks like nothing really takes place. The first line talks about faces appearing in a crowd. The second mentions petals on a bough, and there is nothing before, after, or between them to suggest any connections. However, if we keep the rule of significance in mind, we can make some sense of the poem. The subway station and the faces obviously pertain to human activity already; the petals and bough are therefore the rule's primary targets in this case. The petals must be symbolic of the faces, and the bough symbolic of the crowd. So, this poem is making an observation, which happens to take place in a subway station, about the beauty of human individuality. The crowd is large and bleak, undifferentiated, like a wet, black bough. However, as we look, certain faces jump out at us, and catch our attention; these are compared to petals, the beautiful emergent aspects of the tree in contrast to the bleak branch. So, it seems that the beauty of human individuality can emerge from even the bleakest of places, just as the beautiful petals can blossom from even the bleakest of branches. The rule of significance has showed how the non-human aspects of the poem relate to the human aspects, and we go from complete befuddlement to a level of comprehension in no time at all.