pantoum's Diaryland
Diary
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DACTYLS
Studying poetry with Marilyn Hacker, a master of formal verse, made me hyperaware of meter, even though I only occasionally write formalist poetry now. So here's a brief poetry lesson to introduce a couple of excellent dactyls by Olga Broumas.
To write metrically is to measure.
Poets measure the number of accents and the number of syllables using the basic unit of a foot, or, a rhythmical pattern that generally contains one accented syllable and one or more unaccented syllables. This is called the meter of a poem.
Poetry is measured in four different kinds of meter: accentual, syllabic, accentual-syllabic, and quantitative.
Dactyls fall into the most common type of meter in English—accentual-syllabic meter—and is one of the four feet most widely used in accentual-syllabic meter. (The others are iamb, trochee, and anapest.)
Poets substitute feet—spondee or pyrrhic—to vary rhythm.
Now note the following diacritical marks: ', or the acute accent, represents an accented syllable, and X represents an unaccented syllable.
A dactyl is 'XX, as in "faithfully."
Now here are two dactyls by Olga Broumas, from her collection Beginning with O LINE OF THE HEART
Up the long hill, the earth rut steamed in the strange sun.
We, walking between its labia, loverlike, palm to palm. LINE OF THE MIND
The branch splits in two: I will eat both the male
and the female fruit. Gnaw back the fork to its simple crotch.
And here are three beautiful poems by the same poet.
IO
One would know nothing.
One would begin by the touch
return to her body,
one would forget
even the three
soft cages
where summer lasts. One would regret nothing.
One would first touch the mouth
then the warm
pulsing places that wait
that wait
and the last song around them
a shed of light. A crumpled apron, a headcloth, a veil.
One would keep nothing. By the still mouths of fear
one would listen. Desire
would spill past each lip
and caution. That which is light
would remain. That which is
still would grow fertile.
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SONG, FOR SANNA ...in this way the future enters
into us, in order to transform itself
in us before it happens.
—Rilke What hasn't happened
intrudes, so much
hasn't yet happened. In the steamy kitchens we meet in, kettles
are always boiling, water for tea, the steep
infusions we occupy
hands and mouth with, steam
filming our breath, a convenient subterfuge, a disguise
for the now
sharp intake, the measured
outlet of air, the sigh, the gutting
loneliness of the present where
what hasn't happened will
not be ignored, intrudes, separates
from the conversation like milk
from cream, desire rising between the cups, brimming
over our saucers, clouding the minty
air, its own
aroma a pungent
stress, once again, you will get
up, put on your coat, go home to the safer passions, moisture
clinging still to your spoon, as the afternoon
wears on, and I miss, I
miss you.
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BITTERNESS
She who loves roses must be patient
and not cry out when she is pierced by thorns.
—Sappho In parody
of a grade-B film, our private
self-conscious soapie, as we fall
into the common, suspended disbelief of love, you ask
will I still be
here tomorrow, next week, tonight you ask me am I really
here. My passion delights and surprises you, comfortable
as you've been without it. Lulled,
comfortable as a float myself in your real
and rounded arms, I can only smile
back, indulgently
at such questions. In the second reel— a season of weeks, two
flights across the glamorous Atlantic, one
orgy and the predictable divorce
scenes later—I'm fading out
in the final close-up
alone. As one heroine in this
two-bit production to the other, how long
did you, did we both know
the script
meant you to wake up doubting
in those first nights, not me, my daytime
serial solvency, but yours.
3:59 p.m. - 2005-03-06
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