LECTURE 2:

UNDERSTANDING POETIC LANGUAGE

AS
WINDOWS, VISTAS AND SMUDGES
Heres a good way to understand what poets are up to. They really, really, really want
you to understand the poems theyve written. Good poets dont get it right the first time.
They write, rewrite, scream, sweat, rewrite, melt when they finally find the perfect word
for line 16, take up prayer, blaspheme God, kick the dog, love their spouses more, hate
their spouses more, wish they had spouses, read other great poets, watch the Super
Bowl
See, you only get to see the finished product, and this is misleading. A friend of mine
who is a very good poet averages about 6 months work on a good poemand she works
at it every day sometimes. Shes creating, crafting, thinking, rethinking, trying this, that
and the other thinguntil she feels shes got it right. And when she lets people test
read it and they get what shes trying to say, it disappoints her a lot and sends her back to
the drawing board.
I know what youre thinking: you feel the same way when you write school papersand
God knows theres no poetry in those things. So what are poets doing that Im not trying
myself? Well, let me tell you. Most of the time, when you write for school or business,
youre trying to be precise. Youre trying to get an idea across hoping that the language
you use will be clear. Clear like a clean window. You are trying to get so good at
language that it works like a clean, clear window which people can look through and
see exactly what youre saying. And, by the way, this kind of writing isnt easy. You
know this. You mess up a sentence, forget where the semi-colon goes, choose the wrong
word. You goof up the language; you smudge the clean window. You call attention to the
dirt on the window and the reader cant see past it to the view outside. When you revise,
you try to Windex the smudges off the window so that things can be clear again. When
you write school papers, you want the language todisappear, to be transparent.
But poets are trying something different and more difficult. A poem is not only supposed
to lead you to a clear view of something (seeing through the window), but its supposed
to do it by getting you to pay attention to the window (the language) itself at the same
time. Now, poets dont want smudges or streaks to get your attention. They want the
beauty of the window itself to catch your eye. Its like poets are making stained-glass
windows that you are supposed to LOOK AT and LOOK THROUGH. Tricky business it
is, but when it is well donewell, a thing of beauty is a joy forever said one great poet.
So, in order to understand poetry, you will have to learn how to look at the window of
language itself. You will have to learn to see the different colors that language has,
colors you dont use too much (because you dont need to) when you write school papers
or grocery lists or quick e-mails to your friends. We can call these special characteristics
of language POETIC FEATURES. True, you know some of them already, but some you
dont. What follows is a list that contains the most useful and important poetic features.

POETIC FEATURES LIST

The two most important poetic featuresbecause they work not only in poetry but in
almost everything we writeare SPEAKER and TONE. Students seem to have a hard
time with these ideas, but they are really pretty simple.
The SPEAKER of a poem or essay or school paper is the voice you hear when you read
the text. You should always remember that the author of a text is not necessarily the
speaker of the text. Mark Twain was the author of the novel, Huckleberry Finn, but the
character of Huckleberry Finn is not Mark Twain, just a creation from Mr. Twains brain.
The only time we have the right to connect the speaker and the author is when we are
writing autobiographically, that is, about ourselves. When you read poems, I want you to
tell me as much as you can (and as much as you can prove) about the speaker of the
poem. I dont care about the author at all.
The TONE of a poem or other piece of writing is very specific: it is the Speakers
attitude toward the ideas he or she is discussing. One idea is especially important here:
TONE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR ATTITUDE toward the subject, only the
Speakers attitude. So, it might be possible that you are reading a poem about suicide.
You, the reader, may hate the idea of suicide, but its possible that the Speaker of the
poem speaks of suicide sarcastically or comicallynot in a normal way. You could never
understand such a poem if you replaced the Speakers attitude with your own. Look at
this poem and hear the humorous tone:
RESUME
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns arent lawful;
Noose give;
Gas smells awful
You might as well live.

Whats the TONE of this poem? Whos the SPEAKER? Unless you get good answers to
these questions, youll likely miss the poets meaning.

 GRAPHIC LAYOUT

Pay attention to how the language is laid out on the page. The stranger the
Graphic Layout, the more important it probably is to the meaning of the
poem.

Especially watch where poets decide to stop one line and begin another
one; they use this to create emphasis or ambiguity in meaning.

SOUND FEATURES

Rhyme: We will pay attention only to End Rhyme, rhymes at the ends of
lines.
o Look to see if the poem rhymes or not
o If it rhymes, mark the pattern (if you look at the poem on the
previous page, you see that it rhymes and you can mark its pattern
in the following way (consult your text if you have troubles):
RESUME
Razors pain you; (a)
Rivers are damp; (b)
Acids stain you, (a)
And drugs cause cramp. (b)
Guns arent lawful; (c)
Noose give; (d)
Gas smells awful (c)
You might as well live (d)

Assonance: Check out patterns and repetitions of vowel sounds. A poem

with lots of ooohs and aaahs will sound a lot softer than a poem with
eeee and aaaa.

Consonance: Check out patterns of consonant sounds. You shouldnt try

writing poetic lyrics for a lullaby with lots of k or t or f sounds;
youd want mmmms and nnnns softer sounds.

Alliteration: Repeated word-beginning consonant sounds: Peter Piper

picked a peck of pickled peppers.

 IMAGERY
This is language which appeals to the senses; its also called concrete language.
There are actually six senses to which language can appeal, some easier than others.

Visual, imagery for the eye: Any color words or words that indicate size.
Words like jagged, smoky and bright are visual (although they can
appeal to other senses too at the same time.

Aural, imagery for the ear: Screeching, rumbling, humming.

Olfactory, imagery for the nose: Stinky, sweet, aromatic.

Tactile, imagery for the sense of touch: Soft, leathery, sharp.

Gustatory, imagery for the sense of taste: Sweet, sour, bitter.

Kinesthetic, imagery for balance and internal sensations like nausea,

stomach nervousness, etc.

FIGURES OF SPEECH (FIGUARTIVE LANGUAGE)

There are lots of these, but here are the most useful:

Symbol: when something stands for something else

Metaphor: when something is compared to something else

Oxymoron: a contradiction in terms (military intelligence)

Hyperbole (exaggeration): If Ive told you once Ive told you a million
times!

Litotes (understatement): The British are known for their dry, understated
humor. If a British guard stood at the gates of Hell, he might tell you,
Watch out; its a tad warm in there!

Euphemism: using non-harsh words for taboo or unpleasant things:

Instead of dead, PASSED ON; instead of stupid, A BRICK SHORT
OF A LOAD. There are lots of euphemisms for sex.

Personification: giving human traits to non-human things.

Synecdoche (pronounced [sin-EK-da-kee] ): referring to something whole

by focusing on one of its parts. Sometimes when we count people we take
a head count. If we really dont like people, we refer to them by naming
specific body parts (you do the math on this one).

DICTION
This has to do with word choice; what words mean and how they achieve their
meaning.

Register: checking to see how formal (Hello Mr. Reichle) or informal

(Yo, Homey!) the language being used is.

Reference and Sense: we can refer to the same object using different
words. Watch how poets make choices as to HOW they refer to things.
Its one thing to call someone an economic refugee, another thing to
call them cheap labor.

Semantic Field: Sometimes poets will use words that come from the same
area of meaning. If a poet is writing about death, but uses words like
womb, infant, maternal, youve got to see that hes tapping the
semantic field of BIRTH, and youve got to figure out why.

This is all for now.