There are many books on poetic form and technique, among them Turco’s ‘The Book of Forms,’ Mary Oliver’s ‘A Poetry Handbook,’ ‘A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms’ by Eavan Boland and Mark Strand, Fry’s ‘The Ode Less Travelled,’ Hollander’s ‘Rhyme’s Reason,’ Fussells ‘Poetic Meter and Poetic Form;’ there are dozens in similar vein available, all with prose explanations of the poetic examples chosen.
None do, of course, what Lucy Newlyn’s new book on the craft of poetry does; it presents form, technique, concepts, figures and foundations through the medium of appropriate poems without a word of a prose explanation. In other words, it’s an innovative approach that requires the reader to do some homework by looking up explanations elsewhere of those terms unknown. In this regard, it’s probably more suitable for those poets who have been writing for some time and who want to explore the poetry-writing world more deeply; there are plenty of introductory books and short courses around for beginner poets.
A bonus is the theme of the poetry itself – the small village of Appersett in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire and its environs, often seen through the eyes of a small child, the poet herself, who lived there, and through the memories of the older poet. She more than succeeds in her aims. The two themes, poetry and various techniques, had me reading the book three times soon after it had dropped through the letter-box; once as a poetry book itself, once for the technical side alone and finally to see how well she integrated poetry with any of the categories displayed on its pages.
The book clearly shows where poetry is closely coupled to technique in “Zeugma:”
“You can switch quickly from side to
side
by letting verbs slide, changing their
function.
The milk churn sits on the milk-stand
and easy in your mind. The beck
carries meaning and broken twigs
from trees that sway above them in the
wind.”
and how closely allied form is to the poetry in “Rhyme Royal:”
“Employ it knowingly,this antique form,
aware that every dried up beck or rill
can murmur once again if there’s a
storm
to fill the channels once they
overspill
with energy in every note and trill.
Rhyme royal doesn’t always mimic
sadness;
it can be chock-full of summer’s
gladness”
Through the use of memory, Lucy Newlyn shows considerable skill in communicating how a child develops a wider perspective on life, from examining stones near the beck to experiencing people in the neighbourhoods beyond and exploring the countryside further from the beck, its viaduct, its bridge and their immediate environs, almost always bringing finds back to the beck’s safe ‘homeside’ and certainly to treasure in memory. Here’s the theme of memory in “Subject matter and register:”
“Up on the bridge you were a spectator.
Here, you’re immersed: a child at play,
losing all sense of time in reverie.
When you’re done, you walk back to the
bridge
along the far side, crossing slowly to
the milk-stand,
the nettles, and your home. In your
pocket
are three stones, to remind you of water.”
The child/memory trope is cleverly done. It implies that as a child grows it takes on a greater curiosity to explore more distant horizons and new experiences in rural surroundings, while the poet herself recaptures her past memories in reverie on visiting Appersett as an adult. This is clear in the poem, “Metaphor:”
“Where has the bridge gone, what has
happened
to the small burden you were carrying?
Did you
drop it in the beck, distracted by
something?
It’s good here, a great place for
walking:
new things to look at, nothing to hide.”
Poets
who write will be able to capture something of that same poignant sense of new
and recalled exploration as they read.
It’s a masterful book and certainly one I’ll be re-reading often in the coming years for its lyricism and the sense of Wordsworthian rurality, as well as its inwoven descriptions of form and technique. Highly recommended.
The Craft of Poetry: A Primer in Verse by Lucy Newlyn, pub. Yale University Press, March 2121, £12.15.
