Modern Poetry: Is it a Crime When it Doesn’t Rhyme?

THERE’S a good-natured debate about modern poetry going on between Hickathrift’s authors, so we thought we’d share it with you, the readers, to see what you think.

It all began when our acclaimed writer Andrew Stephen penned the following poem:

Ramble on

The mellowing of time
Tempts me often to regret
And repent the foolish chase
Towards feelings merely sensed
Or guessed at.
So easily dissatisfied
And tempted by the unobtainable
I thought that we could find
All the things I felt that
I was searching for.

And yet
A thousand inward voices
Tell me that to be restless
Is to be alive
Our wisdom is but a whisper,
That travelling is where
We find ourselves
And never the destination
Or the acclaim.

To be known
Even in a fleeting moment,
To see recognition
In the glance and laughing eyes
Which share the secret
Is all I long for
And all I recall.

The myth of wisdom
Is a bribe,
The luxury which steals our youth.

After reading the poem, Hickathrift editor Dave Phillips replied: Very good and thoughtful, but is it poetry? By taking out the line breaks and adding a little punctuation, you end up with the following:

Ramble on

The mellowing of time tempts me often to regret and repent the foolish chase towards feelings merely sensed or guessed at. So easily dissatisfied, and tempted by the unobtainable, I thought that we could find all the things I felt that I was searching for.

And yet, a thousand inward voices tell me that to be restless is to be alive. Our wisdom is but a whisper, that travelling is where we find ourselves – and never the destination or the acclaim. To be known, even in a fleeting moment; to see recognition in the glance and laughing eyes which share the secret, is all I long for – and all I recall.
The myth of wisdom is a bribe – the luxury which steals our youth.

Dave added: Does arbitrarily splitting up the sentences and stacking them atop one another make them into a poem? To me, it’s a moving piece of prose. I’d like to hear your mentor Ian Corn’s thoughts on this, as I’m not a poet myself, and I could be very wrong, of course

Ian, who is Head of English at King Edward VII School, King’s Lynn, duly obliged, opining…

Firstly, I think it’s good that Dave is challenging you. It’s what we all need from time to time to evaluate, re-evaluate, gain our bearings and then go forward. I think it’s great that you’re choosing poetry as your main focus as it’s this which clearly makes you happiest. It means, basically, that you’re writing for all the correct reasons.

In terms of ‘Is it poetry?’ – have a look at the following poem by Larkin, studied for A-Levels and degrees:

Home is So Sad

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

It’s a poem because it’s structured to deliver thoughts in a concise and rhythmic manner (in this sense, iambic pentameter, though as we know this is just one vehicle of delivery – as is free verse). We can see it’s written in full sentences, meaning someone could easily suggest it’s not actually poetry; they could, instead, suggest that it is prose which has been arranged merely to pass itself off as poetry. This of course would be sacrilege.

Likewise, your own poem is poetry:

‘The myth of wisdom
Is a bribe,
The luxury which steals our youth’

That’s the pinnacle of the piece, the pay-off line, and it is genuine poetry. Each word evolves and, for me, broaches wider concepts than are immediately on offer. Does the piece potentially offer as much information as a novel? Yes, because the economy of words implies, cleverly, the bigger picture.

Likewise, the following is defined by its claustrophobia. It borders on emotional implosion, though the tone of it – as a dramatic monologue – is wholly controlled and dignified, leading the reader to see it indeed as wisdom rather than trauma:

‘A thousand inward voices
Tell me that to be restless
Is to be alive’

In my view, it’s definitely poetry. It is concise and sophisticated, while saying much more than has been physically written.

Your verdict?

So there you have it. Is modern poetry just sentences of prose cut up into short chunks and rearranged, or is it concise and sophisticated poetry? We’ve asked a few fellow writers, and their opinions seem divided. Some say that forcing lines to rhyme detracts from the pure, original expression, while others insist that traditional poetry has a beauty and rhythm that cannot be surpassed.

So what do you think? Please let us know by leaving a reply (below).

HICKATHRIFT PRESS