Poetry Friday: The Ode Less Travelled

British actor/aesthete Stephen Fry is a favorite personality in our household. He's also written some books, including The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, which my husband picked up recently and I've been gradually working through.

In The Ode Less Travelled, Fry introduces the reader to poetry from a technical angle. I'm a quarter of the way through, and he has yet to discuss deriving meaning from poetry; as he says, "I certainly do not attempt in this book to pick up where [your] poor teachers left off and instruct you in poetry appreciation." Instead, Fry dissects meter, rhyme, and classic poetic forms and guides readers through exercises to try it for themselves. He believes all people are poetic by nature but don't have the tools to make anything of it; this book is the toolbox he offers.

Fry doesn't touch free verse at all; in fact, in his foreword, he quotes W. H. Auden, as I will now:

The poet who writes 'free' verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive but more often the result is squalor—dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor.

In my own (albeit dubious and sporadic) poetic efforts, I have preferred the structure offered by formal verse. Free verse feels a bit like being thrown into the middle of a foreign country sans tour guide, phrase book, or proper shoes. I'm at a loss as to where to go, what to do. When I'm working within the structure of a sonnet, however, there's just enough confinement to make me feel safe.**

As of page 75, Fry has given me an overview of meter to beat the pants off the high school English class version: the various feet, the various -ameters, enjambment and caesura, the various substitutions and adding/lopping of "weak" syllables to add emphasis to the "strong." Along the way, he offers dozens of illustration from classic verse (from Shakespeare's to modern times), examples he's made up for illustrative purposes (for which he makes no apologies), and exercises he insists readers attempt.

His authorial voice is engaging and, often, amusing. How often did your English teacher interrupt class to shout, "NO, DAMN YOU, NO! A THOUSAND TIMES NO! THE ORGANISING PRINCIPLE BEHIND THE VERSE IS NOT THE SENSE BUT THE METRE"? Or comment on William Blake's verse, "My dear, the scansion!" Fry doesn't pretend to be a great scholar or a great poet; he's the appreciator of poetry we could all be if we spent the time and thought.

So far, none of my exercises have yielded anything unembarrassing enough to share here, but I'm planning to continue through the book and, I hope, someday have some more verse I wouldn't be ashamed to put my name on.

The Ode Less Travelled isn't a poet's bible, but it is full of valuable information for those of us who know little but are willing to learn. It ought to be required for all writers who wants to write a rhyming picture book. It won't help them write a better story, but with any luck it will prevent their readers from wrinkling their noses and exclaiming, "My dear, the scansion!"

**Thinking of formal verse always reminds me of this dialogue from A Wrinkle in Time:

(Mrs. Whatsit) [The sonnet] is a very strict form of poetry, is it not? There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That's a very strict rhythm or meter, yes? And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?

(Calvin) You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?

(Mrs. Whatsit) Yes. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

Isn't that lovely?

Kelly at Big A little a has this week's Poetry Friday round-up. Be sure to check it out!