I was thinking about writing this blog post on something like the new standards for CMS or the minutiae of grammar or the origin of the quotation mark or something like that, but then I realized I would have to do research and read a bunch of big boring books with tiny print and I’m already taking a history class–I don’t need more of that!
So instead I’m going to talk about a poem I found recently and maybe get some things out of it that’ll be helpful for all of y’all out there who want to write your own poetry. The poem is by this dude named Gerard Manley Hopkins (one of the greatest Victorian poets); it’s called “Heaven-Haven”. It goes like this:
I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.
This is a great poem. I know we believe in the Enduring Questions and Ideas and beauty is relative and all that jazz, but come on – this thing is just beautiful. If I could write a poem half this good I would pat myself on the back and die happy. So here’s my question: What makes this poem so good? Obviously that’s a complicated question with many answers. But what strikes me the most right now as I read it is the thematic unity of the whole poem.
What is the poem – basically – about? It’s about a desire for a better place than this one, a place where there are no bugs or storms, i.e. Heaven (Hopkins was also a devoted Jesuit). And this is not a complicated desire that the poet has – it’s something universal, simple, common to all people. And every element of the poem harkens back to this theme.
Now, I invite you – I would demand if I could – to read that poem aloud. Taste those words. Listen to the rhythm of those syllables. Be surprised by the length of the third line! Smile to yourself over the simple stress pattern of that last amazing line. The poem is musical – but this isn’t true of all of Hopkins poems. “Carrion Comfort,” for example, is not at all like this – perhaps it has music too, but it’s a very different kind of music. Look at line three – it’s just five perfect iambs. Or look at the last line – aside from a few substitutions, it’s purely dactyls. The meters in this poem are fairly intuitive and easy to analyze metrically, making the music in this poem seem earnest, almost childlike – just like the poet’s desire for Heaven.
And notice now – what’s the longest word in this whole poem? It’s “desired”–hardly a complex word. And there are few words in the poem that a child couldn’t understand. There is no imagery that the reader has to think hard to make sense. And the poem itself is very brief – only two stanzas of four lines each. All this, again, points to this constant theme of the simply desire for peace.
So there’s your takeaway for the day, guys and gals: When you’re writing a poem, it’s a good idea to start with a theme and let that theme drive every other choice you make – the form, the word choice, the length of the poem, the sound, the rhythm, etc. A great poem is one that is spun out on a unified theme without any bit that isn’t connected, like how in a great Beethovenian symphony every note and gesture is derived from a single theme. If your poem is as unified in every element as is Beethoven’s 5th, then you can pat yourself on the back and know you did something right. And then come into the Writing Studio and book an appointment with me, because I’d love to read it!