Fergana state university foreign languages faculty

WHAT IS LANGUAGE POETRY?

From meter and metaphor to rhyme, rhythm, and beyond, we spend a lot of time analyzing how different poetic devices are used to create meaning. Why would a poet choose one word over another? Why would they use an enjambment over a single line? But in those studies, how often do we stop to consider the role the reader plays in creating a poem’s meaning?

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, a challenge to traditional poetry took shape: language poetry. A sort of cross between poetry, philosophy, and semiotics, language poetry was an avant-garde movement that emphasized the role of the reader in a poem’s meaning. Instead of relying on traditional poetic techniques, language poets invite readers to analyze the text and participate in constructing meaning.

If that explanation of language poetry seems a bit abstruse, imagine this: What if, instead of watching a performance, you were invited to join? What if reading a poem made you an active participant, rather than a passive experiencer? Well, that’s just what language poetry argues. It says that the reader’s interpretation of the text matters just as much as the words the poet chooses to put on the page.

The movement gained mainstream attention around the same time that L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E magazine, edited by Charles Bernstein and Bruce Andrews, and This journal, edited by Robert Grenier and Barrett Watten, were being produced. The two magazines, as well as a slew of other poetry produced during that time period, blurred the line between poetry and critical writing about poetry.

The work of Bernstein, Andrews, Grenier, Watten, and other foundational members of the language poetry movement posed a new challenge to readers. By breaking up poetic language, they required readers to find a new approach to understanding the text. For a more concrete example of how this works, take a look at the poem “Apartment” (2008) by Rae Armantrout.

1.The woman on the mantel,

who doesn’t much resemble me,

is holding a chainsaw

away from her body,

with a shocked smile,

while an undiscovered tumor

squats on her kidney.

2.The present

is a sentimental favorite,

with its heady mix

of grandiosity

and abjection,

truncated,

framed.

In a few brief stanzas, Armantrout pieces together the shattering discovery of a kidney tumor and the dissociation that follows. Rather than weaving together an ornate story, the poet gives readers fragments of images and feelings, juxtaposing the familiar with the unfamiliar, the serene with the chaotic.

Armantrout is known to use short lines to break down conventions of memory, culture, and science. In small groups of phrases, Armantrout manages to convey the large questions, ideas, and contradictions within them. “You can hold the various elements of my poems in your mind at one time, but those elements may be hissing and spitting at one another,” she once said.

Elements of language poetry can add a layer of depth to how we read and write poems. As readers, language poetry invites us to engage with the text, impose our own meanings on it, and even discuss with others how our interpretations overlap or differ. As writers, language poetry allows us to be more playful with our audience. Rather than attempting to restrain their interpretations from veering away from our original intent, we can set their minds free to roam, reinterpret, and reimagine the meaning of our words. The language school of poetry started in the 1970s as a response to traditional American poetry and forms. Coming on the heels of such movements as the Black Mountain and New York schools, language poetry aimed to place complete emphasis on the language of the poem and to create a new way for the reader to interact with the work. Language poetry is also associated with leftist politics and was also affiliated with several literary magazines published in the '70s, including This and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E.

Key aspects of language poetry include the idea that language dictates meaning rather than the other way around. Language poetry also seeks to involve the reader in the text, placing importance on reader participation in the construction of meaning. By breaking up poetic language, the poet is requiring the reader to find a new way to approach the text.

Language poetry is also intertwined with prose writing; several of the language poets have written essays about their poetics, one of the best-known being Ron Silliman’s essay "The New Sentence." Language poet Lyn Hejinian’s book of essays, The Language of Inquiry, collects her essays written over the last twenty-five years. In her introduction, she discusses the place of language in writing:

Language is nothing but meanings, and meanings are nothing but a flow of contexts. Such contexts rarely coalesce into images, rarely come to terms. They are transitions, transmutations, the endless radiating of denotation into relation.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound ring like a man in fire or lime… Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

Rhyme

The repetition of syllables, typically at the end of a verse line. Rhymed words conventionally share all sounds following the word’s last stressed syllable. Thus “tenacity” and “mendacity” rhyme, but not “jaundice” and “John does,” or “tomboy” and “calm bay.” A rhyme scheme is usually the pattern of end rhymes in a stanza, with each rhyme encoded by a letter of the alphabet, from a onward (ABBA BCCB, for example). Rhymes are classified by the degree of similarity between sounds within words, and by their placement within the lines or stanzas.

-Eye rhyme rhymes only when spelled, not when pronounced. For example, “through” and “rough.”

-End rhyme, the most common type, is the rhyming of the final syllables of a line. See “Midstairs” by Virginia Hamilton Adair:

And here on this turning of the stair

Between passion and doubt,

I pause and say a double prayer,

One for you, and one for you;

And so they cancel out.

-Feminine rhyme applies to the rhyming of one or more unstressed syllables, such as “dicing” and “enticing.” Ambrose Bierce’s “The Day of Wrath” employs feminine rhyme almost exclusively. Half rhyme is the rhyming of the ending consonant sounds in a word (such as “tell” with “toll,” or “sopped” with “leapt”). This is also termed “off-rhyme,” “slant rhyme,” or apophany. See consonance.

-Identical rhyme employs the same word, identically in sound and in sense, twice in rhyming positions.

-Internal rhyme is rhyme within a single line of verse, when a word from the middle of a line is rhymed with a word at the end of the line.

-Masculine rhyme describes those rhymes ending in a stressed syllable, such as “hells” and “bells.” It is the most common type of rhyme in English poetry.

-Monorhyme is the use of only one rhyme in a stanza. See William Blake’s “Silent, Silent Night.”

-Pararhyme is poet Edmund Blunden’s term for double consonance, where different vowels appear within identical consonant pairs. For example, see Wilfred Owen’s “Strange Meeting”: “Through granites which Titanic wars had groined. / Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned

Definition of Rhyme

Rhyme is a literary device, featured particularly in poetry, in which identical or similar concluding syllables in different words are repeated. Rhyme most often occurs at the ends of poetic lines. In addition, rhyme is principally a function of sound rather than spelling. For example, words rhyme that end with the same vowel sound but have different spellings: day, prey, weigh, bouquet. This is true for words with the same consonant ending as well: vain, rein, lane. Rhyme is therefore predominantly independent of the way words look or are spelled. Writers use rhymes as a way to create sound patterns in order to emphasize certain words and their relationships with others in an artistic manner.

An example of the emphasis of rhyme as a function of the sounds or pronunciations of words is the poem “Going to Extremes” by Richard Armour:

Shake and shake

The catsup bottle

None’ll come–

And then a lot’ll.

Rhyme in this case provides an overall structure for Armour’s poem. By rhyming “bottle” with “lot’ll,” the poet achieves an effect that is satisfying and fulfilling for the reader, both in the poem’s form and content.

Common Examples of Rhyme Forms

There are many types of rhyme, particularly in poetry. Here are some common examples of rhyme forms:

Perfect Rhyme: This rhyme form features two words that share the exact assonance and number of syllables, and is also known as a true rhyme. (skylight and twilight)

Slant Rhymes: This rhyme form features words with similar but not exact assonance and/or number of syllables. This is also known as half rhyme or imperfect rhyme. (grieve and believe)

Eye Rhymes: This rhyme form features two words that appear similar when read, but do not actually rhyme when spoken or pronounced. (Mood and hood; move and dove)

Masculine Rhyme: This rhyming form takes place between the final stressed syllables of two lines. (compare and repair)

Feminine Rhyme: This rhyming form features multi-syllables in which stressed and unstressed syllables rhyme with each other, respectively. (lazy and crazy)

End Rhymes: These are rhymes that occur between the final words of two consecutive lines of poetry or non-consecutive lines following rhyme scheme in a stanza.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forest of the night.

Examples of Rhymes in Nursery Tales

Mother Goose and other nursery tales feature rhyme as a foundation for language acquisition, reading, and listening comprehension for children. In addition to enhancing speech and literacy skills, these rhyming poems and tales generate interest and appreciation for artistic use of language. Here are some examples of rhymes in nursery tales:

Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet

Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock

Little Jack Horner sat in a corner

Sugar and spice and everything nice

Jack Sprat could eat no fat

It’s raining, it’s pouring; the old man is snoring

hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle

Jack and Jill went up the hill

Peter Peter, pumpkin eater

Rain, rain go away; come again another day

little bo peep has lost her sheep

Miss Polly had a dolly

Old King Cole was a merry old soul

Simple Simon met a pieman

Three little kittens have lost their mittens

Famous Examples of Rhymes in Common Phrases

When people use rhyming words in everyday speech, the purpose is generally to appeal to a sense of rhythm in language and use rhyming sounds to create memorable expressions. Here are some famous examples of rhymes in common phrases:

See you later, alligator

Too cool for school

Make or break

Shop ’til you drop

Meet and greet

Nearest and dearest

Fender bender

Blame game

Hustle and bustle

Handy dandy

Study buddy

Sky high

True blue

Boy toy

Double trouble