Poetry Articles for Poetry Writers at World of Poets

by Al Rocheleau

I have often told poets privately that they can increase the quality of their work in short order by doing several things that do not involve writing poetry. One of them is to listen to music-- specifically music that captures the dynamics inherent in all fine poetry, from Shakespeare to Keats, Eliot to Pinsky. This dynamic is one of an essential sound and rhythm-- something that surpasses the rule of any fixed form or preordained notion of what poetry is.

The fact is, you could hear such poetry, good poetry read in another language, and still know that it is poetry. What you are hearing is the "music"-- and it IS music, just as if you were listening to the scored patterns of Mozart, Bach, and Duke Ellington, or the improvisation of Charlie Parker and Ravi Shankar.

The arrangement of sounds and their flow, first in score, second in performance, transcends the normal aspects of rhetoric or "story." Like the visceral impact of painting, music hits in the gut, or upon some super-sense, without further interpretation being necessary. Poetry is another of these arts-- and it is this that makes it different from prose.

True, the semantic (meaning) aspect of poetry is shared with prose in many instances-- but it is the music of poetry that truly sets it apart. Unfortunately, many poets never get that musical consciousness into their work. As a result, their work might seem dry, rote, formulaic. Rather than pull one's hair out TRYING to instill that music through mere changing of forms, or stressing a certain sound device like rhyme or alliteration, I tell a poet to do the following:

Go to the store. Bring 25 dollars or so. Buy a very well-played set of Chopin's Nocturnes. Play them 100 times, sometimes listening intently, sometimes as background. Do this over a period of months. The poet (and poems) will begin to improve. Lines will become more elastic, rather than stiff (probably more enjambment will show up.) Meter will become more flexible. (No straight, metronomic iambs anymore.)

Assonance and consonance will be less forced, but probably more prevalent, as tone colors come out in the form of intermingling vowels and consonants. Word choices will improve. Overall structure, beginning, middle, end, will become smoother, with the poet viewing an entire poetic architecture, rather than struggling to stack line on top of line. Why solo piano music? Why Chopin? Why the nocturnes?

While many types of music could be inspirational in this regard, solo piano lends itself perhaps the best as equivalent to poetic structure. The clear notes can equal words, the chords phrases, the scales or chord sequences can equal lines (or actually, sentences), entire melodic/harmonic strains the stanzas, and so forth.

It need not be an exact equivalent, but the use of piano, with its maximal octave range and clear intonation seems the best starting point. (Leonard Bernstein, in fact, used this sort of direct comparison in discussing "musical linguistics" in his famous Norton Lectures, and the piano was his demonstration instrument.) Since melody is so important, and Chopin was arguably the world's most innovative melodist, his work is natural to explore.

And nowhere does one find such a combination of surface simplicity and fathomless depth-- as well as full ranges of loud/soft, fast/slow, light/dark dynamics as in the 19 nocturnes of Chopin. They are all different, exploring just about all the keys of the scale, and many moods-- including moods that shift in mid-piece.

Most important when listening (and something you can't grasp as easily looking at the score) is the rubato, or stretching of the rhythm as written. This is done as part of the performance interpretation of just about any piece of classical music, and is especially prominent in solo renderings of classical works.

The "pulling" that places an accent just before, or just after when it is expected, the slowing down and speeding up, this pulls the listener along, keeping him or her slightly off balance and ever attentive. A fine poet will write such elasticity into his or her work, and emphasize it in live reading.

In any event, I dare you to invest 25 dollars in your poetic career and buy the Chopin Nocturnes. Listen to them in the car, at home, in front of you, in the background, even while you sleep. Play them 100 times. Really, 100 times. And buy a good version-- since the nocturnes can be easily badly played, just as poetry can be badly recited.

The versions I would recommend are: Artur Rubinstein on BMG, Claudio Arrau on Philips, or Maria-Joao Pires on Deutsche Grammophon. Of these, Rubinstein I would say is first choice. (All are excellent, but slightly different from each other--the overall speeds and that rubato thing, especially.)

After you listen to these, and get what I've been saying about all this, you may want to try Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas. They are quite marvelous too, and the next logical step after Chopin. Bach's preludes (really any of his keyboard music), Mozart's piano concertos (specifically the piano parts), or Beethoven's piano sonatas are also fertile ground. You may pick up different things from each. But try the Chopin first.

Do what I tell you on this. No matter how good a poet you may be at this time, or think you are, you will thank me for this advice.
Chopin's Nocturnes. Yes! Do it now.

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