I wrote this as a speech many years ago. The little boy mentioned here towers over me by now…
Riffing on poetry…
My son Cameron is being confirmed this Easter. One of his jobs before then is to memorize the Nicene Creed, which is the shortest statement of Catholic doctrine. He was complaining to me how hard it is to memorize. I didn’t argue. Instead, I said:
The screen door slams. Mary’s dress sways.
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely.
Hey, that’s me, and I want you only.
Don’t turn me home again,
I just can’t face myself alone again.
Don’t run back inside, darling,
you know just what I’m here for.
So you’re scared and you’re thinking
that maybe we ain’t that young anymore.
Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night.
You ain’t a beauty, but hey you’re alright.
Oh and that’s alright with me.
You can hide ‘neath your covers and study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well now I’m no hero, that’s understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now?
What is it? Thunder Road, by Bruce Springsteen. I gave Cameron every word, start to finish, more than 400 words.
He said, “But still, dad.” So I said:
Early one morning the sun was shining,
I was laying in bed
Wondering if she’d changed at all
If her hair was still red.
Her folks they said our lives together
Sure was gonna be rough
They never did like Mama’s homemade dress
Papa’s bankbook wasn’t big enough.
And I was standing on the side of the road
Rain falling on my shoes
Heading out for the East Coast
Lord knows I’ve paid some dues getting through,
What was I? Tangled Up In Blue, by Bob Dylan. I said every one of the almost 600 words in that song.
And it got me thinking about poetry. Poetry is about memorization first. It’s much older than discursive prose, and it was born not as some effete art form, but as an essential element of preliterate culture. Poetry is the means by which preliterate societies retain their culture. Its metrical forms and verbal affectations are devised to promote memorization.
How effective is it? Last week I heard a song for the first time in 15 years. I knew all of the lyrics, without having to flail around in my memory:
If you had just a minute to breathe
And they granted you one final wish
Would you ask for something like another chance?
Or something similar as this
Don’t worry too much — it’ll happen to you
As sure as your sorrows are joys
And the thing that disturbs you is only the sound —
Of what? The Low Spark of High-Heel Boys, by Steve Winwood.
But is Rock ‘n’ Roll poetry?
Poetry in English should rhyme, scan and make sense. Modern English poetry is a wasteland, of course. It doesn’t rhyme, which is a forgivable omission: The Greeks, the Romans and Shakespeare do not rhyme.
But it is not just blank verse but meterless noise — which means it fails at the essential job of poetry: Being memorable.
That it combines inanity with linguistic abuse turns out not to matter. It is no accident, as was documented in the New Times, that the creative efforts of Alzheimer’s patients are indistinguishable from the poetry pages of The New Yorker.
But poetry can rhyme and scan and still bear weight. Still live in this world and still express artfulness:
I saw it all just like the lights on Broadway madly flashing
I saw the dreams the nightmare scenes the nights of endless passion
I saw the ads the flukes the fads the fascist flights of fashion
I saw the storm behind my eyes and heard the thunder crashing
How faithful is this to art, that stuff chiseled in stone? How close can pop-art come to Venus, hallowed, haloed, exalted and revered? Consider this random act of rap:
Back in the days you know I was a player,
I was having my way with the ladies all day.
But those days are done ’cause I holstered my gun,
for my pride set aside all instruments of fun.On the left-hand side, where Venus stands sentry,
are the means and machines by which I sought entry.
By torchlight by midnight with crowbars and bows
I pried my way inside to where the ladies’ man goes.Yo, Venus, your Memphis without that Sithonian snow,
your Cyprus, where every sad soldier must go —
you rule, girl, and because that witch gave me the slip,
for her pride little Chloe deserves a taste of your whip.
That was Horace, Quintus Horatius Flaccus. And you may say that this is an unfair translation, but I would argue to the contrary. It follows the original Latin faithfully. It honors the metrical structure, and it mimics the tone and tenor Horace was aiming for.
Do pop lyrics mimic the tone and tenor of our times?
Almost never. Most lyrics are stupid and obvious and completely forgettable. But art is the stuff that sticks with you, and every once in a while you hear something that won’t turn you loose.
In Taxi, Hary Chapin grabs us with this:
She said, “We must get together”
But I knew it’d never be arranged
She hand me twenty dollars for a two-fifty fare
She said, “Harry, keep the change”
Well another man might have been angry
And another man might have been hurt
But another man never would have let her go
I stashed the bill in my shirt
Ouch. That stings like real life…
We don’t need poetry to tell us our history. We have discursive prose for that.
We need poetry for a much more important job: To tell us who we are…
