Structure and Stricture: The Role of Pattern In South African Poetry Examining City in Words ∗ Simon Halliday April 2007

Abstract This essay considers the role of structure in contemporary poetry taking a case study of the collection City in Words. There are several factors considered in the essay such as the dichotomy of form vs. formlessness. Furthemore, I accent how there is a distinct link between the form chosen by the poet and the communication that they transfer in the poem through its language and imagery. Form can accentuate or detract from these and can therefore determine the success or failure of a specific poem. The historic salience of the choice to use or not to use form is considered with the conclusion that writer’s cannot separate themselves from history - they are not ahistoric actors. Consequently, it is necessary to consider how the act of writing in a specific historic space impacts on the choice to adopts specific structures in poems. In support of my arguments I make a case study of four of the poets in the collection and assess their use of structure in their poetry, both in City in Words and elsewhere.

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This essay comprises a contribution to the completion of the MA in Creative Writing. Specifically the class for Professor Geoffrey Haresnape in response to Topic 1: A Response to Miller Williams.

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Introduction

That strict consistent patterns are not part of the visions of modern poets is obviated by the lack of strict adherence to patterns and forms by most contemporary poets. However, patterns are most definitely part the poetic trope. It is in the use of the words ‘strict’ and ‘consistent’ that Williams’ statement becomes problematic. Inherently, poetry is about the establishment or breaking of patterns. These patterns may be patterns of words, sounds, image, structure or those within form - they may also be patterns that suggest or hint at these same factors. I argue that the establishment of some form of pattern or structure is inherent in all poetry. No poetry is written in an historic vacuum - thus the concept of poetic structure must be located in an understanding of the history of poetry and the history of poetic structures themselves. Throughout the essay I will make reference to poetry from and poets in City in Words. I consider four specific poets and locate their poems in City in Words in the macrocontext of their other work rather than using City in Words as a wholly representative sample of their work. It is important to note that I chose the poets simply through subjective personal affection, rather than because of some political or literary imperative external. I end with a commentary on the choice of abandonment: the choice not to use form and its relevance for the individual.

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Structure and Form

Structure and form are two methods by which poets can choose to have explicity visual and poetic patterns, strict or otherwise, in their poetry. Form as a mode of poetic expression is particularly complex - it requires aspects of the visual in terms of the macro-strcutre of the poem, as well as characteristics of repeating lines, words or sounds in terms of evaluating its adherence to a specific form. Moreover, forms generally have some syllabic or rhythmic requirement for specific lines: the sonnet requires the poet to use iambic pentameter, the limerick the use of three anapæstic trimeters and two anapæstic dimeters. These forms furthermore have their own rhyme schemes to which the poet must adhere when adopting them. In other poetry, the poet can give precedence to syllables rather than rhythm which may result in the poet choosing to write a haiku, rubaiyat or tanka with their specific syllabic stipulations (Williams, 1986; Fry, 2005). We can dig deeper than this and look at the stanzaic structure of the poem. For example if there is no specific form in the poem, but the poem still has stanzas that fit into some specific structure (though it may be indeterminable through immediate scansion) then this could be a self-imposed stricture by the poet to convey some information to the reader. Alterna-

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tively there could be some nonce form to which we are not immediately privy and which only becomes revealed after in depth study of the poem (Williams, 1986). Lastly, there may be structure in terms of lines and line breaks within the poem even though there may not be stanzaic structures. In this capacity, free verse patterns can be far more difficult to assess because they may seem haphazard and possibly purposeless. In which case the self-imposed rule of ‘no structure’ could itself be seen as a model to which the poet must adhere in order to convey a poetic communication, in which the role of formlessnes is noteworthy. Thus, the lack of structure commits itself to a specific transferral of information to the reader. If we locate the quote from Williams in the paragraph in which it was written, we can see that there is a distinctly relative understanding of how patterns in form and strucure can and will affect our understanding of what Williams intended when writing the statement. This furthermore satisfies postmodern mores in which the context of an idea is as relevant as the idea itself. Thus, with respect to patterns, “...though some use them both consistently and convincingly... Perhaps more important to the present generation of poets is the way in which these patterns, allowed to be a little more resilient, followed not so rigorously, can inform new poems in such a manner that a sonnet or villanelle, or a sestina is not written but suggested.” (Williams, 1986, 11-12) Considering then the poems from City in Words, I could not find any particular poem that held to classical or formal structures of poetry.1 Most of the poetry in the text instead seems to fall within free verse norms for which a stanzaic structure is adopted (Isobel Dixon’s ‘She Comes Swimming’ or ‘Childhood’ by Geoffrey Haresnape), or the poem has no stanzaic structure (Tatamkhulu Afrika’s ‘Midnight Owl’ or Sandra Meyer’s ‘Simonstown Garden of Remembrance’) or for which the poem simply contains singular lines separate from one another (Karen Press’s ‘Tips for Visitors’ or Mark Espin’s ‘The Company Gardens’ are exemplars of this). These are representative of the census that is the collection as a whole. We have a collection that is populated by most of the norms of contemporary poetry - inasmuch as contemporary poets refuse to adopt specific forms for writing. It should be noted however that certain poets in the collection do write, or have written in formal structures. For example in Seasonal Fires Ingrid de Kok writes a villanelle for her son called ‘When Children Leave’, where the use of the villanelle is a testament to both the complexity of parenting and the dynamics of the relationship between mother and son, with the relationship’s own repeated patterns of behaviour and modes of communication being exemplified in those same repeated modes in the poem (de Kok, 2006). 1

From those forms indexed by either of Strand and Boland (2000) or Williams (1986).

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The Meaning and History of Form

Form is often used in order to convey some meaning. For example, the meaning attached to writing a limerick is different to the meaning attached to writing a sonnet. The former is unlikely to be used as a form for love poetry, whereas the latter is more likely to be used as such. This meaning is embedded moreover in literary history. The fact that a form, with its structure, rhythm and rhyming patterns conveys some meaning is a function of it social and historic embeddedness. Form therefore is as much a part of the communication that a poet elects to convey as the content, sound and patterns involved in the poem. The form and and the other characteristics in the poem co-convey meaning. With respect to the history of forms and the individual writer’s cognizance of them, it is important to note that it is only through knowledge of what constituted historic modes that one can be freed from them, i.e. the knowledge that the sestina, villanelle or sonnet exists historically allows the poet not to use that form if they so choose.2 It is the struggle with this history which gives free verse its salience, which allows free verse to be interesting and to be politically charged. However, chanting the cause for freedom from constraint, without any understanding of what the freedom itself is from or for is philosophically, politically and literarily incoherent and therefore demeans the use of free verse. Furthermore, the historic existence of form allows poets to engage with forms without actually using them, it allows a ‘suggestion’ as Williams (1986) comments. Alternatively, as Strand and Boland so eloquently state it, “The powerful fractures of form and convention that the modernist poets initiated in the second decade of the twentieth century were not wilful abandonments of what had gone before. They were in fact a passionate dialogue with it.” (Strand and Boland, 2000, 259) The modernists were chronically aware of their own historic and social embeddedness, in fact they chose to take historic forms and re-form them. They had classical allusions in their work to weave greater meaning and often an aspect of elitism to the work.3 Others acted contrary to any form and chose other modes of expression to capture poetry as the objectivists and imagists did.4 . In the context of South Africa this concept of historic meaning is particularly important. The history of who controlled literature, who wrote literature and who then wrote against literature is well-documented. More2

It is highly unlikely that any poet would accidentally produce a pantoum (for example) without the knowledge that it already exists within the set of forms from which any one poet can choose. 3 T.S. Eliot is a perfect example of this - ‘The Wasteland’ and ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ being the most documented examples of this. 4 Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams are good example of this in terms of an intent to capture an image, e.e. cummings with respect to discarding form and conventional grammars almost entirely

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over, the context of apartheid offers another historic context out of which people wrote and then to which they reacted. As apartheid was a legally embodied structure it is understandable that artists, poets or otherwise, would then choose to abandon aspects of structure in order subvert and be reactionary to structural aspects of society which prevented them from expressing themselves. This is one reason why I believe that contemporary South African poetry would not have structure - its lack of structure would be a reaction to the oppression in South Africa’s legal structures. However, what is germane is that this abandonment of structure was a choice made in reaction to forms, political, poetic or otherwise, that dominated society. They were self-conscious acts of rebellion and as such had meaning. Therefore the choice not to use form was necessarily as important as the choice to use form. This gives this choice salience, whereas if an individual simply does not use a form because they do not know any better then they are being obdurately ignorant, writing out of and into a void. However, this is only one way in which many chose to voice their discontent with structure through structure. Another capacity that individuals could exploit in order to bear testament to political problems would be through the use of strict structural imperatives and the use of strict forms. Writing about frustrating socio-political situations within that frame allows a poet then the freedom to express other opinions and emotions within the poem, because the poem itself is constrained by structure. The structure itself is a testament to what it is like to live in a politically constrained environment. This choice is highlighted once more from interpretations by Rorty (1989). Rorty argues that the absence of some thing necessarily implies its presence and the presence of some thing necessarily implies absence. The absencepresence polarity is inherent in any debate around form or its abandonment in poetry. As I have already argued, the tension between formal and nonformal, or the structured and the unstructured is ever-present. Whenever a (non)form is used, one must ask - why was this (non)form used? What were the motivations? Why this choice rather than another? Language is inherently a contingent mode of interpretation and polarities - existence and non-existence, form and formlessnes - are ubiquitous, pervasive phenomena. We cannot always separate these forces within the binaries and hence must take cognizance of how their presence echoes in poetry and our interpretations of poetry. We are terminally aware of form. Our consciousness of it is inescapable. Another factor worthy of consideration is the power structures involved in the decision of ‘who gets published’. The power-poetry interplay is a problematic one - if any person elected freely to write in Free Verse (or an approximation thereof) during the Elizabethan era we are unlikely to know about it - it has not been published. Hence this choice of what was published and what not has an impact on our understanding of what constitutes the 4

literary œuvre of the time and therefore the impact of that poetry on the eras that succeed it.

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Some Specific Poets

In this section I assess four of the poets in the collection: specifically Stephen Watson, Jeremy Cronin, Tatamkhulu Afrika and Karen Press. Each of these poets expresses themself in a mode that considers the role of the historic and the contemporary. Moreover, the context of their works is deeply South African with each of them interrogating specific aspects of South Africa and South African poetics in their own capacity, structurally and linguistically.

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Stephen Watson

The poems in City in Words are from Watson’s collected works The Other City (Watson, 2000).5 Both ‘Cape Town Days’ and ‘This Late Place’ are explicitly ‘about’ the Cape. However, within the poetry there exist several other layers of meaning that seek expression and not necessarily through the form. ‘Cape Town Days’ reflects a specifically chosen use of structure. Watson elects to use three eight line stanzas in the poem. 6 The last line of each being indented and shorter than the preceding lines. Moreover, each of these last lines refers to some spatial aspect of existence: ‘under’, ‘in’ and ‘between’ for stanzas one, two and three respectively. The closed and symmetrical nature of the stanzas mirrors the nature of the cycle of dawn, to day to dusk as well as the different natural phenomena of sky, earth and sea. Thus, the structure of the poem, though not adhering to a specifically accepted form, accentuates and alludes to the themes discussed in the poem. ‘This Late Place’ does not have as specific a structure. It is split into three stanzas of seven, five and nine lines. Although this may seem irrelevant initially, looking at one of the lines in the poem, Watson writes of “air as if torn off in chunks” (4). Using this to interpret the structure, we can see that the uneven chunks of lines could be mimetic of the ‘air torn off in chunks’. Moreover, the ‘lumbering clouds’, the ‘earth tilts’ and a sky ‘contused’ all of which speak of violent separation and elemental disjuncture and which are reflected in the structure of the poem. Thus, the structure of the poem is as representative of the themes and voice of the poem as the words and sounds in the poem are. Watson has used structure in a conscious and engaging capacity to mirror what he wrote in the poem, thus lending the poetry greater power than it would have had in the absence of such conscious engagement. 5

Alternately, ‘Cape Town Days’ originally appeared in Cape Town Days and ‘This Late Place’ in Presence of the Earth(Watson, 1995) 6 It would be a gross misconception for us to call this ottava rima.

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We can further reinforce this conscious interaction of poetic intentions and structure by looking at Waton’s writing, he comments on the use of language in his text A Writer’s Diary, “If we grant that language is more often that not the medium though which life finds meaning, then the matter of style, being inseparable from the matter of language, is obviously intrinsic to whatever sense we might have of this meaning.” (Watson, 1997, 8) Accepting then that language and style are inherently intertwined and that the choice to adopt style coheres as much in the matter of poetry as it would elsewhere, then we see that in free verse, structure can be used as powerfully as it would through formal modes.

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Tatamkhulu Afrika

The two poems of Tatamkhulu Afrika’s that appear in the collection are ‘Night Owl’ and ‘The Fishermen’ from his collection The Angel and Other Poems (Afrika, 1999).7 Afrika’s spotted past gives him a particularly interesting location from which to write, having traversed the borders of the social, religious, economic and national, as well as the legal-illegal boundary in terms of his personal behaviour. The poetry that he writes has been said to mirror these experiences, to reflect both his adoration for and his disjunction from social, political and legal systems (Afrika, 2005). Nevertheless, I inspect his poems individually and look at the possible ways to contemplate them given the context. The two poems have distinctly different structures and this makes them more informative and interesting for academic assessment. ‘Midnight Owl’ is written with the consecutive lines simply running after one another across its two pages. The lines are of asymmetrical length, with purposefully short lines following purposefully lengthy lines. Although there is no specific rhyme scheme to the poem, Afrika uses numerous onomatopœic words in order to create a strong relatonship with sound. The line structure moreover does not seem to rely on keeping an idea to a line or holding to a specific rhythmic foundation. Instead, Afrika break up ideas and rhythms. I believe that this ‘violence’ to the language and to formal structure in the poem makes reference to the existence of violence in the location in which the poem is based: the ‘Plain or Flats’ (12), which are a reference to Mitchell’s Plain and the Cape Flats. They are both notoriously violent areas. Hence, structure has been broken in order to convey additional meaning the choice to use of free verse again is not an unconsious one. Afrika does this to communicate violence to us in the structure and layout of the poem as much as he does in the sounds and words of the poem. Conversely, ‘The Fishermen’ is quite formalized in its repeated four line structure. The quatrains again use lines of varying length, but do so in 7 I also make reference, or infer structural choices from, the collection The Lemon Tree and Other Poems (Afrika, 1995)

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a different capacity to that which was integral to ‘Midnight Owl’. The stanzas are also all end-stopped, consequently none of the sentences runs on into another stanza. Each idea, each image is contained in one stanza. This is very different to the interactions in ‘Midnight Owl’ in which the images were consistently inter-mingled and messed together. The contained nature of the stanzas is linked structurally to the content of the poem: the fishermen who are nestled by their fire, who sit there inanimate and distant. The ‘inanimate’ stanzas therefore reflect this, they are another indicator of the fishermen’s stasis. Thus there is once more an interaction between structure and language, between Afrika’s use of a strict structure and the meaning of the poem. Hence, Afrika’s writing in the collection is indicative of how completely free form and fairly strict form are useful structures for poetic expression. Granted, the poem with strict structure does not adhere to a classical form, but its rigorous and strict attention to his chosen structure aids in the generation of meaning. Moreover, in both the collections The Angel and Other Poems and The Lemon Tree and Other Poems he reiterates similar patterns.8 Both the presence and the absence of form allows meaning to be constructed - structure is a scaffolding which enables additional meaning to be created and which facilitates the evolution of the meaning.

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Karen Press

Two poems by Karen Press are included in the collection, ‘19th Century Gratitude’ and ‘Tips for Visitors’. The former uses seven three line stanzas, the latter is a collection of (mostly singular) lines that are meant to be phrases of advice to visitors of Cape Town.9 In ‘19th Century Gratitude’, the use of three line stanzas is a mechanism by which to compartmentalize different images and ideas rather than being a reference to some historic form. Nevertheless, that she has used stanzaic form to capture and isolate the separate images and bring them together through the poem means that there was some intent to convey a separateness, or breaking up of the ideas. Moreover, there is only one run-on line in the poem (line 14), otherwise the lines are all end-stopped with either a comma, question mark, or full stop. This shows that, similar to her use of the single lines in ‘Tips For Visitors’, each of the lines contain some singular message, which then contributes to the idea contained in each stanza and which collectively forms the overarching ideas and imagery of the poem as a whole. The poem captures a message of (male) captains who are reliant on women who are their wives and servants. These stolid men are easily 8

See for example ‘Desert Road’ and ‘The Swamp’ for four-line structured forms and ‘’The Lemon Tree’ and ‘The Field’ for less structured poems. 9 Specifically Sea Point, on account of this poem coming from the Press’s collection Echo Location.

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passive while those in servitude act on their behalf. The short single lines used by Press are indicative of how the males attempt to control and isolate each part of the Cape, from the hillside of Lion’s Head, to the sea itself which ‘seems to have learnt placidity’ (11). Moreover, that the sea has learnt placidity is once more indicative of the role of male subjugation - the sea and waters are typically associated with the feminine and that ‘sea captains’ have taught it to be placid reveals yet another subjugation of female power by the male. Recalling that the poems are both from the collection Echo Location which is sub-titled A Guide to Sea Point for Residents and Visitors we must acknowledge the role that this sub-title has to play in the relevance and the connectedness of the poetry. If the collection was, in fact, collected as an artifice by which to instruct individuals on the relevance and readability of Sea Point in Cape Town then we should not differentiate this logistic intention from the stylistic intentions of the poet herself in her writing. ‘Tips for Visitors’ is more ironic in this context because it could patently be meant to act as an actual set of tips for visitors to Sea Point, but it is also a poetic artifice - a collection of words that have been collated in the intention of forming a poem. Once we examine this and ascertain whether the rhythm, structure and patterns of words form some poetic communciation, then we can establish whether the two intentions (poetic and pedagogic) intersect. My personal assessment is that they do so in an ironic capacity. Through the use of singular lines, little pieces of packaged advice they evoke a pedagogical intention, but their contents convey the irony and the humour within this - the abounding tensions of living, or simply being, in the spaces about which Press writes. This exemplifies how the specific design of a poem can facilitate the access of its meaning, its intentions.

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Jeremy Cronin

Jeremy Cronin’s poems ‘In Blue’ and ‘Chapman’s Peak’ are further examples of the abandonment of specific formalization in poetry(Cronin, 1999).10 This is unsurprising given Cronin’s personal political endeavours, however it is necessary for us to localize this here - for us to be able to contextualise what Cronin does in the area under consideration: the tension between form and lack of form as a poetic expressions. In ‘In blue’, Cronin has a fairly informal structure with respect to stanzaic patterns. He begins with two three-line stanzas, followed by a six-line stanza, a five-line stanza and a final six-line stanza. The last three stanzas are all end-stopped by the ends of sentences. The first two stanzas are however one long sentence spread over two stanzas. This then begs the question: why did Cronin choose to use two three line stanzas rather than one stanza 10

Alternatively look at Inside (Cronin, 1983) for the original source of these poems.

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that end-stopped like the others? One justification for this could actually be in the structure of the longer stanzas rather than in the shorter ones. All three of the lengthier stanzas comprise two sentences which end-stop them in the middle of the stanzas. These full-stop end of lines each indicate breaks which could approximate the breaks in lines of the first two stanzas. Thus, through the use of punctuation Cronin hints at form, hints at a structural underpinning of the poem in its breaks, its links. Contrast this structure to that in ‘Chapman’s Peak’ where Cronin uses several two line stanzas as the basis for the poem. This format is far stricter than that of ‘in blue’, but in so doing this Cronin simultaneously chooses to transgress how we believe two lines should be joined together. Ideas and images span five or six lines at a time. The cæsurae and lines stopped in the middle of images, of sentences breaks up the imagery. In the poem Cronin contrasts a bird’s wingbone and Chapman’s Peak. The poem itselfs flies from line to line haphazardly, conveying a sense of flight, of wings fluttering and confusion as a consequence of the immensity of the sea and the earthiness of the mountain. This content plays itself out in the architecture of the poem - the breaks in lines, the stops, the skipping from one image to another. All of these indicate flight and wings - which is exactly the image that Cronin is attempting to create and sustain - the image of Chapman’s Peak as a wingbone. Cronin’s poetry is a testament to how form can act as an interlocutor for meaning. His strict use of patterns combined with a transgression of our expectation of how these patterns are meant to be used allows for a more nuanced poetry.

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Abandonment

The choice to abandon fom is not an inconsiderable one.11 The choice to adopt form, or not, should not be made solely in an attempt to mirror what is done by one’s colleagues who also inhabit the world of poetry, or because of some perceived iconoclasm in not adhering to form. The choice not to use a poetic form is as much a choice, and a constraining choice at that, as the choice to use form. In doing so the poet is inhering meaning in the poem, meaning that may not be part of what they wish to convey in the language, structure or sounds of their poetry. As such it is important that they take cognizance of the interpretations that are inherent in any form that they elect to use. There is moreover a relationship between this problem and the attitudes and aspects of poets themselves. Watson elucidates on the status of poets: “writers will always be exiles in at least one respect: they must not - indeed cannot - simply parrot its concerns in the language of which the Zeitgeist 11

Apologies for the litotes - I preferred this to the statement in the positive.

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approves.” (Watson, 1997, i) This status of exile from society, from the cultural disposition of society, is imperative for poetry to convey meaning that is at all meaningful. Mindlessly adhering to the forms and structures that are set out for one by society undermines much of a poetic intent to convey beauty that may not be observed in kitsch forms (or lack of forms), or through clich´ed uses of language or structure. As much as any use of classical form should mirror past uses of that form, it should also be using that form in original ways, in capacities that differentiate this use from other uses of it. Else, it is meaningless parroting. As a personal imperative, I cannot allow poetry to become a nihilistic pursuit and hence I will consistently argue against the unoriginal and the arbitrary and poetry whose only intent is to simulate past poetry rather than to be original and expressive by its originalalit of thought, or use of imagery, structure, rhythm and language.

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Conclusion

There is a linguistic-structural interchange that exists between poetry and the structures and patterns within poetry. The two can be synergistic and travel hand-in-hand, or they can contradict one another. This contradiction occurs when the writer is not aware of the meanings generated by their structural choices. I argued that form is always historically contextual one cannot and should not separate the choice to adopt or abandon form without considering the social, political, economic and, all-importantly, the literary contexts of the time - poets are not ahistoric actors. Thus the choice to use form is a particularly germane choice in contemporary society. We can observe the result of this choice: many poets choose to abandon strict form for freer forms of expression. This was exemplified in the poetry and poets chosen from City in Words. None of the poets used strict forms, but instead attempted to use free verse norms, structured or not, to portray specific messages. Some were successful, some not. Ultimately, form should not be an artifice for poetic dissimulation, it should instead be the scaffolding used by the poet to accentuate the intentions of imagery, word, sound and other uses of language that inhere in the poetic expression.

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References Afrika, T. (1995). The Lemon Tree and other poems. Snailpress. Afrika, T. (1999). The Angel and Other Poems. Carapace Poets. Afrika, T. (2005). Mr. Chamelon: An Auobiography. Johannesburg: Jacana. Cronin, J. (1983). Inside. Ravan Press. Cronin, J. (1999). Inside and Out. David Philip. de Kok, I. (2006). Seasonal Fires. Umuzi, Random House. Fry, S. (2005). The Ode Less Travelled. Penguin Publishing. Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Cambridge University Press. Strand, M. and Boland, E. (2000). The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. W.W. Norton and Company Inc. Watson, S. (1995). Presence of the Earth. David Philip. Watson, S. (1997). A Writer’s Diary. Quillfire. Watson, S. (2000). The Other City. David Philip. Williams, M. (1986). Patterns of Poetry. Louisiana State University Press.

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