Response 7

Jenna Wilhelmi

Postmodern Poets

Just Breathe

Charles Olson’s poems looked scattered at first glance, but when you look closer you can find a method to his madness. There is an underlying structure to all his poems. It is just not the same in every poem.

In his essay on projective verse Olson says, “a poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it.” All poems inherently have their own energy and that energy takes different forms. Therefore, the structures of Olson’s poems are altered to suit the kinetic energy of the poem, to better convey its essential message. He then goes on to stress, no, exclaim the importance of breath in poetry.

Olson believes a poet can only truly put their voice into a poem when the poet fully understands the natural breath and cadence of their own voice. This being said, Olson’s poems make far more sense when they are read aloud. Olson’s poetry is meant to be read aloud so that you can hear his voice in the lines. He even inserts his breath into the poems by the spacing of the sentences and words. He explains, “if he suspends a word or syllable at the end or a line (this was most Cummings’ addition) he means that time to pass that it takes the eye – that hair of time suspended – to pick up the next line.” When you want the reader to pause, you make them do it naturally by putting a gap in it. This emphasis on the pauses in speech caused by breath, as well as Olson’s focus on the syllable, bring to mind music.

Olson himself makes the connection later on in his essay. He reasons that by using breathe in a written form that “for the first time the poet has the stave and bar the musician had.” Any music teacher worth his salt will tell you that in order to play any great musical piece you must play the pauses. The moments of silence are just as important as the high C and the same goes for poetry. Pauses create emphasis and emphasis creates meaning.

The breath also has its counterpart the syllable – another aspect of projective verse that Olson stresses. The human ear naturally picks up on what sounds resonate well together and Olson thinks poets should listen to this. Instead of following a set pentameter, poets should let the line shift where it sounds right, where they want to insert breath.

On paper Olson’s poetry looks slightly jumbled, but after reading his essay – and after reading him aloud – I was able to see and hear his careful choice of syllables and pauses. His work has a very lyrical quality that only becomes evident when it is heard. This adds many layers to his work, as well as the themes he discusses in his work. In Cold Hell, in Thicket alludes to Dante’s Divine Comedy, but is really about feelings the Cold War stirred in Olson. For me personally, it also invoked feelings of facing your demons and that your hell is of your own making in your soul rather than a location.

I could read any of Olson’s longer poems a hundred times and find new meaning each time. That is the allure of poetry of any kind, but in postmodern you must first learn the voice of the author before you can fully pull meaning from the text. There is an element of ambiguity to all poetry, but the personal voice of the postmodern style makes it even more so since one person can never fully understand the inner workings of any other’s mind.