Blog430

Blog430 Daily Notes on Poetry & Related Matters

6 April 2005: As I was analyzing Cummings's poetic devices, it struck me that a fun project for my workshoppers might be to Cummingsfy some traditional poem. Today, I tried it out myself, using Oscar Williams's updating of Palgrave's Golden Treasury. I had trouble finding any poem that I didn't think would be immediately ruined by Cummingsification. Explaining why this is so would make a good essay--which I don't have time for right now. Finally, after going through a good hundred pages and about to give up the idea, I chanced on Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," one of my alltime favorites:


Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

For some reason, perhaps because it was a quiet poem, I thought Cummingsfication might work on it. Actually, I was pretty sure it would not, butfelt I ought to try the process on at least one poem. Hence:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Cummingsfied

Who

se 
woODs 
the 
se

are 
ith, ink ikn
nNow.
hIS hou 

se 
is Inth evill age, thou,GH; he will not 
se 

eme s top
pinGH
ere to:
wat
chhi    s?woo 
ds fill upw
Ith sn
nnow.

my lit tleh    orse 
mustth Ink itq
ueer tos
top wit
hou  tafa  rm    hou
se
ne arb etweenth ewoODs andfro zen lake
th edar k
est eve  ningofth eye   
ar.

he give shi shar
ness bells ash 
a keto a
skif there iss
omem is take.
th eon
lyoth
ersound's the swee
pof eas
ywin   
d and d
own yf
lake.

t hew
oODs arel ovelydark an
dd  ee
pb  utihave promise
stoke
epa
nd miles to go before I sleep,
aanndd mmiilleess ttoo ggoo bbeeffoorree ii sslleeeeeeeee

Let me quickly agree that the new version of the poem is nowhere near as good as the old. But . . . Well, I think it is an interesting second poem. If I really worked on it, I think I could make an entirely new poem that would be equal to the original. The thing to do, though, would be to eliminate some of the original words, which are all there in the version above. The final result might not be recognizable as once Frost's.

I think as an exercise, what I did is extremely valuable--for giving the Cummingsfier a hands-on appreciation of infraverbality, and what language can do. My own brief experience brought home more than before the value of Cummings's infraverbal rhymes--such as the se's I isolated. A bit irrelevant to the main thrust of the poem, perhaps--but so are conventional rhymes.

I even believe it will enrich his experience of the poems Cummingsfied. He'll see, for instance, how the best portions of the attacked poems will resist, and how their riches will yield further riches as they are broken into. Think of all the inky darkness my attack on the Frost poem disconcealed--and the evil. The latter won't work with this poem, but might well with the brother of it that it could become.

Probably the best use of Cummingsfication as an exercise would be through its application to a poet's own unsuccessful conventional poems. Surely, at least some of the time, it would crack open veins that would rescue the poem.

Ah, how nice it would be if I could have an all-expenses-paid two-week vacation at some resort where I could focus on just this one topic. I hope to return to it before long. There is so much more to be said.

COMMENTS

Use the box below to respond to this entry. Negative feedback is especially welcome. It will get to me anonymously, so you need have no fear it will result in my using my immense influence to wreck your literary career, if you have one. On the other hand, if you want to hear back, please include your e.mail address with your message. --Bob

Blog Home-Page

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws