World Class Poetry Blog

Poetics: The 7 Essential Elements Of Poetry
24 January 2008, the poet @ 8:27 pm

It’s been awhile, but I’ve read Aristotle’s Poetics. It is one of my all-time favorite philosophical works related to the arts. Kurdish Aspect has a brilliant blog post on the ancient Greek philosopher’s treatise and how it relates to film making. It got me thinking about what is important in poetry.

According to Plato’s main man, the seven essential elements of Greek storytelling included:

• Plot
• Character
• Theme
• Dialog
• Music
• Design
• Spectacle

The Poetics Of Film
KA does a great job of interpreting these elements for the screen, a technological advancement not available to the late great Mr. A. Poetry, on the other hand, doesn’t have such sophistication. In its rawest, purest form, poetry is today as it was during old Stot’s day. So it will always be.

That isn’t to say the forms, expressions, and modes of presentation haven’t changed. They have. Slam poetry is, in many respects, much like stage performances were then. The primary difference might be that slam performances are mere monologues while stage performances were mostly team efforts, much like today’s screenplays. But it’s taken how many thousands of years to walk that full circle?

I can see the incorporation of poetic elements returning to the stage, and I can see more clearly the return of stage production to poetics. It is time for poets to start thinking about these seven elements of poetics and apply them as well.

Adapting The Elements To The Art Of Poetry
While the elements are basically the same, they do require a little bit of modification for the medium. Poets don’t necessarily need background choruses to set a scene. Though it can be argued that the addition of that dimension can often enhance the poetic experience for the audience. I see no reason why it couldn’t happen. To repeat, here are the elements again, this time they are termed in such a way as to make sense to the medium of poetry:

1. Plot
2. Character
3. Theme
4. Dialect/Dialog
5. Rhythm
6. Form
7. Presentation

It is easy to see these elements in light of either a poem on the page or a poem on the stage. Whether one is a performance poet or one sees oneself as a poet that should be read, one should think about these elements in light of both the poem on the page and the poem delivered at the microphone. Let’s face the fact that open mic readings have become as much a part of the poetic culture of our times as reading a poem in a book. Many poets muse that “a poem is enhanced by the oral reading and meant to be heard.” I don’t necessarily subscribe to that point of view myself, but I do read in open readings and give thought to how I present my poems in the hope that when others read my poems in the privacy of their bedrooms at night that they will have a better understanding of them because they heard me read them. Presentation and delivery are equally important on the page and on the stage.

Explaining The Elements Of Poetry

Plot
Plot needs no introduction. It is what it is. We often think of plot in the context of film, stage, and fiction writing, but it exists within poetry as well. To speak of narrative poems in terms of plot is easy. You tell a story. For that is precisely what is meant by plot. But I submit to you that plot can exist for the lyric poem as well.

Plot is simply a pattern of events. It is synonymous with scheme. In fact, you can call this particular element Scheme and it would be just as relevant and appropriate as plot. The idea is to form your poem around a series or pattern of important events, objects, or things. Poem is action. What is the poem about? Can you tell your poem in terms of its scheme? If not, there is likely something missing.

The scheme need not be complex. But there should be a series of ‘plot points’ within your poem. They can be particular actions performed by a character or the narrator, by an animal if the poem is about that, a living being of another sort, or even an inanimate object. “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams is about a wheelbarrow that does nothing, yet there is a plot. A scheme.

so much depends
upon (plot point #1)

a red wheel
barrow (plot point #2)

glazed with rain
water (plot point #3)

beside the white
chickens (plot point #4)

See how each secondary line is dependent upon a single word? Each word consists of two syllables and represents an action, even if the action is not stated.

“Upon” sets us up for the next stanza. The action could be said to be anticipation for that is what the word instills within the reader, an anticipation for what is to come. “Barrow” gives us an object. We have yet to see why the red wheel barrow is so important. We only know that it is important. Again, the anticipation continues but is enhanced by the sight of the object’s first mention. Water, actually the word “glazed,” gives us our first real glimpse of action. It isn’t exactly an action verb for the action has already happened. What we see is the aftermath of the action, but we know the action was there by the word “glazed.” Our experience with rain water tells us what that means. We’ve seen it before in our lives, in our towns, in our yards. We see it again now in the poem. Then, the final act - the chickens. They don’t move. They are only there. But we know what chickens do. They cannot be still. Have you ever seen a chicken alive that wasn’t moving or making a sound? We know what the chickens are doing and we can see them clearly through the lens of plot.

Character
Do poems have characters? Usually there is at least one character: The Narrator. Truthfully, that is all that is necessary. Even if that is all there is, the poet must develop the character of the narrator. Who is she? Who is she talking to? Why is she talking to them? Does the narrator have any particular prejudices? Are there other characters in the poem? What are they doing? Are there characters “outside” the poem? Maybe a subject that never actually does or says anything, or a looker on who doesn’t contribute? These are things you must think about. Perhaps your character is the person the narrator is talking to. Whatever it is, you must think about character - even for a poem.

Theme
Theme is very important for a poem. What’s it about? Is it a complex issue or something as simple as a red wheelbarrow sitting in the rain? Not every element of theme needs to be presented in your poem. “The Red Wheelbarrow” is effective because it leaves so much out. But what it does reveal is so important to theme. Be prepared to write your theme in a sentence or two. You may or may not include that in your poem, but you should know what it is nonetheless.

Dialect/Dialog
Many poems are written with no dialog. They are not stories, after all. They are poems.

Dialog is important, however. If your poem is a narrative poem or if it includes people speaking, and some poems do, then you must think about dialog. But even more important than dialog is dialect. In fact, dialect is even important if your poem includes dialog.

Apart from dialog, dialect is the manner or style in which the language of the poem is developed. Whether you have characters speaking within the poem or not, dialect is important. It is important to develop the language of the poem and to keep it consistent within the poem. Does your narrator speak with a lisp? He must maintain his lisp throughout the poem. Does he speak in a high brow dialect of Latin? Keep it consistent. And if you present characters who speak within your poem then each one must have their own dialect apart and separate from the dialect of the narrator. They must be distinguishable as their own so that your reader, or listener, is not confused.

Rhythm
Like music, every poem has a rhythm. A poem must set its own music. If it follows a rigid form, like a sonnet, the music will probably conform to other poems of the same form. Exceptions may occur, as in the case of Gerard Manley Hopkins, who wrote sonnets in sprung rhythm, his own character imprint upon the form, but in a general sense, poems of a particular form achieve a similar music or rhythm, just like songs of a particular genre of music do the same. Rhythm is an important element to think about when crafting your poem.

Form
It is important to think about form in more than its written assembly. Form is as much about the way your poem is structured in a visual sense and in a stage sense. If you are a performance poet, you give special consideration to how you move when you deliver your poetry. This is something that “page poets” must think about as well. When you read at open mic readings, do you “talk with your hands?” Do you scratch your nose when you say a certain word? Do you read with your notebook pages close to your face in order to cover your eyes? Bad habits are hard to kill so think about them and do them in before you develop them fully.

Read your poem in the comfortable setting of friends before you do it on stage. Ask them to tell you if you do things like cross your legs, mumble, scratch your ear, or do anything that will distract from your reading. Better yet, read in front of a mirror (preferably a full body mirror) so you can see yourself. If a particular hand movement, body stance, tilt, head toss, or other physical action is distracting then you want to find that out before you get on stage. Whatever will enhance the experience of your poem for your audience should be explored. Sometimes, that means adding a hand movement or gesture. But it does bear consideration.

Presentation
Aristotle talked about spectacle in the sense of special effects. This is something the movie industry has become very good at. Some entire films are dependent upon special effects. Maybe your poem doesn’t need car crashes, gun shots, or explosions in order to make an impact on its audience, but you should give thought to your presentation, both on the page and at the microphone. Will you change your tone, pitch, or pace at a particular place in your poem? Should your poem be read fast or slow? It does matter. And you should give it some thought.

Not all poems are the same. The point is, you must tailor and massage your poem for the proper presentation. Some poems are written for the performance, others for the page. You must know what your poem is better suited for. That doesn’t mean that performance poetry will never be written down and published, nor does it mean that a page poem can’t be read at open mic night. But when you make the transition from page to stage, or vice versa, be ready to incorporate the appropriate elements in the proper way for that poem’s best presentation. You will reap huge rewards when you incorporate all of these elements into your poetry, whether you write for a physical audience or an invisible one.

2 Comments a “Poetics: The 7 Essential Elements Of Poetry”

1. Jim Murdoch — January 25, 2008 @ 11:52 am
   

   This was an interesting blog. When I first saw the list I though it was an odd take but as I read through I can see what you’re driving at. I had a look at a few of my recent poems and you could argue your case with all of them. I think the plot point is pushing it a bit with many of them, especially the more philosophical pieces, because I’m not telling a story but asking you to think in a specific way about something but if you can argue that ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’ has a plot then that could go for pretty much any poem.

2. the poet — January 25, 2008 @ 5:11 pm
   

   Thanks, Jim.

   I realize the plot points idea is thinking outside the box a little bit. The key is to think of each piece in terms of movements. Why do you have a line break where you have it? Why should your stanza end where it ends? If you think of those as “plot points” or turns in the road, if you will, then it makes sense.

   Plot might not be the best word, but it fits in the sense that when you chart a course for your travels you “plot” your turns and rest stops. That’s what I’m suggesting you should do with your poems, even the “philosophical” or esoteric ones that have no story to tell in the traditional sense. You can always point, or should be able to, in every poem where the train of thought takes you in a new direction or the movement changes from one idea to another. You can call those plot points.

   Another word that I think might apply is “schematic anchor.” If you think of a poem’s plan as a schematic, or a scheme, then it should be anchored in certain points throughout that take the reader from one benchmark to another. It’s a method that I’ve devised for crafting a poem to keep it moving where I want it to go.

Submit a comment

Name

E-mail (not published)

Website URL

Enable CommentLuv which will try and parse your last blog post, please be patient while it finds it for you

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail