Syllabics: 6

Syllabics: 6

English poetry is often divided into two great types. The first is Formal Poetry and it is thought of as the norm for most poetry written in English. I have read that as much as 75% of English language poetry is Formal Poetry. Formal Poetry is distinguished as accentual and its primary metrical usage is iambics, and among possible iambics, iambic pentameter dominates.

The second great tradition is Free Verse. Free Verse is not new. For example, the King James Version of the Psalms is Free Verse and has had a continuous influence on English poetry since making its appearance. But it is only since the late 19th and early 20th centuries that Free Verse has been a self-conscious movement. Free Verse dominates a lot of the discussion of modern poetry and is particularly dominant in Universities, though there are exceptions.

I would like to suggest a three-fold division of English language poetry. The three-fold division would be: 1) Formal Accentual Verse, 2) Formal Syllabic Verse, and 3) Free Verse. Formal Verse is poetry that uses counting as a means of organizing its syllables and words. Formal Accentual Verse is poetry that counts stressed syllables as its primary form of organization. Formal Syllabic Verse is poetry which counts syllables only, and ignores whether or not the syllables are stressed or unstressed.

One could look at this as a two-fold division with Formal Verse having two sub-categories, instead of a three-fold division. Either way works.

Formal Syllabic Verse, in terms of the quantity of poetry written, is the smallest of the three types of English language poetry. It is also, I think, the newest of the three. Nevertheless, there is an interesting body of poetry written in a Formal Syllabic manner in the English language. It includes work from the following poets: Dylan Thomas, Adelaide Crapsey, Richard Wright, Neal Henry Lawrence, a few poems by Richard Wilbur, a few poems by Mary Jo Slater, Thom Gunn, and J. V. Cunningham. I’m sure there are many others.

Japanese poetry is Formal Syllabic Poetry. That is to say Tanka, Haiku, and Renga are all Formal Poetry in that they rely on counting to shape syllables and words into their respective specific forms. Japanese poetry is syllabic (like French poetry) in that it only counts syllables, and does not count stresses, as Accentual Formal Poetry does in English.

Interest in Japanese poetry among English language poets has tended to reject the idea of using Formal Accentual procedures for Japanese forms in English. Though there were some early attempts in this direction, those interested in Japanese forms have almost universally rejected them. This makes sense since Japanese do not count stresses. Seeing English language poetry in terms of either Formal Accentual or Free Verse, English language poets have tended to opt for free verse as the type of poetry which is closer to Japanese norms than Formal Accentual approaches. Again, this makes sense if those are the only two options one considers.

There is, however, a third option and that third option is English Formal Syllabic Verse. Syllabic Verse in English is closer to how Japanese poetry functions than either Formal Accentual Verse or Free Verse. Formal Syllabic Verse is closer to Japanese poetry than Free Verse because both English Formal Syllabic Verse and Japanese Verse count syllables while Free Verse does not. This is a critical point: because Free Verse does not count syllables it lacks a central organizing and shaping principle of Japanese poetry. For this reason I think that Free Verse is the most remote of the three types of English poetry from Japanese poetry. To make an analogy; if I were to compose a waltz, but decided not to count the meter, that is to say to ignore the 3-4 time that all waltzes have, the result would be remote from what people understand as a waltz. Free form, improvisatory Jazz, is a great musical tradition. And there is also the avant-garde tradition that does not use musical meter and counting as a means of shaping musical material. But if I want to write a waltz I need to count time and meter in order to do so.

Formal Syllabic Verse is closer to Japanese poetry than Formal Accentual Verse because what is being counted in Formal Syllabic Verse and in Japanese poetry are the same; that is to say both are counting syllables. When I say that both are counting syllables, I mean that both traditions are counting sound units that make up words in their respective languages. As noted in a previous entry, some of the specific sounds will differ, but the process of counting what each linguistic community considers to be significant sonic units, that is to say syllables, is the same. A central organizing principle of the two traditions is the same.

When one looks at the body of English language Formal Syllabic Verse one finds a rich trove of techniques and resources applicable to the composition of Japanese forms in English.