Remarks from the Fray:
In "Richard Noel," Harry Thomas has written a lovely tribute to a young boy with old-fashioned virtues, and the poet's use of old-fashioned ballad stanzas (quatrains where the second and fourth lines rhyme) perfectly enhances the poem's content.
Thomas is a master of the telling detail. In the first stanza, Richard looks away rather than play the pity card about his upcoming surgery. In the second stanza, we learn that Richard may be shy, but he is a keen student of nature. And when Richard finally discloses his condition, we discover he's learned all about it, and may be fascinated by yet afraid of the idea of the surgeon who "would enter up his nose." [Unlike some other reviewers, I am willing to allow some poetic license to Thomas for the somewhat vague pronoun antecedent in the fourth stanza.]
The fifth stanza deviates from the usual rhyme scheme, since the word "alone" does not rhyme with "on." Deliberately breaking a rhyme pattern to make "alone" stand out is a perfect way to emphasize the boy's situation. He is alone in the library, he is alone with his upcoming surgery, and he may be alone in his sense of responsibility to his schoolwork.
The last stanza is anything but subtle, as the poet-teacher-narrator admits he could never summon "such fortitude and grace" as Richard did. But such a simple tribute to a boy's virtue deserves a straightforward poem, not an edgy, difficult one.
I also admire Thomas' daring 21st century experiment in writing an old-fashioned poem, a poem that is full of sentiment but not sentimentality. In his understated way, Thomas allows us, rather than forces us, to feel admiration for Richard Noel, who, like his last name, is full of light – as well as grace.
--MaryAnn
(To reply, click here.)
My first impulse immediately after reading was to imagine myself a portly, beef-and-potatoes nineteenth century Englishman, complete with top hat and frock coat, and shout "Brave little fellow!" I didn't know this kind of work was being done today. I suppose it comes directly from the writer's experience as a schoolteacher. I thought of Wordsworth's poems about children, for example, "Alice Fell" or better, "We are Seven". There is another Wordsworth piece even more relevant, "Resolution and Independence", because it deals directly with someone enduring suffering, although it is about an old man, not a child. The rhymes here are appropriate, not foolish as a lot of rhymes in poetry are (for example I've seen trees rhymed with these.)
But if Wordsworth were to deal with this, I am sure he would not be so straightforward. The plainness that Wordsworth so admired has been carried too far. Probably it results from the writer assuming the facts alone were enough. In "We are Seven" the girl is pressed by Wordsworth to admit that two of her siblings are dead. She denies this, saying she sits over their graves when she eats supper, and therefore they are still with her. Repeatedly Wordsworth presses her to admit that they are dead, but the answer is "We are seven!" She will not even say that the spirits of the two are in Heaven. Richard Thomas for his part makes no attempt at dramatic heightening. He just recites the events in the order they occurred. I would have to admit that the last stanza is definitely lame.
--Bottomfish
(To reply, click here.)
Why is so much contemporary poetry so lazy? "Richard Noel" is a prime example and, happily, one in meter so that an analysis of its problems can't be taken as just pedantic outrage against free verse.
That said, the meter is remarkably shoddy. As Pinsky's own book on prosody discusses, adding a beat or reversing feet for effect are entirely allowable, and I agree WHEN USED SPARINGLY so that effect is pronounced. But this poem just wants to be balladish without the effort of actually tightening the meter, in the same way that Gerald Stern's "American Sonnets" are sonnet-esque; both are examples of poetic truthiness.
There are 28 lines in the poem. Only 12 are straight triameter. 2 are straight triameter with feminine endings and two reverse the first foot, which is fine. That leaves more than 40% of the lines in the poem problematic, including the first, which should have suggested the form to come. In fact, by having three feet, but making two anapests, Thomas' longest line suggests that he didn't decided to make this balladish until he reached the second line.
The fourth line is the best in the poem and shows how effective an additional beat be when used surgically. By putting "boy" on the downbeat and adding the "and" he stretches out the emphasized word "small." But did he intend this? The laziness of so many succeeding lines implies the effectiveness of this one is a happy accident.
--angry young man
(To reply, click here.)
(2/26)
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Remarks from the Fray:
In "Richard Noel," Harry Thomas has written a lovely tribute to a young boy with old-fashioned virtues, and the poet's use of old-fashioned ballad stanzas (quatrains where the second and fourth lines rhyme) perfectly enhances the poem's content.
Thomas is a master of the telling detail. In the first stanza, Richard looks away rather than play the pity card about his upcoming surgery. In the second stanza, we learn that Richard may be shy, but he is a keen student of nature. And when Richard finally discloses his condition, we discover he's learned all about it, and may be fascinated by yet afraid of the idea of the surgeon who "would enter up his nose." [Unlike some other reviewers, I am willing to allow some poetic license to Thomas for the somewhat vague pronoun antecedent in the fourth stanza.]
The fifth stanza deviates from the usual rhyme scheme, since the word "alone" does not rhyme with "on." Deliberately breaking a rhyme pattern to make "alone" stand out is a perfect way to emphasize the boy's situation. He is alone in the library, he is alone with his upcoming surgery, and he may be alone in his sense of responsibility to his schoolwork.
The last stanza is anything but subtle, as the poet-teacher-narrator admits he could never summon "such fortitude and grace" as Richard did. But such a simple tribute to a boy's virtue deserves a straightforward poem, not an edgy, difficult one.
I also admire Thomas' daring 21st century experiment in writing an old-fashioned poem, a poem that is full of sentiment but not sentimentality. In his understated way, Thomas allows us, rather than forces us, to feel admiration for Richard Noel, who, like his last name, is full of light – as well as grace.
--MaryAnn
(To reply, click here.)
My first impulse immediately after reading was to imagine myself a portly, beef-and-potatoes nineteenth century Englishman, complete with top hat and frock coat, and shout "Brave little fellow!" I didn't know this kind of work was being done today. I suppose it comes directly from the writer's experience as a schoolteacher. I thought of Wordsworth's poems about children, for example, "Alice Fell" or better, "We are Seven". There is another Wordsworth piece even more relevant, "Resolution and Independence", because it deals directly with someone enduring suffering, although it is about an old man, not a child. The rhymes here are appropriate, not foolish as a lot of rhymes in poetry are (for example I've seen trees rhymed with these.)
But if Wordsworth were to deal with this, I am sure he would not be so straightforward. The plainness that Wordsworth so admired has been carried too far. Probably it results from the writer assuming the facts alone were enough. In "We are Seven" the girl is pressed by Wordsworth to admit that two of her siblings are dead. She denies this, saying she sits over their graves when she eats supper, and therefore they are still with her. Repeatedly Wordsworth presses her to admit that they are dead, but the answer is "We are seven!" She will not even say that the spirits of the two are in Heaven. Richard Thomas for his part makes no attempt at dramatic heightening. He just recites the events in the order they occurred. I would have to admit that the last stanza is definitely lame.
--Bottomfish
(To reply, click here.)
Why is so much contemporary poetry so lazy? "Richard Noel" is a prime example and, happily, one in meter so that an analysis of its problems can't be taken as just pedantic outrage against free verse.
That said, the meter is remarkably shoddy. As Pinsky's own book on prosody discusses, adding a beat or reversing feet for effect are entirely allowable, and I agree WHEN USED SPARINGLY so that effect is pronounced. But this poem just wants to be balladish without the effort of actually tightening the meter, in the same way that Gerald Stern's "American Sonnets" are sonnet-esque; both are examples of poetic truthiness.
There are 28 lines in the poem. Only 12 are straight triameter. 2 are straight triameter with feminine endings and two reverse the first foot, which is fine. That leaves more than 40% of the lines in the poem problematic, including the first, which should have suggested the form to come. In fact, by having three feet, but making two anapests, Thomas' longest line suggests that he didn't decided to make this balladish until he reached the second line.
The fourth line is the best in the poem and shows how effective an additional beat be when used surgically. By putting "boy" on the downbeat and adding the "and" he stretches out the emphasized word "small." But did he intend this? The laziness of so many succeeding lines implies the effectiveness of this one is a happy accident.
--angry young man
(To reply, click here.)
(2/26)