<return to Articles & Interviews main page
Pulitzer Poetry
Nominee Harvey Stanbrough
By Robert Yehling
Harvey Stanbrough's love for the written word can only be matched by his adoration
for the well-written traditional poem. In a literary world where free
verse has apparently reigned since Ezra Pound broke the ice at the turn
of the 20th century and the Beat poets cut all strings of convention in
the 1950s, Stanbrough reminds us that the meter within the poems catches
our ears and souls. Thus, he questions the use of the words “free”
and “verse” together.
“Humans need structure, and all good poetry, whether metered or free-verse, has that structure,” the editor of The Raintown Review: A Journal of Metrical Poetry writes. He goes on to add, “Now, I can almost hear the poets out there: That’s all well and good for metered poetry, but I write strictly in free verse. The truth is, the best free verse is anything but free and is very well structured.”
This is one of many
intriguing perspectives from one of America’s champions of traditional
poetry – and one of the finest teachers of poetry and short fiction
you’re going to catch at any college or writer’s conference.
In 1999, Stanbrough was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his collection, On Love & War & Other Fallacies, which he does not list among his
best works but which almost landed him the big prize. In a realm of writing
where every practitioner has his or her eccentricities, Stanbrough's back
story particularly stands out: This sensitive, highly observant and fun-loving
49-year-old spent almost 22 years in the Marine Corps. You certainly won’t
see it when his hair is pulled back in a ponytail, but when you watch
the way he observes conversation and physical detail, and the way he stands,
the clues start pouring in.
In
this candid interview, which is broken into several parts because of its
depth, the 2000 Frankfurt Award nominee describes the art and craft of
poetry and writing – and why he’s so committed to teaching the
metrical poetry of such masters as Howard Nemerov, William Yeats, Robert
Frost, Wilfrid Owen, plus his own work.
WordJourneys.com: First of all, a great many poets – I would say most, myself included – consider modern poetry to be free verse, or a random throw-down of words and lines that they call free verse. What are some of the fallacies of “free verse,” and where do you place free verse in the lexicon of good poetry?
Harvey Stanbrough: In the first place, free verse is an oxymoron: free implies a lack of traditional structure (or any structure, depending on the writer), whereas verse comprises the very techniques (the mechanical ones that can be taught) that provide much of the structure that was and is used in writing traditional poetry. By definition, verse is a metrical composition that is distinct from prose by its meter and/or rhyme. Of course, most proponents of free-verse seem to agree that the term actually means poetry that is free of the use of regularly metered lines, depending instead more heavily on the natural or inherent sounds and rhythms of the language. That works fine for me, especially when you consider that meter is inherent in our language — if you don’t believe me, try pronouncing “beneath” or “under” with the accent syllables reversed. To make a line of poetry sing the music of the language, we use meter, even when we don’t realize we’re using it. My point is that good poetry of any form or variety is never free of structure. The language itself is metered and lends itself to internal rhyme, assonance, consonance, and alliteration; shorter lines evoke a sense of drama; longer lines convey emotion; and so on. Someone really should rename this allegedly formless form, this allegedly structureless structure we now call free verse. But don’t ask me; I don’t want that job.
You pointed out the biggest fallacy of “free verse” in your question: That fallacy is the supposition that anyone who can form basic words using the letters of the alphabet can write free verse. There’s a huge difference between poets who'’ve taken the time to study poems and learn the craft of poetry and those would-be poets who’ve given poems only a cursory glance, seen what they believe to be arbitrarily broken lines of prose, and proceeded to write what they think they saw. Regarding the place of free verse in the lexicon of good poetry, I can say only that all poetry is, as Keats wrote, “the best possible words in the best possible order” and, as Wordsworth wrote, “a spontaneous overflow of emotion, recollected in tranquility.” Anything else is not poetry at all. A well-written poem will evoke an emotion (or a string of them) in the reader; whether that poem is a sonnet, a villanelle, a novel or play written in blank verse, or a bit of free verse really is not important.
WordJourneys.com: Could you tell us about the Pulitzer Prize-nominated work, On Love & War & Other Fallacies and why you do not consider this to be your best? Could you tell us a bit about Residua, of which you have a much higher opinion?
H.S.: On Love & War & Other Fallacies was my second collection (the first being a self-published, short-lived attempt at lucidity called Melancholy and Madness), and it was only loosely pulled together under those three very broad themes. The poems in it ranged from sonnets to villanelles to triolets to blank verse to free verse, and it was absolutely horrible from both artistic (poetic) and design perspectives. I was pleased when it went out of print.
Residua was my third collection, and the first of which I was somewhat proud. It consists almost wholly of poems written in my favorite “form,” blank verse. For the purpose of the collection, “residua” are “those [people] left over at the end of a process; remainders.” All of us have been left out of or left over from one process or another. When Neil Armstrong took the first step on the moon, for example, although he proclaimed it “a giant leap for mankind,” nobody else took that first step; the rest of us were left out of that process to varying degrees. And most of us were left to stare heavenward or gawk at our television screens in awe. In another poem, I observe a young couple in a bus station. He’s nervous, and she’s pregnant. When the bus arrives, he kisses her goodbye, but leaves a bit more quickly than he should; she boards the bus with more a sense of relief than of sadness. Every poem in the book runs along those lines, basic observations of those who are left out of one thing or another. The title poem, which I later revised and expanded, is more autobiographical than anything else I’ve ever written. Residua is out of print now as well, but I’ll be reviving many of the poems from it in my next collection.
WordJourneys.com:
Please tell us about some of the other works you’ve published.
H.S.: The only other book I’ve published thus far (but I have a new one in the works now) is Lessons for a Barren Population (Hard Shell Word Factory, 1999). It was also the first full-length original poetry collection published as an electronic book It was nominated for the 2000 Frankfurt Award. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many poems I’ve published in all. I’ve published several short stories, and essays that range from the scholarly to the ridiculous. I also wrote a humor column for The Candlelight Poetry Journal (now defunct) for a few years, and that probably was the most difficult writing I’ve ever done, if you can imagine having to come up with 1,250 words in a humorous essay about poetry. Thankfully, the magazine was published only quarterly.
WordJourneys.com: What constitutes a good poem?
H.S.: The best poems run full circle, ending at the beginning. I call it “closing the gate” on the poem. The poet opens a door, makes an observation, and closes the door. The poet poses a question, then offers a resolution. More technically (or technique-ly), the poet uses hard or harsh words and sounds (hard Ds or Ts, for example) for a poem with a hard or harsh theme; soft words and sounds for a poem with a soft theme. The skilled poet also can use a hard-driving rhythm, say dactyllic meter, in a poem with a hard or harsh theme, and a softer, iambic or anapestic meter to establish the rhythm in a poem with a softer theme. Of course, the best poems also make good use of metaphor and original language and avoid simile and cliche “like the plague.” The serious poet strives always (although not always successfully) to say things in a new way.
WordJourneys.com: You are a champion of the cause for traditional poetry. You publish a journal of it, you teach its forms and merits in writers’ conferences, and you’ll argue all day on its behalf. What are your favorite forms of traditional poetry, and why are well-written traditional poems such pieces of music to your ear and heart?
H.S.: Well-written poems in any form, including free verse, are music to my ear and heart. I do believe strongly that beginning poets should learn to write sonnets, villanelles, triolets, even limericks or double-dactyls, so they get a feel for the rhythms of the language and develop the ability to write with discipline. In my own writing, my favorite “form” is blank verse because I very much enjoy combining the underlying rhythms of loose iambics with the freedom of unrhymed and often enjambed lines.
I primarily publish more traditional, metered works in The Raintown Review simply because there are too few venues for traditional poetry, but a well-written free-verse poem won’t escape inclusion in my journal either. I hasten to add, though, that despite my preference for publishing traditional poetry in TRR, I doubt you’ll ever find anything that resembles “greeting card verse” nestled there.
My main argument at writers’ conferences and in other teaching venues is that all poetry, free-verse or traditional, has structure, and the best poetry is being written by those who’ve taken the time to learn the rules before they’ve endeavored to break them. Any great carpenter knows how to use a hammer, a saw, a level, and various power tools. He won’t necessarily use all of them on every job, but it’s nice to know they’re in the box and that he can use them should the need arise.
Likewise, the best poets know how to use meter, internal and end-rhyme, onomatopoaeia, enjambment, in-line caesura, intelligent and purposeful line and stanza breaks, and so on, and they have those tools available should they need them.
