To understand some of the more theoretical literary interpretations of how oral poetry can relate to my work, I plan to use several of the points made in Antony Easthope’s Poetry as Discourse.

One of the passages I’d like to focus on first of all is a quote taken from Alan Bold. In it we can see the divisions separating out oral poetry and poetry that has been ‘written for the page’. He writes:

“The single rhymes, the incremental repetitions, the obligatory epithets, the magical numbers, the nuncupative testaments, the commonplace phrases, the reliance on dialogue, the dramatic nature of the narrative: these make the ballad easier to remember, easier to memorise. Literary poetry, written for the page, depends on the unexpected phrase, the ingenious rhyme, the contrived figure of speech. Literary poets like to invent, oral poets depend on formulas.”

Having considered imposing a rhyme scheme on my project, I’m now facing the decision of whether I want my work to “depend of formulas” (potentially wonderful for showing the passage of time, basing my poems on real story sources etc.) or allow my work to run where it may, making use of the “unexpected phrase.”

The ‘unexpected phrase’ is a key factor of all of the free verse poets that I’ve so far investigated in my research process. Authors such as Maira Kalman (The Principles of Uncertainty) rely on the unpredictability of form and the unconstrained narration as a crucial aid in the story-telling process. To research the ballad form (which plays a big part in all the articles I’ve read on oral-style poetry) I had to take a look at the more traditional ballads (from The Faber Book of Ballads) to help me understand the form I wanted to experiment with. Although the ballad format must have a musical memorability to it, sources differ greatly on the actual structure. Because of this, the ballad I’ve attempted below may not be structurally correct, but I gave it a go.

Because I’m uncertain (still!) if the ballad is right for how I want to structure my work, I did a few attempts at taking some of my pre-gathered information and making it into free verse and then a ballad.

The first example below is a free verse musing on my great grandmother’s house, using only a few details.   

Dust hangs off the mantelpiece edge,
fine white beads, strung up as lights.
Weak fingers of sunlight pry through the curtains,
a mid-day caress of the threepenny-bit jar.
Unfurling like memories on a wet day,
the wallpaper undulates.  
Age sits in her corner and inhales deeply from a cup
– this, she says, takes her back.
Back where, I think, but we already know
it’s the fold-away country
where intervals live.
Rest rests there, in that republic,
the motherland of the interlude.

Then I attempted, with great trepidation, to mould this into a loose representation of the ballad:

Dust hangs off the mantelpiece edge,
light ripples on threepenny bits.
Weak fingers of light, with timeless respite,
make the light bulb of age start to flicker in fits.

Age sits in the corner and knits
a tapestry time won’t allow.
Gaps rest in the holes on her wrists
and draw out the wet from her brow.

Blood leaks from our family face,
the wound where our memories lie.
Republic of place, in a black-and-white space,
in speaking we cannot quite die.

So, as you can see, it definitely needs some work! This is not one of my actual project poems however, or even part of one of my poems. It is simply a few jotted lines to get me into the spirit of constrained lines. 

Project Proposal

A generalised outline of my third year project so far:

I wanted to pick a subject matter for this project that really mattered to me, so that I could sustain a keen interest in my chosen topic for an entire year. Because my life is still rooted in the world of higher education, I have decided to write about my family, whose lives span 3 different continents and plenty of near misses (my father especially). Because of this, the first poetry collection that really motivated me was ‘The Other Country’ by Carol Ann Duffy, which focuses on the roots of her heritage. My Grandmother (born in the under-populated Highlands of the Scottish countryside) got married in her early twenties after leaving nursing school and moved her entire life (and that of her two children) to Swaziland. This move was due to my Grandfather’s job in the pulp mill industry sending him overseas to areas within the former British Empire.

Due to the stories handed down through our family, the feeling of a childhood spent in Africa has somehow infiltrated the perception of my paternal origins. Given that the younger generation within the family are only permitted glimpses into the alien world of searing heat and the polarised neighbourhoods of extreme wealth and poverty, I didn’t (and still don’t) have a clear vision of Africa in my head. The parts which were told however (the more adventurous and often dangerous trials of living in the developing world) were told often. At barbeques, at Christmases, at family dinner parties, and any time that it was even remotely appropriate. Part of this, I know, is the simple stage-presence and attention-loving nature of the people telling their own stories, but alternatively it also feels like a method of preservation. Some became learnt by heart, my Dad’s mannerisms predictable down to the letter (the look of surprised horror as my Grandfather missed the motorway exit for Durban for the eighth time etc etc). More interesting by far however is the unveiling of new information on old stories, as something is remembered, rephrased, or prompted. There is an odd feeling of displacement attached to the realisation that neither my cousins, brother or I am part of the events we all know so well, simply part of the retelling. In a sense, that is why I would like to centre my project on the mythological truths surrounding my upbringing and family – with every different retelling the storyteller puts a little of their own spin on the events, carrying them further from what happened, but also enriching them with detail.      

Although ‘family’ seems a gargantuan topic to encompass in one poetry collection, I have chosen several more interesting members of the family to explore in greater depth. These will be my father, maternal grandmother, great aunty Beatrix (who was actually my great grandmother on my mother’s side), brother, cousins and (going very far back) the clan from which my last name originates, in the Highlands of Scotland.

Loving visual aspects of poetry as I do, I would also like to manipulate the layout of my project into looking like a photo album. This would mean the poem on one side of the page (in the space you usually find the comments about the picture) and the image next to this.

Although I only have experience of writing poems of relatively short length, I would also like to try and make my project into a continuously flowing timeline. This would mean having 15 ‘parts’ to the larger story, rather than 15 individual poems.

Although I have yet to focus in on one individual ‘style’ of poetry, at the moment I would love to produce a narrative which matches up to the section of story it is revealing. For the portions of story unknown, there would be gaps within the line and a jolting sense that important information has been eroded away. Similarly, on sections of my history that I am particularly clear on I would like to give an almost prosaic style. One decision I am considering at the moment is whether or not to incorporate Scottish colloquialisms into some of the poetry. Words in Gaelic, for example, might feel exclusive to a reader. However, this is a decision I will discuss further on into the project.