Making 'Metaphor Poems' by Simile & Rhyme
WHY LINE? WHY METER? WHY RHYME?
(From Chapter 4 of the book.)
With over a century and a half of various forms of free verse in American poetry behind us, it is pertinent to ask, “Why, in the 21st Century, compose by Line, or in Meter, or in Rhyme? Is this a reactionary throw-back to the 19th Century?”
Chapters 5-7 model many of the practical how’s, why’s and wherefore’s of composing by the line, in meter, and in the music of end-rhymes.
In this chapter, at the risk of over-simplification, I will summarize in my own words, to the extent it is pertinent to our subject, some recent scientific thinking on the effect of line, meter, and rhyme in poetry with regard to its impact on the human brain.
This is drawn from a rather long technical paper, “The Neural Lyre: Poetic Meter, the Brain, and Time,” by Frederick Turner and Ernst Pöppel, which is found in a collection of essays, New Expansive Poetry, edited by R.S. Gwynn (1999).
What does a study of Japanese, Chinese, English, Ancient Greek, Latin, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, Uralic, Slavic, Celtic, plus the languages of Zambia and New Guinea show they all have in common? All utilize in their most well-established poetry lines that are a similar length in elapsed time when spoken.
On the one hand, the line length in all these languages does not exceed the elapsed time that the conscious mind consumes as it speaks, grasps, and understands the line’s content within what is called “the present moment” of hearing. On the other hand, the line is not so short that it allows other thoughts to intrude into the unconsumed “present moment.” The biological or “neural length” of a present moment of hearing is roughly 3 seconds.
It is no accident that Iambic Pentameter, five stresses spoken over ten syllables, is so well established in English. Iambic Tetrameter, four stresses over eight syllables, is only slightly less well established, as is the eight-stress English ballad meter. Pentameter takes on average 3.3 seconds to speak, Tetrameter 2.4. These are congruent with lower frequency brain waves associated with the brain’s heightened creativity.
In reading metrical end-rhymed poetry aloud we are drawn in by the underlying auditory rhythm (ta-TUM, ta-TUM, ta-TUM) as well as by periodic end-rhymes. Scientists say the brain is driven by them. These rhythmic drivers bring about a cooperative feedback loop across the corpus callosum between the (rational) word-strength of the left hemisphere brain and the (feeling) image-strength of the right hemisphere.
When the right and left hemispheres are united in this feedback loop, we (whether as poets making a poem, or readers of it, or listeners to it) experience our world more holistically. This is especially true for experience we consider ambiguous in meaning. Purely analytic left-brain thinking alone cannot accomplish this holistic integration for us.
Metrical end-rhymed poetry helps us make sense of the world with all its contradictions at a depth prose cannot. Nor can free verse, even with it’s rhetorical rhythms. The reason? Both prose and free verse lack regularly recurring auditory drivers which create the low frequency brain waves that achieve the feedback loop and effect the optimum integration of the two hemispheres.
To repeat, and add one more element: It’s 1) the underlying rhythm of meter, 2) counterpointed with the lyric voice of speech-stress, 3) combined with recurring rhyme-sound images that mark the ends of lines — all are involved together subliminally. Together they harness for the reader the power of the whole brain and enable it to become entrained and to experience poetry at its deepest levels.
Thus, line, meter, and rhyme are far from a throwback to a prior century (whether the 19th or one at the time of the Ancient Greeks and Romans). Composing by line, in meter, and in rhyme makes the most time-proven and universal poetry for one simple reason. It is, according to the scientific evidence available to us, the way the human brain works most holistically.
Buy it now to enjoy these benefits. Click on the image on this page, or here: MAKING ‘METAPHOR POEMS’ BY SIMILE & RHYME: A GUIDE FOR HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS.
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