Frank Oliver Call - The Foundry (1920)

Forgotten Poems #45: With a Short Essay on Free Verse

—: The Foundry :—

 
             Two monsters,
        Iron and Coal,
        Sleep in the darkness.
        A poisonous scarlet breath blows over them,
        And they awake hissing and writhing.
        And spew forth blood-red vomit
        In streams like fiery serpents.
        Then from the reeking pools
        A monstrous brood is born,
        Black, strong, beautiful.
        But we turn away our tired eyes.
        And try to find the sky above the smoke-clouds.
 

Frank Oliver Call (1878-1956)

P: The Canadian Magazine (1925); A: Canadian Singers & Their Songs (1919), Our Canadian Literature (1922), Canadian Poets (1926), Poetry Yearbook (1926-27); C: In A Belgian Garden (1916), Acanthus & Wild Grape (1920), Blue Homespun (1924; illustrated by Orson S. Wheeler); short-stories, reviews, articles, etc.

“Born of English and Scotch ancestry, at West Brome, province of Quebec in 1878. He was educated at Stanstead College, and at Bishop's College, Lennoxville; and later took post-graduate work at VicGill, Varburg and Paris.” Went on to become: “Professor of Modern Languages and Librarian in Bishop's College, Lennoxville, lecturing chiefly on English and Comparative Literature. He has contributed poems to Canadian and American magazines... has published short stories also, and articles descriptive of French Canada.” (Canadian Poets, 1926)

Frank Call — ‘A Note on Free Verse’ (from Acanthus & Wild Grape, 1920):

“Poetry has been defined as 'Thought touched by Emotion', and I know no better working definition, although no doubt more scientific and accurate ones could be found. The best poets of all ages seem to have this ideal plainly before them, whether consciously or unconsciously, and I cannot see how modern poets can dispense with either thought or emotion if they are to write real poetry. The modern poet has joined the great army of seekers after freedom, that is, they refuse to observe the old conventions in regard to subjects and the methods of treating them. They refuse to be bound by the old restrictions of rhyme and metre, and gs far afield in search of material on which to work. The boldest of the new school would throw overboard all the old forms and write only in free verse, rythmic prose or whatever they may wish to call it. The conservative, on the other hand, clings stubbornly to the old conventions, and will have nothing to do with vers libre or anything that savours of it.”

“But vers libre, like the motor-car and aeroplane, has come to stay whether we like it or no. It is not really a new thing, although put to a new use, for some of the greatest poetry of the Hebrew poets... was written in a form of free verse. At the present time the number of those using it as medium of expression is steadily increasing. In France, Italy, the United States, and even in conservative England, the increase in the number of poems recently published in this form has been remarkable. The modernists hail this tendency as the dawn of a new era of freedom, while the conservatives see poetry filling into decadence and ruin. The right view of the case probably lies, as it generally does, between the extremes. There is much beauty to be found in walking in beaten paths or rambling in fenced-in fields and woods, but perhaps one who sails the skies in an aeroplane may see visions and feel emotions that never come to those who wander on foot along the old paths of the woods and fields below. But it seems to me that it matters little in what form a poem is cast so long as the form suits the subject, and does not hinder the freedom of the poet's thought and emotion.”

Recently I have become more interested in metric rhythms, and am slowly starting to understand it a little better now. Oftentimes, it is assumed that “free” verse is devoid of poetic meter. I know I once assumed that. But over the last few years I have come to realise this is not the case at all, and stems from a communal misunderstanding concerning rhythmic verse. For instance, in the poem below, the first half is composed in 10 syllables of iambic pentameter (i.e. da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-DA), and second half is 15 syllables, again in iambs (da-DA), ending with what is apparently called a ‘cretic trisyllable’ (da-DA-da). You don’t have to read it that way. I didn’t consciously write it to be read that way. But it can be read that way. And it is very pleasant on the ears, I must admit.

As I said, these were not rhythms I put into the poem on purpose. I did not decide on a meter, and then fill in the blanks—not that there’s anything wrong with that!—my point is not to oppose writing in meter and writing freely in any way. Rather, every poem is both formal and free, at one and the same time—think: wave-particle duality—depending on the reader (i.e. observer), and the way they cadence the poem. Take the opening lines of Call’s verse, which can be re-lineated into into a striking couplet, and read in loose iambic pentameter;

 
        Two monsters, iron and coal, sleep in the darkness.
        A poisonous scarlet breath blows over them,
 

We can read any poem ‘prosaically’ (i.e. like prose)—in a conversational, informal tone, cadences flowing with the emotional swells—and we can read any poem, no matter how ‘free’ it is otherwise, ‘prosodically’ (i.e. according to the rules of ‘prosody’, in which rhythm is measured and expressed in stresses, feet and meters). The most common ‘foot’ in English-language verse is the ‘iamb’ (da-DA)—having two syllables—and the most common meter, pentameter (i.e. having 5 feet). Almost all sonnets before 1900 were written fairly strictly in iambic pentameter, for instance, as well as a great deal of theatre. Unrhymed poetry, or ‘blank verse’, typically narrative or epic in style, seldom strayed from its charms (i.e. Milton’s Paradise Lost). A pair of pentameters was also known as a ‘heroic couplet’, due to their popularity in epic poetry.

There are also ways of working with meter as a ‘free verse’ poet, which do not involve returning to form, as it were. These days, after I finish writing a poem, I try reading it in various rhythms, to see if any of them stick. If I find a rhythm which enables the poem to sing a little, then I can choose whether I want to accentuate the rhythm, and perhaps tighten the language, or slacken the tension, giving it a little more breathing room. The choice is no longer whether to write in one form or another, but whether to be aware of it.

Of course, while all phrases can be read ‘prosodically’, not all poems sound good meter’d. Which is fine, of course. Each approach has its own joys and pitfalls, and in ‘free verse’ it is the middle path, as Call says, which yields the greatest gifts, and leads to more interesting questions. No longer the tired questions: “What is the difference between ‘free verse’ and ‘formal verse’?” Instead we find the kinds of questions which lead to a multiplicity of lines (of flight), such as: how does formal verse become free verse, and vice-versa? What kinds of combinations and mixtures and blends can be made? What forces act upon them, and what are their affects, effects, and reflects? These are productive questions which lead to possibilities, potentials, and prophecies, instead of prescriptive questions, which almost always lead to predictable, reductive answers (i.e. ‘free verse’ is free from the so-called ‘tyranny’ of ‘form’, etc.).

 
        -: Ode to Old Night :-
              For Frank Call
                   by Dick Whyte

        Tired boned
        &
        Smokey eyed,

        Horizon
        Turned—

        Old night
        Sun swallower,
        Swallowed

        The distance
        Like rust,
        S c a t t e r e d
 

                       xoxo
                         dw
  

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