A Poem in Contemporary Style - Essay Example

A Poem in Contemporary Style Heavy Rain, Riding In We had always been taught to prepare. Hardcore that was, and my brother was. But he was nowhere to be found in there. Late last summer of some eleven years ago, he used to be like our clothes used to be. Combos. Traditional siblings who came in very same pairs, reared by parents who wanted identical offspring, to imagine. He was in blue, that’s the only thing. When we were growing up, something came along. For some reason, we knew it would. When toys weren’t meant to be shared we played them differently. My brother moved faster than any time he thought that sky: is everywhere, I didn’t but want to lose track of one direction. [And] neither settled our restless feet, keeping the go. Our house was a house that could dissolve in echoes as we became our truths. Had so kept the go we to how far children’s fancies may go, wearing their parents -- down, my brother greasing himself to be detoured, almost claiming to have outwitted, the books he didn’t even flip page of. On a race, unaware of the consequences of ignition, he was. Right there. But ‘twas too late, for the right choice. Those days it was no longer that I could tell, what I used to tell him. Ignition. It’s all part of it. That’s why mother couldn’t even be bothered about traditions any more than seeing us dressed anyway. To simply have a few hours without aching head was good. That seemed to be all. For it would eventually occur to him, to us, that racing ends are all the same. Later, we’ll for us, come by these traditions, fully. My brother didn’t really care about accidents – it doesn’t have to be like that. There was no stopping for what he cared. Then finding I was, that I could learn from it. Maybe because he was less worried about school, or what it meant. One day when he was home gone, finally I saw a man whose eyes said he had just found a boy, just when we thought surprises were over. Going ‘round the bunch, that was. I had never seen such face in my brother: a face that sticks to memory like a reflective pool where a boy is dragged to drown, slowly. As to pass comes it, about one thing I’m sure. That year-old tot with voice little and steps to hear added had our house would have a way to his piece of story in her time. Certainly by then, my brother will have out long and hard worn before she notices, the race is on. Discussion: Unlike the style and method employed in the past, such as that which dates back to the Romantic period that popularized works by Lord Byron, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and many other poets who had strictly followed measure and rigid conventions in their poetries, “Heavy Rain, Riding In” is characterized by lack of consistent meter. While the poems of early times or at least those prior to the contemporary age strictly abided by the rule of properly designating end rhymes as well as assonance, alliteration, and other figures of speech that were necessitated to be components of poetry by all means, this contemporary work may be observed to possess a technique by which rhyme scheme lies within a line instead of in each line or every other line, being evident in the part where the speaker expresses “that was, and my brother was. But he was” which comprises ‘was’ at the end of each phrase in a line rather than the typically expected placement of rhyming, line after line. Though the contemporary poem consists of seven stanzas herein, these stanzas are not really distinct from each other based on subject content for there are portions when a shift of subject occurs in the middle of a stanza. Moreover, “Heavy Rain, Riding In” departs from the old tradition for its nature of positioning stress and peculiar tone in unlikely places such as when the heavy word ‘Ignition’ succeeds the part “‘twas too late, for the right choice. Those days it was no longer that I could tell, what I used to tell him” which supposedly conveys a mellow statement that speaks to the reader monotonously until ‘Ignition’ is inserted to create an edge or turn away from the blunt, as though to prepare the reader for some climax. In a blank verse, there exists recognizable pattern in the manner rhythm is incorporated throughout a literary piece, however, in a free verse which this contemporary composition assumes, variations frequently happen and lyricism need not be confined in classical order or mood. According to W.J. Miller, “In the twentieth century many poets have abandoned strict metrics and followed the lead of Walt Whitman, who established free verse as a more suitable medium of expressing the temper of modern life” and confesses that “the traditional poem establishes its form rather quickly … it imposes a prefabricated order on new subject matter” but “free verse poem rather finds, sometimes struggles to find, the unique order implicit in this new subject – the poet works not with meters and feet but with word clusters; he balances words against words, phrases with phrases, clauses with clauses, line against line, pauses with pauses.” Apparently, it is in free verse form of writing that contemporary poetry builds its foundation and on this ground, it may thus be reasonably claimed that Whitman’s project serves as forerunner to later works that manifest characteristic features of contemporary poets whose endeavour in composing poems is guided by the thought of unique artistry. A critical reader of “Heavy Rain, Riding In” ought to find its substance to be made in the spirit of a radical attitude through which the poem’s theme is freely explored without any trace of apprehension. As it communicates narrative of a brother, a person of ample importance in the life of the speaker, the poem readily indicates contemporary trait in the way it depicts the writer in a journey of painful recollection. The writer’s choice of words and broken rhythm somehow conveys to the reader that the method used renders the creation as unafraid of the experimental process to which it is brought so that the poem bears the capacity of gaining the empathy of its audience, drawing them to the core meaning of its wild sentiment. It may further be noted that besides its deviation from the standard poetic structure, “Heavy Rain, Riding In” is authored with flexible choice of literary device or elements that merely depend on the poet’s fashion and purpose. Most of all, it exhibits contemporary attribute of having a strangely arranged grammatical construction as in the clause ‘Had so kept the go we’ which is normally stated ‘So we had kept the go’ and the phrase ‘will have out long and hard worn’ which should have been ‘will have worn out long and hard’. Actually, this style is first implemented in the title which, in common use, is to be uttered ‘riding in heavy rain’. Also, ‘Then finding I was’ must clearly be ‘Then I was finding’ whereas ‘As to pass comes it’ must undeniably be the same as ‘As it comes to pass’. An attempt at an unusual language tool can be risky but for the areas where this is applied in the contemporary piece, it should appear how the author intends to be figurative by way of shuffling words even in the absence of formal literary vehicle when making indirect reference. With repetitions present in certain stanzas, nevertheless, “Heavy Rain, Riding In” may be inferred as a work that does not entirely defy conventional standards despite several instances of significant deviations therefrom. Its extensive use of enjambment over fixed metric structure provides strategy to make effective the thematic relevance of juxtapositions between the two characters – the brother in misfortune and the speaker who seems to be going through recovery after a state of shock. Such basis, hence, preserves the chief function of the piece, being an outcome of poetic composition that could stimulate one to experience the bittersweet succulence of the craft. Simplicity of words replaces intricate vocabulary yet the poem could be felt to roam with spontaneity since it is not governed by the severity of customary rule, engaging more of the reader’s attention to the senses than the mental or cognitive approach of grasping its major essence. Read More