{"id":4,"date":"2016-06-11T16:27:46","date_gmt":"2016-06-11T16:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/?p=4"},"modified":"2020-05-10T16:14:20","modified_gmt":"2020-05-10T16:14:20","slug":"getting-to-grips-with-a-favourite-poet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/?p=4","title":{"rendered":"How to Write a Glosa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever imagine that a medieval Spanish poetic form could help you get to grips with poems you admire? I’m exploring the use of the glosa<\/strong><\/em>, a courtly form that steals a quatrain from another poet’s work to structure a poem of your own, in the course of which you create a glosa \u2013 or gloss on that poet’s work. Tangling with with your chosen poet may allow her or his subtle influence to inform your tone and expand your expressive range.<\/p>\n

THE GLOSA OR GLOSE<\/strong> is a form requiring:<\/p>\n

a) A cabeza<\/strong><\/em> (or motto) – the quatrain borrowed from another poet, whose authorship must be acknowledged<\/p>\n

b) Four 10-line stanzas, each ending with one of the lines in sequence from the cabeza.<\/p>\n

c) A rhyme-scheme requirement that lines 6 and 9 rhyme with the final word of line 10.<\/p>\n

\"\"Annie Finch<\/strong>, who in her cornucopian manual A Poet\u2019s Craft<\/strong><\/em>, (University of Michigan Press, 2015) writes (pp34-36): The lines of these stanzas can be of any length; the point is that each stanza elaborates or explains one of the four lines in the cabeza, and incorporates it (sometimes as the final line, like a refrain).<\/em> She adds This form concretely acknowledges the links between poets \u2013 the ways in which one poet\u2019s work can spring from another\u2019s.<\/em><\/p>\n

She quotes PK Page<\/strong>: \u2018I was introduced to the gloss through the ear. Its form, half-hidden, powerfully sensed, like an iceberg at night, made me search for its outline as I listened\u2026I enjoyed the idea of constructing the poem backward \u2013 the final line of each stanza is in effect, the starting line\u2026I liked being controlled by those three reining rhymes \u2013 or do I mean reigning? \u2013 and gently influenced by the rhythm of the original.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s great scope for playing with this form, by varying the constraints. You could choose a different stanza length, write in free verse, in a metre of your choice, or in syllabics; dispense with rhyme or increase the amount of rhyme; use a different length of cabeza, or introduce the lines of the cabeza in different positions in your stanza.<\/p>\n

The point of any formal constraint is primarily to put you under pressure to write a little differently from your default style, and in the case of the glosa, you\u2019re forced to participate quite explicitly in the work of another poet, many new possibilities for writing differently can be magically released.<\/p>\n

Below, one of my own trial runs is followed by examples by Marilyn Hacker, P.K.Page.<\/p>\n

Glose<\/strong>
\n John Wheway<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Objects, too, are important.
\nSome of the time they are.
\nThey can furrow their brow,
\neven offer forgiveness, of a sort.
\nJohn Ashbury, Litanies (A Worldly Country)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Certain abstractions are mildly arousing \u2013
\nbut logic \u2013 doesn’t that seem mostly pedestrian,
\ninvoking a pained frown in the listener
\nwhose feet are being nailed to the floor
\nin too methodical a fashion
\nfor him to chance an escape? You’ve watched
\nan ant ferrying fragments of an enormous leaf
\nalong a dusty track, and been fascinated
\nby its singleness of purpose. It is evident
\nobjects, too, are important<\/p>\n

in your scheme of values, but you could learn
\nfrom the ant what’s worth preserving
\nand which of the things you put in your mouth
\nhas a nice taste, and doesn’t just keep you alive.
\nI can’t teach you how to live, but we both know
\nself-indulgence is better than war,
\nand if you were a little less serious,
\ngirls might not keep going to the bathroom
\nwhen you hold forth. They\u2019d be yours to treasure \u2013
\nsome of them are.<\/p>\n

In any case, if you’re happy playing Bach
\nin your imagination, who am I
\nto try leading you to the keyboard?
\nDo you as much as feel the texture of the keys
\nor are you so preoccupied with working out
\nwhich trope prophesies Mozart and which Brahms, and how
\nhis counterpoint more than equals Leibniz
\nin mathematical complexity, that my solicitude
\nseems like the lowing of a pastured cow?
\nThey can furrow their brow,<\/p>\n

these women, in perplexity. And some might hang around
\nin the hope of understanding your important theory,
\nbut most will be lowering their eyes,
\nnot to imagine what\u2019s in your trousers,
\nbut to let their eyes go scouting round the room
\nfor men who are less exacting in their thought.
\nShe doesn\u2019t want to stand there feeling stupid
\njust because she is, like all of us,
\nimproved by your insights, which, because well-wrought,
\neven offer forgiveness of a sort.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Glose<\/strong>
\n Marilyn Hacke<\/strong>r<\/p>\n

The death of a sparrow has blackened the snow
\nBut nothing consoled her
\nWho is the night among all nights ? she asked the owl
\nBut the owl doesn’t think, the owl knows<\/p>\n

V\u00e9nus Khoury-Ghata : \u00abBorderland\u00bb<\/strong><\/em>
\n translated by M.H.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dumb heat, not snow, sheathes Paris in July
\nand sheathes suburban Washington.
\nPlanes rip through the fabric of a frayed
\nafternoon torn open
\nby words no afterwards will clarify.
\nKnowing what happened, no one will know.
\nThere was a poet, and she had a son.
\nThere was exile, its weight on a day.
\nThere was the heart’s ice, its insistent glow.
\nThe death of a sparrow has blackened the snow.<\/p>\n

Trope upon silvered trope, of what might a mirror
\nremind her : copper, black silk , the eloquence
\nintelligence gives eyes ? Reflected terror
\nthat conscripted all intelligence.
\nI am a great way off and cannot come nearer.
\nI do not know what the night or the mirror told her
\nor the sense of the words she wrote when nothing made sense,
\nor if they made a sense that seemed clearer and clearer.
\nThe child raised his arms to be lifted, to be held, to hold her,
\nbut nothing consoled her.<\/p>\n

Put the morning away in the murk of myth :
\nnot the unthinkable, but Radha’s dance
\nbreaking her bangles, imploring the dark god with
\nmetered and musical lamentations,
\nrepeated measures meant to distance death
\nsuggest a redemptive spiral for the soul
\n(child, child bleeding to death, no second chance)
\nin the containment of despair and wrath
\nwithin the peopled descent of the ritual.
\n(Who is the night of all nights she asked the owl.)<\/p>\n

No dark god was there, and no god of light .
\nThere are women and men, cruel or fallible.
\nNo mild friend picked up the telephone at the right
\nmoment ; some Someone was unavailable.
\nThe morning which paled from an uneventful night
\nwould have been ordinary, except that she chose.
\nInterrogate the hours, invent some oracle
\nflying overhead , read fate into its flight.
\nWe think the snow was blackened by dead sparrows,
\nbut the owl doesn’t think ; the owl knows.<\/p>\n

Autumn <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

PK Page<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"Whoever has no house now will never have one.
\nWhoever is alone will stay alone
\nWill sit, read, write long letters through the evening
\nAnd wander on the boulevards, up and down…<\/p>\n

from Autumn Day, Rainer Maria Rilke<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Its stain is everywhere.
\nThe sharpening air
\nof late afternoon
\nis now the colour of tea.
\nOnce-glycerined green leaves
\nburned by a summer sun
\nare brittle and ochre.
\nNight enters day like a thief.
\nAnd children fear that the beautiful daylight has gone.
\nWhoever has no house now will never have one.<\/p>\n

It is the best and the worst time.
\nAround a fire, everyone laughing,
\nbrocaded curtains drawn,
\nnowhere-anywhere-is more safe than here.
\nThe whole world is a cup
\none could hold in one’s hand like a stone
\nwarmed by that same summer sun.
\nBut the dead or the near dead
\nare now all knucklebone.
\nWhoever is alone will stay alone.<\/p>\n

Nothing to do. Nothing to really do.
\nToast and tea are nothing.
\nKettle boils dry.
\nShut the night out or let it in,
\nit is a cat on the wrong side of the door
\nwhichever side it is on. A black thing
\nwith its implacable face.
\nTo avoid it you
\nwill tell yourself you are something,
\nwill sit, read, write long letters through the evening.<\/p>\n

Even though there is bounty, a full harvest
\nthat sharp sweetness in the tea-stained air
\nis reserved for those who have made a straw
\nfine as a hair to suck it through-
\nfine as a golden hair.
\nWearing a smile or a frown
\nGod’s face is always there.
\nIt is up to you
\nif you take your wintry restlessness into the town
\nand wander on the boulevards, up and down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever imagine that a medieval Spanish poetic form could help you get to grips with poems you admire? I’m exploring the use of the glosa, a courtly form that steals a quatrain from another poet’s work to structure a poem of your own, in the course of which you create a glosa \u2013 or gloss […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[8,11,9,12,10],"class_list":["post-4","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetics","tag-annie-finch","tag-glose","tag-marilyn-hacker","tag-napowrimo","tag-pk-page"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7DaEn-4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":557,"url":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/?p=557","url_meta":{"origin":4,"position":0},"title":"‘Re-visioning Exile’, Review of ‘Afterwardness’ by Mimi Khalvati","author":"afterthebeginning","date":"May 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"My review of 'Afterwardness' by Mimi Khalvati reproduced here, was published in The High Window in January, 2020. 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Here, for example, is a flash micro attributed (dubiously) to Hemingway: For Sale.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "poetics"","block_context":{"text":"poetics","link":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.johnwheway.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/IMG_2059-300x161.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":21,"url":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/?p=21","url_meta":{"origin":4,"position":3},"title":"In the Poem, Music Makes Meaning","author":"afterthebeginning","date":"June 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"How is meaning of a poem heightened by its music? In Bill Herbert's manual, Writing Poetry, there's an interview with Sean O'Brien about the composition of O'Brien's poem, 'Cousin Coat'.\u00a0 We learn from this that early drafts were written not in the rhymed iambic pentameters readers\u00a0know, but in free verse.\u00a0Why\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "poetics"","block_context":{"text":"poetics","link":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"41al+TUI0cL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.johnwheway.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/41alTUI0cL._SX324_BO1204203200_-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions\/171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwheway.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}