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5.0 out of 5 stars
An Enjoyable, Useful, No Nonsense Look at Free Verse, December 11, 2010
This review is from: A History of Free Verse (Paperback)
A History of Free Verse by Chris Beyers is a detailed historical overview of developments in free verse, particularly (but not limited to) the 20th Century. Though focusing mainly on the verse of the usual Moderns - Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, H.D., and William Carlos Williams - a plethora of other poets are discussed by way of long asides and examples and tracings of verse lineages: Abraham Cowley, William Cowper, D.H. Lawrence, Rita Dove, Philip Levine, E.E. Cummings, William Ernest Henley, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Vachel Lindsay, A.R. Ammons, Matthew Arnold, and a great deal more.
The strategy of the book is to focus on the "fictions" that poets create (and that critics frequently participate in) to explain and justify their departures from received traditions. Beyers' contention is that understanding the manifold assertions and apologia poets have made for their various brands of free verse as fictions arising in a historical context (rather than as explantions of truth) is the best way to truly approach an objective understanding of the permutations verse has taken over the last century.
Along the way he shows that this approach might also be one of the richest ways to read modern and contemporary free verse. I felt that I really got a sense of what made several of the poets tick and what motivated them when they sat down at their writing desks. All of the readings are enlightening. In some cases, Beyers seems to be sticking to general critical consensus and at other times he seems to be breaking new ground. Sometimes his observations are just delightful as when he talks about this famous stanza by Williams about an old woman munching on plums:
They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her
Many critics have pointed out that the line endings change the emphasis for each repetition in a successive manner. But Beyers points out how this also literally mimics the process of eating, each break taking a bite further down the remainder of the sentence and allowing the savoring of a slightly new taste sensation.
Readers of criticism and verse theory will be aware (and, if you are like me, weary) of the propensity of many authors to pass off subjective assertion as objective truth. For example, certain "moves" in verse or in a particular poem are frequently asserted to have specific effects upon the reader. For the authors making these assertions, these psychological effects are not conditioned or varying by reader but are inherent and unavoidable to all competent readers.
Beyers' writing is NOT like this. An oft-repeated phrase in the book is "competent readers may disagree." Though there are no shortages of readings put forth, they are carefully grounded in hard evidence and room is always left for alternate views. Often these other views are anticipated and presented. At the same time this book is objective, it is not overly technical - it is for both scholars and for general readers (like myself).
Once or twice I wished a bit more time would have been spent bolstering some particular argument or point. In particular, after an awesome exploration of Williams' perplexing (and possibly totally cracked) notion of the variable foot, a clever and concise (and, for all I know, revolutionary) synthesis is offered to explain it. But shortly thereafter the chapter ends, no readings offered to prove his understanding or demonstrate how it might open up readings of Williams.
Really, I have few gripes. This is definitely the most helpful book about verse I've ever read. Not only did it help me think about free verse, but I felt like I was becoming more knowledgeable in scansion and traditional form as well. (Discussions of these things often provide context.) I would even say that this book would likely be more helpful to poets than most versifying manuals, though that is not the intent of the book.
I'd love to see a parallel historical study of traditional verse styles in the 20th century. I imagine that the approach, looking at the fictions poets crafted or adopted to justify and explain their work, would narrow rather than widen the gap between the two realms.
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