These sentences were published as a piece titled ‘An Old Refrain’ in 2009 in an edition of a quarterly literary magazine:-
Robin-run-the-hedge we called the vetch ~ a fading straggle of Lincoln green English stitchwork unravelling with a hey-nonny-no by the Wood Road-side-o. Sticky entangling berry and thread summering in on the tousled verge.
In seggins hear the wind among the sedge, in boortree the elderberry’s dank indulgence, in benweed ragwort’s singular unbending, in the easing drops of night rain from the eaves.
You could say when the wordscape changes you don’t know where you are, or who. That an unheard world will fail. But no. Ken otherwise, for you can, trick-o’-the-loop man, conjure every where.
Let us call this piece a ‘word-thing’, as something that we may read or which we may hear read aloud by somebody else, and ask what are its characteristics and what it may mean.
This is a word-thing, in writing, a piece of literature. We might call it a discourse, a meditation. The subject of it is stated as An Old Refrain. Indeed an example of what seems to be ‘an old refrain’ is presented in italics in the first paragraph of the piece.
In this first paragraph of the discourse a wild plant or weed, the vetch, is mentioned; not in a plain way but by means of what might be termed ‘figurative description’, by allusions, and by, at the outset, the application of some local or dialect name for it, Robin-run-the-hedge. The use of the word English suggests that the vetch referred to is one of the several that grow all over the British Isles. Some research might reveal what plant was given the common name Robin-run-the-hedge, and where. The most likely candidate is the tufted vetch, Vicia cracca, the common, climbing species.
However, the description of the vetch does not make sense in botanical terms. In common experience the wayside plant best described by the words sticky entangling is Galium aparine, cleavers ~ what in Sussex we used to call ‘goose-grass’. Further, vetches are leguminous plants and do not bear any sort of berry. The writer seems confused here.
The mode of discourse in the first paragraph is a little like that of the ‘Country Diary’ columns that some newspapers used to carry; but the two sentences might be said to show, in their figurative use of language, and in other ways, certain ‘poetic’ characteristics. The vetch is figured as Lincoln green English stitchwork which then ‘unravels’ into an auditory figure somewhat like the sung refrain of an ancient song. This is highly complex and accomplished literary technique: but to what cognitive end?
The mode of discourse in the second paragraph ~ which is a single sentence ~ is also ‘poetic’. In addition to various figures, a rhetorical device is introduced. In the first clause of the sentence the verb hear is used in the imperative mood, and the use of the verb is implied in the three further clauses. Each clause contains a word or phrase in some dialect of English: seggins, boortree, benweed and the easing. The first three of these words clearly apply to wild plants; and the word hear invites us to apprehend, synaesthetically in two cases, these plants in some aspect through the medium of the dialect word itself. This use of ‘poetic language’ puts quite severe psychological demands on the reader, and its likely success may be questioned. For instance, the noun phrase singular unbending applied adjectivally to a ragwort plant is an obscure epithet. Further, it is difficult to accede to any idea of dank indulgence in respect of the elderberry whether mediated by the sound of the unknown (to the general reader) word boor or in any other way. It may also be noted that there is no obvious cognitive connection between the matter of the first and second paragraphs. It could be argued that Robin-run-the-hedge should be italicised; and there is no obvious cognitive connection between the three italicised dialect plant names in paragraph two with the italicised ‘refrain’ in paragraph one to provide such a connection.
The third paragraph is no plainer in its meaning than the others, and is as ‘poetic’. In the first sentence the figure wordscape is interesting as doing something to bring the three paragraphs together thematically; but the sentence as a whole does not make much sense. What you or who would be around long enough for a wordscape to have changed out of recognition? The second sentence is quite ungrammatical. Why is this? We have here a somewhat affected, casual, verbal utterance; which utterance here increases a sense of rhetorical bombast.
The third sentence is another utterance which is less than a full, grammatical sentence; but it leads logically to the last sentence of the piece which does, if in a somewhat indirect way, provide a meaningful conclusion to the series of largely figurative statements made in the course of the piece.
If our simple understanding of the conclusion ~ that dialect or old fashioned or discontinued usages may not be wholly lost ~ is valid, we might want to ask why the phrase trick-o’-the-loop man is not italicised. But who should we ask? And are such questions worth pursuing?
***
Whatever may be meant cognitively by this piece of writing, it is not being said directly. Where, if we were minded to do so, might we turn to get a better idea of what this word-thing means? We could try to discover in what dialect and in what era the various plants were known by their italicised names: but to what end would we do this? What reason, beyond simple curiosity, might we have to further research this covert, private and cryptic piece? What might persuade us that it would be to our intellectual profit or pleasure, or pleasure of any other sort, to do so? Why did the magazine publish this word-thing which does not recommend itself as being of any particular significance or import?
***
Now we may re-examine the piece in its original form. ‘An Old Refrain’ by Seamus Heaney is in the Autumn 2009 edition of POETRY REVIEW, the magazine of the Poetry Society, and is set out like this:-
Seamus Heaney
An Old Refrain
i
Robin-run-the-hedge
We called the vetch ~
A fading straggle
Of Lincoln green
English stitchwork
Unravelling
With a hey-nonny-no
By the Wood Road-side-o.
Sticky entangling
Berry and thread
Summering in
On the tousled verge.
ii
In seggins
Hear the wind
Among he sedge,
In boortree
The elderberry’s
Dank indulgence,
In benweed
Ragwort’s
Singular unbending,
In the easing
Drips of night rain
From the eaves.
iii
You could say
When the wordscape changes
You don’t know where
You are, or who.
That an unheard world
Will fail.
But no. Ken
Otherwise,
For you can,
Trick-o’-the-loop man,
Conjure
Every where.
We are to take it that this piece is a ‘poem’: the Editor of Poetry Review purports it to be so (as no doubt does Mr Heaney) by presenting it in a section headed EIGHTEEN POEMS.
But is this word-thing truly a poem?
***
Let us examine the usages and definitions of some relevant words. They are taken here from the Collins English Dictionary (1979).
The primary usage and definition of the word poetry is given as:
n. 1. a composition in verse, usually characterised by concentrated and heightened language in which words are chosen for their sound and suggestive power as well as for their sense, and using such techniques as metre, rhyme and alliteration.
The principle usages and definitions of the word metre in the context of poetry are these:
n. 1. prosody. the rhythmic arrangement of syllables in verse, usually according to the number and kind of feet in a line. 2. Music. another word for time.
There are two usages of the words metrical or metric adj.:
1. of or relating to measurement. 2. of or in poetic metre.
It is worth recording that the word measure has these recorded definitions and usages:
n. 11. Music. another word for bar. 12. Prosody. poetic rhythm or cadence; metre. 13. a metrical foot. 14. Poetic. a melody or tune. 16. Archaic. a dance.
The relevant usage and definition of the word foot is given as:
n. 13. Prosody. a group of two or more syllables in which one syllable has the major stress, forming the basic unit of poetic rhythm.
There are these entries under the word stress:
n. 2. emphasis placed upon a syllable by pronouncing it more loudly than those that surround it. 3. such emphasis as part of a regular rhythmic beat in music or poetry. 4. a syllable so emphasised.
And these entries are given under the word beat:
n. 31. the basic rhythmic unit in a piece of music, usually grouped in twos, threes, or fours. 35. Prosody. the accent, stress, or ictus in a metrical foot.
The relevant technical use of the word verse is given as:
3. a. a series of metrical feet forming a rhythmical unit of one line.
For the word line there is this entry:
n. 27. a unit of verse consisting of the number of feet appropriate to the metre being used and written or printed with the words in a single row.
Further, it is pertinent to give the etymology of the word verse: The Collins English Dictionary gives us this:
[Old English vers, from Latin versus a furrow, literally: a turning (of the plough), from vertere to turn.]
We may now look to the dictionary for usages and definitions of the word rhythm. There are these:
1.a. the arrangement of the relative durations of and accents on the notes of a melody, usually laid out into regular groups (bars) of beats, the first beat of each bar carrying the stress. b. any specific arrangements of such groupings; time: quadruple rhythm. 2. (in poetry) a. the arrangement of words into a more or less regular sequence of stressed and unstressed or long and short syllables. b. any specific such arrangement; metre. 4. any sequence of regularly recurring functions or events, such as the regular recurrence of certain physiological functions of the body.
Lastly, we may include the usage and definition of the word pattern:
n. 1. an arrangement of repeated or corresponding parts, decorative motifs, etc.
On consideration of these usages and definitions it may be proposed that poetry is a verbal art or craft which is primarily and essentially distinguished from other verbal arts or crafts by the measured, rhythmic, patterned arrangement of its elements. In this respect poetry is rather like music; and indeed it was originally, as it is generally understood, closely aligned with music.
We may now examine the given word-thing to discover, if we may, its measured, rhythmic, patterned sequences.
***
Here is the first part of it:
i
Robin-run-the-hedge
We called the vetch ~
A fading straggle
Of Lincoln green
English stitchwork
Unravelling
With a hey-nonny-no
By the Wood Road-side-o.
Sticky entangling
Berry and thread
Summering in
On the tousled verge.
We have here four sets of three lines or verses. Probable and possible main stresses as would be used in ‘normal speech’ are indicated. In the first two lines the bracketed stresses are alternatives; that in the sixth line is a suggested supplementary stress in what would normally be a word with a single stress, which allows us to say that there are two stresses in each verse. The verses may then be said to consist of two measures or feet ~ though quite what the metre or rhythm of these feet is, if we are able to attribute a consistent rhythm to them, is not clear. Take the sixth line, for instance: if the first syllable is to be stressed, then the verse consists of one measure of a single, stressed syllable and a second measure consisting of one stressed and two unstressed syllables. However, in the definition of foot noted earlier, a single syllable cannot constitute a measure or foot. Nevertheless, the verse can be delivered so that the stresses fall more or less isochronously, and a steady patterning of stresses can be achieved through the whole first section of the piece. Beyond that , however, there is no further patterning through rhyme or alliteration. All that we can say is that we have here ‘blank verses’. The question may then be asked: But why break this word-thing up into these short, blank lines? There is no good reason for any of these lines to end or ‘turn’ where it does apart from the projected system of each line being composed of two measures of some sort.
***
In the second part of this word-thing what patterning there is of the short verses breaks down:
ii
In seggins
Hear the wind
Among he sedge,
In boortree
The elderberry’s
Dank indulgence,
In benweed
Ragwort’s
Singular unbending,
In the easing
Drops of night rain
From the eaves.
Here the bracketed stresses could be used, but they are hardly those of ‘ordinary speech’. Even with their inclusion this section is chaotic and unpleasing; and the line-endings perhaps even less reasonable than in the first part of the piece. The stress-count could be presented thus:-
1,2,2; 1,2,2; 1,1,2; 1,2,1
***
In the third part of the piece there is still no good reason for the line-endings apart from the possibility that we can sound out each line as being composed of two measures or feet of some sort:
iii
You could say
When the wordscape changes
You don’t know where
You are, or who.
That an unheard world
Will fail.
Here we are conjecturing stresses on the words could and will in order to try to maintain two measures in each verse. The conjectured stresses on when and know would be laboured but are possible and acceptable. However, all these stresses to some extent work against a ‘conversational’ delivery of the words, which might be more ‘normally’ stressed thus:
You could say when the wordscape changes you don’t know where you are, or who. That an unheard world will fail.
This could be reset in a very pleasant ‘rhythmical’ way, thus:
You could say when the wordscape changes
You don’t know where you are, or who.
That an unheard world will fail.
It is also possible to deliver the words slowly and deliberately to give three five stress isochronous lines, so as to make them more ‘portentous’:
You could say when the wordscape changes
You don’t know where you are, or who.
That an unheard world will fail.
The rest of the piece may be reset in both fashions:
But no. Ken otherwise,
For you can, trick-o’-the-loop man,
Conjure every where.
But no. Ken otherwise. For you can,
Trick-o’-the-loop man, conjure every where.
But, of course, the author sets the words thus:
But no. Ken
Otherwise,
For you can,
Trick-o’-the-loop man,
Conjure
Every where.
We must, then, consider them to be in our conjectured two-stress rhythm pattern. It is clear from the division of the usual ‘Everywhere’ into Every where that we should stress both words. But it is not then reasonable to put two stresses on Otherwise since it has not been similarly split; nor on Conjure, of course ~ that would be absurd. Further, it does not seem reasonable to put a stress on For. The most generous conjectural stress-count that we can give to iii is:
2,2,2; 2,2,2; 2,1,1; 2,1,2
We find, then, that there is no overall pattern of stresses in the piece; that the lines are ’blank’ and do not measure out consistently into verse. It does not have what we might call ‘significant form’; it is not truly a poem at all, and is a peculiar sort of ‘mess’ in its metrical aspect.
***
We have attended to how what is said is said; now we may return to what is said in this word-thing, consider its ‘meaning’, the ‘sense’ of the words.
We might understand the word-thing better if we could find out what is or was a Trick-o’-the-loop man, and something about the dialect of seggins, boortree etc. We know that the author is Irish and that it is probable that there are complex and recondite and even esoteric references, allusions and hints in the piece that we might try to investigate and conjecture upon. We may suspect that this is in some ways a political piece concerning English influence in and on Ireland. We might discover the origin of the Old Refrain of the title, which is presumably that refrain which is laid out in the seventh and eighth lines of the piece. We might somehow ascertain that a particular Wood Road has especial significance in Irish history. We might investigate the piece further, perhaps with the help of Mr Heaney himself, if he were willing.
But why should be bother? This somewhat ‘shamanic incantation’ is a curious and not uninteresting piece of poetic writing. However, a word-thing that contains poetic effects is not necessarily a poem. The word-thing that we have considered does not provide those especial aesthetic satisfactions that derive from the measured rhythm and other patternings of the true poetry.
This word-thing is a sham poem.
***
It might be suggested that the piece, in being called a ‘poem’, is being taken too seriously. Here is a little ‘song and a dance’, not of such a high literary order, but a poem nonetheless. The verses are offered in the hope of ‘lightening up’ what may be a somewhat too serious essay.
Famous Seamus : Shaman or Sham?
Would we call him a tup or a ram?
Will his e-mails be special or spam?
(From the seggins the wind conjures Presto! Shazzam!)
(Permission to reproduce the poem was kindly granted by Seamus Heaney.)