This is a famous poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It would be usually be described as free verse. But he uses a lot of internal sound effects anyway, and he writes in a fairly regular iambic rhythm with line lengths varying from 1 beat to 4 beats. I put bold on some of the more noticeable echoing sound effects, including rhyme, alliteration, and assonance. I put rhythmic notations after each line. And, yes, rhythmic notations in English can usually be argued about.
Constantly risking absurdity /--/--/--
and death -/
whenever he performs -/-/-/
above the heads-/-/
of his audience--/--
the poet like an acrobat-/-/-/-/
climbs on rime/-/
to a high wire of his own making--//-/-/-
and balancing on eyebeams-/-/-/-
above a sea of faces-/-/-/-
paces his way/--/
to the other side of the day--/-/--/
performing entrechats-/-/-/
and sleight-of-foot tricks-/--/
and other high theatrics-/-/-/-
and all without mistaking-/-/-/-
any thing/-/
for what it may not be-/-/-/-/
For he's the super realist-/-/-/-
who must perforce perceive-/-/-/
taut truth//
before the taking of each stance or step-/-/-/-/-/
in his supposed advance-/-/-/
toward that still higher perch--/-/-/
where Beauty stands and waits-/-/-/
with gravity-/-/
to start her death-defying leap-/-/-/-/
And he-/
a little charleychaplin man-/-/-/-/
who may or may not catch-/-/-/
her fair eternal form-/-/-/
spreadeagled in the empty air-/-/-/-/
of existence--/-
I imagine she meant what she said. But she also said she didn't know a lot about poetry. I suppose there could be some semantic disagreements as to what she meant by "free verse."
ReplyDeleteHer thinking may have changed on this topic. In a 1946 letter to Rose Wilder Lane, she wrote:
"Just between you and me, were you actually stuck on what kind of literary form Anthem represents—or was it just a very clever method you employed to arouse interest in the book? If you are really wondering about it, Anthem is a poem."
Anthem doesn't rhyme. The name "Anthem" means a kind of song, but it's not a song except in the metaphorical sense - at least until someone sets it to music.
I did read What Art Is. It has a lot of good stuff in it. There are certain things in it that I didn't like, where I thought they erred in their interpretations.