Angela Fields

Professor Wade Bentley

Intro into Poetry  

10 April 2016                            

Poetry and Music

Though we call song with lyric simply music, if you go beyond the instrumentality of it, it is in most regards poetry. In older days, music and poetry met each other in a love story that has yet to run out of notes or words. A pairing that interlocks human emotion through melody and song and has transformed through the ages with opera, raps, musicals, jigs, or even a minstrel’s ballad or limerick though its effect on society or reflection of it, has not. Both parts, music and poetry, are essential and equally important in creating a product that some say is as necessary as breathing is to life.  Both can stand alone and hold a strong case, but the harmony they make together has become part of daily life. In modern society, it’s hard to say if music finds a niche in poetry or vice versa, but what can be said is that poetry keeps deep roots in the many ways written here and more, in each of our lives, whether we grant it that title or not.

            Poetry as rhyming, rhythmic, and at times, visually or emotionally appealing can be compared to music without words, giving that it likewise keeps a rhythm or time signature, flows with transitions, and carries an emotional base line. The use of punctuation in poetry is also replicated in music with breath notes and rests to create a mood or style in each. Music also displays a form of staffs or tablature just as poetry does stanzas and other visual forms of organization. Just as music’s individual notes indicate a sound or pause, together creating a harmonious result, poetry’s individual words indicate a particular thought, image, or feeling, the organized form of which becomes a gestalt of the original idea. Another similarity between music and poetry is that both are unique. When one writes a poem or song, the emotions they feel may have similar titles, but the way the individual perceives and relays them are always different. Likewise those listening to or reading the poem or hearing the song may interpret each differently.

            It may be because music and poetry are so similar in structure and drive to be created that the pair, when together, have uncountable applications to our everyday lives. One example of an application is nursery rhymes, simple in tune, rhyme, and rhythm. Scenes from these forms help children learn memorization, language skills, comparison of the placement of word and sound to images, and ideas along with other lessons. Not only do they help children remember the lessons but they also can become a means to more advanced reasoning and comprehension later, such as the uses of symbolism, metaphor, the strength of using imagery when reading and writing skills are still in developmental stages. The historical background of some nursery rhymes taught in these short phrases can later be used to assist learning as mnemonic tools.

An example of this is the nursery rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep.

Baa Baa Black Sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes, sir, yes, sir,
Three bags full;
One for the master,
One for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

This nursery rhyme not only can teach a lesson of hard work and pride in one’s work, but in this context, a sense of community and possibly generosity. “Eensy, Weensy Spider” also gives lessons of determination in the face of pressing odds. However, if you were to research the meaning, a new lesson is found in some rhymes such as the example “Baa Baa Black Sheep” deep within the simple rhyme. Originally the last line before the end of the 16^th century had read “And none for the little boy who cries down the lane,” and with this slight alteration a new meaning to the rhyme is uncovered. One historical interpretation is that

After returning from the crusades in 1272, Edward I imposed new taxes on the wool trade…It is believed that this wool tax forms the background to the rhyme. One-third of the price of each bag, or sack sold, was for the king (the master); one-third to the monasteries, or church (the dame); and none to the poor shepherd (the little boy who cries down the lane) who had tirelessly tended and protected the flock. (Castelow 7)

 In this use, the writer of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” relays the life of historic English sheep herders in a way that is concise, using devices of dialogue with rhythm and rhyme schemes. Normally, this nursery rhyme also uses a similar musical melody with slight variations known for its most popular song accompaniment “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” The use of similar music, along with the use of simple rhyme is combined to help children remember specific lessons.

            Other examples of poetry represented in music are evident in many primary daily uses such as at the beginning of most sports games with our national anthem the “Star-Spangled Banner” or at some funerals or religious congregations with “Amazing Grace” and many other hymns.  “Amazing Grace” is iambic and alternates from six to eight syllable lines often known as hymn meter or common measure. When these devices are then included with the powerful music, the meaning and impact it has on us soars to even greater heights.

            Many musicians also include poetic devices in their music in a variety of ways, creating unique and interesting songs that stand out and are incorporated in our everyday routines. For some, it becomes even part of the very fabric of the musical genre. Rap music is an example of such uses of poetic devices. Other musical artists have not only become popular for incorporating poetry into their music but have also produced works of poetry literature such as Jewel, with her A Night Without Armor book and In His Own Words by John Lennon. Not only do musicians sometimes write poetry in addition to songs but often allude to them, such as Metallica’s reference to “For whom the bell tolls” also a title to an Ernest Hemmingway book but that was chosen from a line by John Donne poem entitled, “No Man is an Island”.

            A good example of a musician who pays close attention to poetic devices is one of my favorites, Alanis Morissette. In her song “A Man” the opening stanza is in pentameter:

I am a man as a man I've been told
Bacon is brought to the house in this mold
Born of your bellies I yearn for the cord
Years I have groveled repentance ignored

There is a careful use of the meter to hold the beat of the song as well as her use of couplets for a rhyming scheme. Another is the song “Past-Due” by The Weakerthans, which demonstrates even more impressive uses of poetic devices and is in sonnet form.

February always finds you folding
Local papers open to the faces
Who past away to wonder what they're holding
In those hands were never shown the places

Formal photographs refuse to mention
His tiny feet that birthmark on her knee
The tyranny of framing our attention
All the eyes, their eyes no longer see

And darkness comes too early, you won't find
The many things you owe these latest dead
A borrowed book, that check you didn't sign
Tools to be believed with be beloved

Give what you can to keep to comfort this
Plain fear you can't extinguish or dismiss (Weakerthans)

Similarities between music and poetry are numerous, and the combinations the two can form have uses in all aspects of our world. Though it can be said that poetry in society today does not often follow as strict a form as it may have once, so too can this be said of music.  It’s poetry’s ability to adapt to the times and a generation’s emotions or needs while still retaining an identity as poetry, lending itself to the change, that all of these benefits find places in our minds, hearts and lives.  The world is shaped by many things, but it is our gift to have the ability to describe its course in these ways, with our words that give creatable meaning to its changes.

https://youtu.be/MYNlAuRw-m8? 

Work Cited

Castelow, Ellen. , “More Nursery Rhymes.” historic-uk.com. Web. 10 April 2016.

Morissette, Alanis. “A Man.” Under Rug Swept. Track 8. Maverick, 2002. CD.

The Weakerthans. “Past-Due.” Hopelessly Devoted To You Vol.4. Track 5. Hopeless Records,                               

           2002. CD.

                 Intro into Writing Poetry Reflection