Scrapping Modernism: Process and Framework of “Broken Rhyme of a Fragmented Time”
The poet who believes in the materials of the world—written material—in such a way that his desire to include drives him to use them selectively… this is actually an assertion that the artist does not want to own the world but to use the world. It includes the entire range of life in horror and love. -Muriel Rukeyser
How is a poem made and from whence do the materials arise? Whether it is the fusion of contradictory ideas, or the result and relief of emotional irritation and tension, or the yielding to a psychical state verging on a day-dream, I think that the making of a poem is essentially an individual quest for certainty at the onset of fundamental doubt. It is a reliance on a fixation of belief, an attempt to make sense of, as William Carlos Williams put it, “the fragmentary nature of [ones] understanding of [ones] own life.” To state it plainly, I think that what is most characteristic of the modernist poetic minds is that they all sought to embody a total vision of life through their work. The aim of my collaborative modernist poem is to exemplify on a grand scale a total vision of life in over 100 years of poetry using over a 100 poems, each with a unique vision, conviction of truth, and place in the world.
The question I was faced with when I began this project was a question of unity—how to go about adequately translating the fragmentary nature of thought and the experimental aspect of all poetry while retaining each poets individual vision and philosophy of poetic form while simultaneously creating a new total vision of my own. The goal for this collaborative poem was to be able to string together verse pulled from all the different, even combative, aversive ideologies and poetic philosophies through the changing times and fuse them into a cohesive and coherent union of poetic verse. The finished product is 415 lines, complied from over 100 different poems we have studied throughout the semester. The piece covers over a 100 years of poetry beginning with Whitman in 1886 and ending with our study of John Beers’ 2010 book of poetry.
One feature above all is striking in Modernism: experimentation, change for the sake of change, and a need to be constantly at the cutting edge in technique. As I went through each poem, in order to achieve my end goal, I strategically pulled out fragments and lines that were most representative of the overall unique style of the poet as well as those that were most expressive of the era in which they were written in accordance with the authors individual philosophy of poetry. I wanted the piece to not only reflect emphasis on the conflicting notions such as imagination, tradition, depersonalization, feminism, racism, individualism, escapism, universalism, fragmentation, and intellectualism, but also to reflect that, despite various roots, all the poems stem out of one commonality in particular: the struggle of existence.
Notions such as death, indifference, destruction, creation, isolation, detachment, confusion, mystery, loneliness, and the capacity and incapacity of words are perennials throughout the course of Modern poetry. Constantly there are reoccurring references to emptiness, self-awareness, silence, time running against itself, the role of love, and the loss of innocent in the modern age of man, as well as the role of poetry in the uncertainty of our time. I also found after reading the final product that there were many similarities in imagery—intoxication, fire and flame, the contrast between light and darkness, dust, bones, nakedness—the list goes on. It was really incredible to see 100 years of poetry come together with relative ease.
Above all, what I learned most from this experience was to deeply respect ones intuitive abilities—whatever the subconscious mind suggests—because the end result will surprise and exceed all prior expectations. The lines I chose to incorporate were deliberate and significant on many levels. I selected lines that after reading both elated and disturbed my being; the lines which brought me closer to understanding my own life and its fragmented nature—the lines that haunt my mind. By going chronologically through the list of poems and writing down lines, fragments, and whole stanzas that were significant in the two ways I needed them to be—to my own vision of life and the poets entire vision of the time and their life—it was much less difficult than I expected to go through everything I had picked out and compose the lines in a manner that would make the transition from author to author flow seamlessly. In the sections where large portions are from one individual poet I took entire lines as well as fragmented lines from within either several poems written in that same year by the poet or from within just one poem, taking them out of order, pulling, and mixing them together into blended stanzas.
Despite a few difficulties, I got to say, I’m in awe by the compositions unity; and, even though they aren’t my words, because it is a product of my own creative vision I feel that I made it truly my own. I think my HD Modernist Project, “Broken Rhyme of a Fragmented Time”, illustrates that in this world, and in a society itself rapidly changing, time only changes perspective; thus, we will always seek meaning, and where no meaning can be found, we will create our own—for the poet is ultimately a creator who has a complete world to bestow.