10 Hold that space!
The caesura is the stress which falls at a moment of silence. It’s the equivalent of a musical rest and is usually delineated by punctuation. Composers and poets recognise the importance of the space between notes.
The house that Jack or Jill might build
We know that poems
are made of lines
and lines need line-
breaks,
which we’ve already discussed.
These lines can, in turn, then be grouped together or divided in creative
ways
into equal
or unequal sections
- poetic paragraphs called stanzas or verses …
These lines
may contain rhymes
and each word has a rhythm …
with stresses, no stresses …
constructed in a pattern we call metre
which keeps on coming back again … keeps on coming back again
and in-between, and after and before …
Silence.
You will finish this course with a poem about writing. In this poem, a driving instructor’s teaching strategy involves likening his student’s profession to the art of learning to drive. The humour comes partly from the arbitrariness of his comparison.
L
‘Switch off the engine and secure the car.’
He slots his pen across his clipboard
and makes a little cathedral of his fingers
as though I were helping him with his enquiries.
‘Tell me, Michael, what’s your line of work?’
I tell him the truth. Why not? I’ve failed anyway.
‘Driving and writing have a lot in common,’
he parleys, and we sit there, the two of us
blinking into the average braking distance
for 30 mph, wondering what he means.
I want to help but it’s his turn to talk.
When my turn comes he’ll probably look at me
instead of his hand, stalled now in mid-gesture
like a milkfloat halfway across a junction.
Look at him. What if I’d said butcher?
At last ‘It’s all a matter of giving – proper – signals’
is the best he can do. But then he astonishes me.
‘I’m going to approve your licence,
but I don’t care much for your … ‘ Quick glance.
‘interpretation of the Highway Code.’
To carry on with our driving instructor’s comparison, don’t let the rhymes or formal elements drive the poem. You must be in the driving seat.