It’s music to my ears
How often have you heard that? Especially in reference to poetry? Well, poetry and music are pretty closely related. We’ll discover how closely in this month’s slam, when you write a poem-within-a-poem using a few rules cribbed from medieval church music.
The burden
In music, the “burden” has two meanings. One is a short, repeated phrase that encapsulates the sense of a piece, whether in words or tune. The other is the “drone” of a bagpipe, the essential background to the music itself. In either sense, the burden, rather than being borne by the music, bears the music. It’s the structure and foundation that the music sits on.
We’re going to explore musical burdens in this month’s slam by creating a chant. You probably already know what a chant is: it’s a set of repeated words. Not all the words have to be repeated, but there should be a strong sense of coming back to the same word or phrase. You may know this as a refrain, too.
Chants and refrains
In medieval European church music, a chant was often a set of phrases. One person would lead, and the rest would join in about every other sentence with the refrain (or burden). It could be set to music, be musical in itself, or be… dronelike. Or be “hey nonny nonny” or even, eventually, “haul away, boys.” It doesn’t have to make a lot of sense, it just has to repeat.
See how all these definitions keep circling back to each other like a refrain?
The poetry slam
This month you’ll be joining us to write a chant, with a burden. That is, you’ll write a poem where every other line is exactly the same. Around that burden, refrain, drone, or whatever you like to call it, you’ll build a separate poem. That poem should stand alone as a poem, even without the burden. But adding the burden should elevate the poem, and each line of the poem should affect your understanding of the burden, so that they work together to create something that’s a little more than the sum of its parts. I’ll give you a quick rundown of those rules in bullet format for folks who learn better that way, and then we’ll dive into what a chant might look like.
- Your poem must be in any number of couplets.
- That is, we don’t care how many lines the poem ultimately has, but they have to be arranged in groups of two.
- The second line of each couplet is the refrain or burden.
- This is the line that’s exactly the same every time, so pick a good one
- Your poem should work as a poem (pick a rhyme scheme, meter, etc) if you take the burden OUT.
- The overall meter of your poem does not need to match the meter of your burden.
- There’s no restriction on rhyme scheme or meter, but…
- Chants work very well if you start with rhyming couplets or with quatrains in an ABAB rhyme scheme and then tuck the refrain in among them.
- You can also have no rhyme scheme or meter.
- The burden should add something.
- The burden should add to your understanding of the underlying poem.
- Likewise, each line of the poem might affect how you perceive the burden.
So what does that look like?
I know. It’s easier with a sample in front of you, isn’t it?
I’m actually going to rework a kyrielle I wrote a while back, that didn’t function super well as a kyrielle. Part of the issue was that the refrain was too distant from some of the lines. Let’s look at the original poem:
I walked among the myrtle trees
when all the barren sky was flame.
When on the sand there stirred no breeze
beneath my tongue I held your name.
I swallowed air and bitter dust
and wondered once more why I came
to where the stones had turned to rust.
Beneath my tongue I held your name.
The taste of salt and honeyed wine
still filled my mouth, and just the same
as in the days when you were mine:
beneath my tongue I held your name.
I mean, it’s overdramatic, but there’s other stuff wrong with it, too. On the other hand, it’s not a bad basis for a chant. Let’s see what it looks like without the refrain:
I walked among the myrtle trees
when all the barren sky was flame.
When on the sand there stirred no breeze
I swallowed air and bitter dust
and wondered once more why I came
to where the stones had turned to rust.
The taste of salt and honeyed wine
still filled my mouth, and just the same
as in the days when you were mine:
Okay. So, this isn’t quite a poem now because, well, the rhyme scheme for the quatrains (which aren’t quatrains anymore) doesn’t work without the refrain. I’m missing a rhyme. I could add in another line to each stanza, but I think it’s going to work better here to strip it down to rhyming couplets. That will take a little editing, but let’s see what I can do:
I walked among the myrtle trees
The barren sky withheld the breeze
I swallowed air and bitter dust
where rings and chains had gone to rust
The taste of salt and honeyed wine
recalled the days when you were mine
So, that’s actually, I’m kind of ashamed to say, a much better poem than the original. Let’s see what happens when we add the refrain back in, and break those couplets up into other couplets. (You could also consider this a 6-line stanza with an aabbcc rhyme scheme.)
I walked among the myrtle trees
beneath my tongue I held your name.
The barren sky withheld the breeze
beneath my tongue I held your name.
I swallowed air and bitter dust
beneath my tongue I held your name.
where rings and chains had gone to rust
beneath my tongue I held your name.
The taste of salt and honeyed wine
beneath my tongue I held your name.
recalled the days when you were mine
beneath my tongue I held your name.
So, that’s a chant. It’s a poem, broken back up into couplets made with a refrain. If you watch the refrain, it goes from almost a ward against death to a sweetness and a nourishment. Those aren’t necessarily different, but each couplet does have a slightly changed flavor to it, if you’ll pardon extending a metaphor.
My chant was in iambic tetrameter. Yours can be in any meter you like, or no meter at all, or your poem-part can be in one meter and your refrain in another.
Good luck, and happy … chanting?
