On Poetic Beautification

On Poetic Beautification

Reason for this Column:

I have been a message/image driven writer. How my poems appeared on the page concerned me little, as long as they were functional in making the messages and images as accessible and as clear as possible.

I also have witnessed the damage that over-concern with prettiness does to a potential poet, where the message is given cursory attention, often left to wallow into the overdone, the naïve, the trite and the cliché, dragging down the associated images with it, however well-crafted and original the images may be.

Well, I am grudgingly acknowledging the importance of beautification, as most readers, myself included, love looking at a beautiful piece, even without reading a word, just to bath our senses in the visual art itself.

An exquisitely beautiful-looking piece will impress the novice- meaning most of the paying public- and, since even a serious artist must eat, beautification is a critical element in creating sellable products, as opposed to high art. In fact the visual appearance of a piece is the number one factor in whether a poem even gets read or not.

This column is not concerned with the first-wave (and usually obtuse) methods of beautification, such as line spacing and indentation, font parameters, colors and backgrounds, broken syntax, letter art, and the like, but with a more subtle literary aspect which I shall dub ‘alliterative/assonant/consonant beautification’.

Alliterative/Assonant/Consonant Beautification

Consider the poem “A bride's own self-contained mausoleum” by Cerulean:

Blighted bridal
bitumen blemished
with added asphalt

Previously she bled ashen
benign as common snow

Now petrification personifies
more than the passerby can see
in artificial accumulations
beneath stone sheath of skin

It is attractive due to the alliteration and assonance and consonance employed

(and, being somewhat obviously employed, was the poem that tipped me off to the method).

The beautification would work regardless of the punctuation and capitalization styles selected.

Does it work with a different font? Let’s see:

.

.

Blighted bridal
bitumen blemished
with added asphalt

.

Previously she bled ashen
benign as common snow

. 

Now petrification personifies
more than the passerby can see
in artificial accumulations
beneath stone sheath of skin

.

.

Not as effectively, so alliterative/assonant/consonant beautification should be done last,

after the other parameters such as font are settled.

Consider the poem “Azure Brilliance” by RudolfTamer:

.

  .

.

This one dazzles the eyes right away, and most readers will be satisfied right there,

not going any further to actually read the piece,

being accustomed to having beauty being served hand-in-hand with superficiality.

This is also a case where the visuals work against conveying any important message or insight,

assuming the poet has one...

How did I react to such beautification and the over-aggrandizement of it on this site,

being a message-driven, image-crafting writer?

I’ll tell you how I treated it! I treated it thusly:

A Pretty-Words-On-Paper Poem (wbiro Feb. 2007)

This is how that pretty-words-on-paper poet in us all 

sees and reads a pretty poem: 

 .

In other words, the content mattered little, as long as the poem was pretty as our eyes skimmed over it!

This, unfortunately, WILL get you far in the industry,

and you can laugh all the way to the bank,

which will offset your unfulfilled, depressed feeling after writing such blather!

but then I've noticed that in many cases the public loves most what the artist detests doing the most...

(such is the sacrifice of commercial success...!)

I am guilty of being such a shallow reader just as much as anyone,

being human, I love the beautiful, and most times that is as far as I go,

saying 'wow' to the beauty, becoming duly envious, then moving on-

having let the beauty glaze my eyes over and roll across my mental tongue.

but I view such writing as nothing more than a heroin fix for those who wish not to think at the moment.

It is greeting-card writing; it is writing for reading after a hard day's work, for light, simple, restful pleasure.

Is there a market for that?

You bet your booty there is!

Is it serious art? No more than Hallmark.

Maybe it has medicinal or psychological value- as a hallucinatory or a sedative,

or social value, in impressing or creating envy in your novice friends, for it is an instantaneous 'wow';

or, like I said, for going to the bank happy...

So you see how I, being a person with deep and important messages and insights to deliver,

for a lover of creating mental landscapes, 

absolutely detested such a fluffy, trivial, and ultimately obstructive poetic device!

but how, having to eat, I'd grudgingly acknowledged a certain need for it

if a general readership is to be attracted...

So, now I am studying its use, and consciously beginning to employ it,

acknowledging its importance in crafting a sellable product.

(for, like I said, even serious artists have to eat!)

I will, however, use in moderation-

as too much beautification will interfere with the all-important (in my case)

messages and associated mental landscapes to be conveyed.

How can that be done?

How can you keep the message and images in the forefront,

Is it a science or an art?

I think we all know the answer- and the ‘art’ comes down to taste, once you know the method;

and, especially for new writers, it involves a whole lot of trial and error!

(which means editing and testing it, such as here on AP.)

Back to the method under study here, the alliterative/assonant/consonant beautification-

it can be achieved within the same line, as in Cerulean’s poem,

or in close-proximity lines, a subtler method.

I can only use one of my poems to illustrate the latter method in use,

having first-hand knowledge of the author’s beautification mindset:

“Measured Servings” wbiro Aug 14 2008

.

.

This piece is pretty enough not to be an ugly-duckling, and to attract a reader,

but not too pretty as to drown the content,

which is the crux of the piece.

You can see how end-line rhyming lends to the alliterative/assonant/consonant beautification

by presenting similar words, but that does not deal with the internal body,

with the in-line beautification.

With that piece I focused on lines in close proximity.

For example, the first stanza has several ‘s’ words that,

for some reason only known to the mysterious art gods in the sky,

lends beauty to the stanza.

Other letters and combinations play a part-

I would liken it to the reader subconsciously playing a matching game-

pairs lend 'beauty', while singular occurances are the ugly ducklings.

Another example above is the ‘v’ word ‘verbiage’ in the last line of the first stanza,

and since ‘v’ was alone so far, an ugly duckling, I needed another 'v' somewhere for beautification,

to achieve that 'balance' we like, much like preferring symmetry in a person's features.

(ever wonder why Alfred E. Neuman's face of Mad Magazine is humorous?

It would be the uneven (asymmetrical) eyes...)

So for another 'v' word I used ‘viola’. Here, as a bonus in the process of such beautification,

I hit upon a fresh and unforeseen image,

in fact, it could have evolved into an entirely new theme in the piece.

Well, I beat that subject to death. I hope I’ve presented enough food for thought on the matter…

for the message here is important;

and, as you see, I’ve given no concern to this piece’s beauty,

for a reason!