TraditionDr Frances McCormack

Texts:

Poems on Blackboard

Textbook is Jeffrey Wainwright, Poetry: The Basics

WHAT IS TRADITION?

“Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse”Winston Churchill

Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a flying: And this same flower that smiles to day, Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun, The higher he's a getting; The sooner will his Race be run, And neerer he's to Setting.

That Age is best, which is the first, When Youth and Blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time; And while ye may, goe marry: For having lost but once your prime, You may for ever tarry.

Come on, ladies! You’re going to get old and ugly:

enjoy lovemaking

now, because no one will

want you when you’re

shrivelled old bags!

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime

[…]And these times are so hard and it's getting even harder Trying to feed and water my seed, plus Teeter totter caught up between being a father and a prima donna Baby mama drama's screaming on and Too much for me to wanna Stay in one spot, another day of monotony Has gotten me to the point, I'm like a snail I've got to formulate a plot or end up in jail or shot Success is my only motherfucking option, failure's not Mom, I love you, but this trailer's got to go I cannot grow old in Salem's lot So here I go; here’s my shot. Feet fail me not cause this maybe the only opportunity that I got

“Tradition is a guide and not a jailer”W. Somerset Maugham

Poetry and “Tradition”

Guides our reading

Aids us in identifying and defining

Allows us to appreciate innovation as something ordered rather than random: innovation always grows out of tradition

Shapes our expectations

Helps us to appreciate similarities and differences

Poetry and Tradition

‘It’s exciting then when a poem implies that it knows what it should be doing (demonstrating the heroism of a man of war, for example, but it deliberately upsets our expectations. This not only causes surprise in itself, but also encourages us to question whether we should have expected or welcomed the conventional outcome in the first place’ (Rhian Williams, The Poetry Toolkit, p. 11)

Tradition governs…

Form (the shape of a poem; the rules it follows)

Style (the way it is written; the devices used)

Content (what it is about)

Traditional views of poetry

“the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (William Wordsworth)

“the flower of any kind of experience, rooted in truth and issuing forth into beauty” (Leigh Hunt)

“concerned with universal truth” (Aristotle)

“a speaking picture, with this end: to teach and to delight” (Sir Philip Sidney)

“the suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions” (John Ruskin)

Buck has a headache. Tony ate a real hot pepper. Sylvia weighsherself naked on the bathroomscale. Gary owes $800 to theInternal Revenue. Roger says poetry is the manufacture of lightning rods. José wants to punch his wifein the mouth. Ted’s afraidof his own shadow. Ray talksto his tomato plants. Paulwants a job in the post officeselling stamps. Mary keepssmiling at herself in the mirror. And I, I piss in the sinkwith a feeling of eternity.

Imperfect rhyme

Does this line help us to understand this poem?

Ends with this one very‘poetic’ word. AMBIGUOUS.

You can’t escape

tradition!