Copyright 1998, 2002 by Hayes Walker

              Feeling Expansive?  Fine, but please don't think it's "new."  The principles of Expansive Poetry are essentially
              the same principles upon which the best English-language poetry has been based for seven hundred years--or
              perhaps twice that long.

              Dozens of well-known poets of the last two or three decades have been associated, directly or indirectly, with
              a loosely defined movement called Expansive Poetry.  Some of these poets were adopted into the movement
              posthumously, due to their apparent influences upon it.

              Expansive theorists point to such "early" influences as Elizabeth Bishop, William Carlos Williams, Robert Lowell
              and John Berryman for the "loosening" and "roughening" of iambic verse that they favor.  They might have reached
              back another three-quarters of a century to Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose metric loosening and roughening were
              influenced by his encounters with Anglo-Saxon verse dating to the sixth century or earlier.

              Between the fourteenth and the twenty-first centuries, most crafters of capable verse wrote iambic pentameter
              comparable to Frederick Turner's and Mary Jo Salter's--allowing for personal stylistic differences and the shifting
              accents of an evolving English.  Most exceptions to this tradition have been those who, for whatever reasons,
              chose not to learn or use verse in their poetic writings.

              Some Expansive Poetry fits well within the great tradition; some seems so weakly allied to that tradition that it
              might be said to belong outside it.  One poet might be in the tradition in one poem and out of it in the next; or in it
              for most of the lines in a poem, and out of it for the other lines.  If all these poets and all their poems are to be
              stamped with the Expansive seal of approval, what degree of random line-length variation or ineptness of meter
              is required to earn an official disqualification?

              Expansive Poetry seeks to incorporate "natural speech patterns."  Now, where have we happened upon a similar
              idea before?  Could it have been in William Wordsworth's contention that poetry should be written in "language
              closely resembling that of real life"--which he expressed in his Preface to the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads?
              Wordsworth realized that when fashion allows or encourages unnatural speech patterns in poetry--language that
              no one in his or her right mind would have spoken to another intelligent adult, even in the eighteenth century--
              neither the art of poetry nor the audience for poetry is well-served.  (Nor is the poet well-served.  Read Thomas
              Gray's "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" and witness the sort of contortions that must have set
              Wordsworth's stomach churning; but glimpse also, behind the frilly wordplay and the professorial primness, a
              seething social consciousness almost screaming to break the bonds of literary propriety.)

              The Anglo-Saxon folk who heard the early drafts of Beowulf would have agreed with Wordsworth about "language
              closely resembling that of real life."   No doubt that is what they expected to find in poetry, too.  Old English verse,
              springing from an oral tradition and transmitted orally for its first few centuries, must have reflected natural speech
              patterns.  A heavily accentual language produced heavily accentual verse.  A love of alliteration led to lines laden
              with alliteration.  Even the most artificial device of Anglo-Saxon poetry, the kenning, arose from the inherently
              metaphorical way in which those fen-folk understood their world (weor-old, "man-age," extended to mean "man's
              domain").  To them, the ocean was a whale-road, the sun was a sky-candle.

              Here is Dick Allen's "nutshell definition" of Expansive Poetry as stated in his essay, "Overcoming the Tic of
              Techniques: The Emergence of Expansive Poetry":

                   Expansive Poetry is a narrative, dramatic and sometimes lyric poetry of the late 20th Century that conveys
                   significant non-Confessional observations, thoughts and feelings about the world outside the Self and about
                   the Self's various relationships with this outer world.  In carrying such content, it generally uses traditional
                   rhyme and meter--sometimes loosened or roughened--incorporating natural speech patterns.

              Change "the late 20th Century" to "pre-Norman England" and delete the reference to rhyme, and every bit of his
              definition fits Anglo-Saxon poetry.  So what is really new about Expansive Poetry?  Could it be... nothing?

              There is also nothing new or distinctive in the Expansive poets' handling of rhyme.  They use various types and
              gradations of rhyme as most poets did during the twentieth century.  They use it more subtly than most poets did
              before the twentieth century, and that is a good thing.  They choose to use or not use it depending upon the project
              at hand, as Shakespeare did, as Milton did.  Nothing new, but nothing ridiculous either, like rejecting rhyme entirely.

              If you are a young poet eager and willing to stick a label on yourself and on your poetry, take a couple of aspirin
              and get a good night's sleep.  The next morning, after your second cup of coffee (strong coffee now, made with
              real tap water, no special flavorings), if you still feel the need for a label, you might as well have EXPANSIVE
              temporarily tattooed across your forehead.  Have a nice sweatshirt made up with I'M EXPANSIVE across front
              and back.  Wait for your semi-literate friends to ask "Oh, yeah?  What's your price?" None of that is likely to hurt
              you or your career as a poet.  Just don't get wrapped up in theorizing or trying to justify a label.  Don't forget that
              there are a lot of dead poets worth reading as well as living ones.

              Poetry in English is a mighty, rambling edifice incorporating the contributions of thousands of verbal architects.
              Beowulf and Grendel fought upon its freshly-laid foundation.  John Donne walked its narrow passages and stairways,
              fearing Death and whistling in the dark.  Think of the architectural metaphors I could associate with Chaucer, Sidney,
              Shakespeare, Marlowe, Milton, Dryden, Pope, etc., and be glad I'm holding back.  Expansive Poetry is one of the
              newest gargoyles added to one of the oldest but sturdiest walls.  It looks a little shaky up there, but I've seen worse.
                                                              

             This page Copyright © 2002 by Hayes Walker/Poetry Criticism Service. All rights reserved.

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