Open Concept
A metaphoric explanation for a conservative use of stanza and indentation in free verse poetry
While I drove home from Indianapolis last night, I stared at the unchanging interstate, walking from thought to thought on a subject: indentation and stanza breaks in contemporary poetry. After many false starts and going in circles, I have begun to design my reasoning on why I adopt a simple style for both of these techniques. For now, here’s the best I can do to describe this mode:
Stanza breaks and indentation scatter meaning and sound beyond my ability to classify or control them. More frequent use of these complicates poetry many orders of magnitude greater than my current ability to write it, or at least, beyond the scope of my aesthetic.
An apt comparison in regard to my usage of the stanza would be in the transitions between movements in a piano minuet. I am teaching myself some simple Bach minuets right now, and many of them change halfway through from piano to forte, or vice versa. My piano lessons from years ago taught that a change should happen when either P or F is noted in the middle of a piece. Broadly, I describe this change as a difference in affect: the raw material of the piece may remain the same – sometimes there is no difference note-to-note from the first half of the piece to the second – but how the notes are played must change.
The change appears obvious to a beginner: “stop playing soft and start playing hard”. So, the change in affect is directed to the pianist with a clear directive, even if the directive lacks specificity of degree. But I imagine that these changes in affect are much more complex for the expert pianist, who would consider not only the huge number of interpretations that can be made with a change of affect, but also how the large body of other pieces of music inform the piece in question. The change in affect is simple to achieve for the beginner, but offers more options with each degree of higher expertise.
I believe there is a simple but profound difference with the stanza. Similar to the transitions of the minuet, a new stanza also offers a moment for the affect to change. But, it does not offer a direction. While Bach directs the beginner, “Go from P to F”, he might as well say, “Go from North to South” (a clear command with room for interpretation). But when a poet breaks the stanza and starts again, they simply direct the reader, “Go.”
The possibilities available in this change are small but substantial. While arriving at a new stanza is not a long journey, two readers may decide to take the opportunity to head in opposite directions. This is a little revolution in contemporary poetry– two people may read a poem, but in the middle, one of us goes south and the other heads north. This has always been possible with interpretation, but modern free verse turns this possibility into a suggestion. Then to complicate this idea by considering how indentation impacts the readers’ options, the metaphor of cardinal directions breaks beyond use. The magnitude of complexity that these options provide is beyond my mastery of language to describe. And I call myself a poet.
This concept excites and frustrates me. I am overwhelmed by the possibilities every time a new stanza begins. I suppose this could create “decision paralysis”-- when so many options are not just possible but also worthwhile or useful, how do you decide how you will read a poem? An answer to this is just to read it naturally, trusting that your instinctive sense of rhythm, melody, tone, and emphasis to guide you to a unique, but valid, reading of the poem. The more difficult question lies for the poet writing the stanza.
I have no intention of answering that question. I only bring this up to explain why I am so careful and rather conservative with form. I am more comfortable writing poems that are left-aligned with few stanzas because every new stanza seems like a wealth of opportunities of interpretation, but also a delta of possibilities where readers could be stunned by three hundred and sixty degrees of interpretation to choose from.
I don’t trust myself with that many points of divergence. To add more stanzas, and then, levels of indentation is beyond my ability as a poet. This may sound negative or self-effacing. And maybe it is. But on the other hand, the depth and breadth of possibility of a few stanzas, zero indentation, and carefully considered line breaks seems more than enough to deliver every poem I write.
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I learned once that behavior biologists have a theory concerning why we forget things when we walk from one room to another: our neolithic ancestors foraged and hunted in multiple environments (forest, brush, grasslands, rivers, caves). So, when our ancestors crossed into a new bio-threshold, their brains adapted a response that cleared their minds and refocused on the new environment at hand. Their argument continues by claiming the cognitive behaviors necessary for success and survival in each of these environments differed enough to necessitate a shift of cognition and perception.
But we know how annoying this trait is today. When I walk from the bedroom to the office, I usually need to sustain the same thoughts from one room to the next. But I must cross the threshold and risk forgetting my reason for crossing it. Then, whether I am successful or not, perhaps find a new thought on the other side.
New stanzas take the same risk. They are opportunities to refresh the readers’ mind as they move forward. And, they are liabilities of disconnection from the stanza before it. When I read a poem that liberally spreads lines vertically and horizontally, I struggle as a reader to maintain thought from line to line across the page, let alone to discover a motif of sound. So when I write, I write to readers like myself: those who struggle to hold a thought in mind as they walk from room to room. For us, I solve the problem by building as few rooms as possible.
