Hospitable Poetry #5

Esther Jane on "Jabberwocky" and Poetry at the Kids' Table

If you are just joining this series, here is the link to the intro and the four previous posts by Renee Emerson, A. A. Kostas, Brit McReynolds, and Mark Rico.

When Esther Jane writes, she draws from an inner well of books that feeds her imagination and makes her imagery and allusions a joy. She is as comfortable reading and writing literary criticism as flights of fancy, and many of her poems communicate the sheer fun of messing around with words. I had no idea which direction she would take hospitable poetry given her voracious reading habits, and I’m delighted she brings us to the kids’ table. This post is an absolute joy. Esther’s enthusiasm is infectious, and I want you to let yourself relax and maybe read it out loud in a silly voice because that sense of play is almost always what draws us to poetry in the first place. Looking forward to hearing from you in the comments!

Love, Abigail

Snap the Whip by Winslow Homer (1872)

Poetry is the most direct and simple means of expressing oneself in words: the most primitive nations have poetry, but only quite well developed civilizations can produce good prose. So don’t think of poetry as a perverse and unnatural way of distorting ordinary prose statements: prose is a much less natural way of speaking than poetry is. If you listen to small children, and to the amount of chanting and singsong in their speech, you’ll see what I mean.

Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination

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Children are the most wonderful audience for poetry that I ever met.

John Ciardi

Jabberwocky

By Lewis Carroll

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

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Reflection by Esther Jane

The word “feast” is an enchanting word. It tends to stir up images that are specific to the minds of each reader. For me, the word evokes memories of childhood Thanksgivings, circa-1987; a vision of our dining table covered with a real cloth tablecloth and set with our best Correlle plates, actual glass glasses, and all the matching flatware we owned. Countertops that were crowded with heirloom dishes which only appeared at Special Occasions—bowls of olives, plates of pickles, platters with venison summer sausage, sliced cheese, and crackers. One small crystal dish was always reserved for the jellied cranberry sauce which was carefully cut into ruby red medallions along the indented lines left by the can from whence it was jiggled. There were baskets of rolls, warm and steaming and swaddled in white tea towels, and one big china bowl billowing with pillowy ambrosia. Pies abounded.

Somewhere in there was a turkey with stuffing. I think. I’m not too clear on that bit.

At these late twentieth-century Midwest-American feasts, there was always another table just as specially prepared. It was known as “the kids’ table.” Usually the kids’ table was an old battered card table set up in the corner of a kitchen or a dining room and covered with butcher paper or a vinyl tablecloth in a summery ketchup-red-and-white gingham. Plastic cutlery and paper plates set in woven plate holders were laid at each seat. It had the feel of an indoor picnic in late November.

But while the table settings were markedly different from the adult table, the children were invited to the same feast. They might fill up more on ambrosia and rolls and less on turkey and green beans, but the parents generally allowed the children to choose what they liked and go back for more as they pleased. It was a feast, after all.

With the same atmosphere of welcome, Poetry lays its feast. No one is excluded from the table. Everyone is invited because Poetry is for everyone, and the poetry that is most completely for everyone is the poetry we all cut our teeth on: folk songs, nursery rhymes, limericks, nonsense poems, poems that are hilarious and silly and strange, poems that make children want to jump and dance and shout, poems that gave us the shivers or solved playground disputes. The poems of our childhood are not mere ornaments in the House of Poetry or decorative wreaths hanging on the door of Poetry; they are the beams, the truss, and the foundation of Poetry itself.

The literary critic Northrop Frye wrote, “Ideally, our literary education should begin, not with prose, but with such things as ‘this little pig went to market’—with verse rhythm reinforced by physical assault. The infant who gets bounced on somebody’s knee to the rhythm of ‘Ride a cock horse’ … is beginning to develop a response to poetry in the place where it ought to start. For verse is closely related to dance and song; it is also closely related to the child’s own speech, which is full of chanting and singing as well as of primitive verse forms like the war-cry and the taunt-song.”^¹

This is language physically experienced, involving the body as well as the mind, and this is Language at its most essential. It points us back to the reason Language was given to us in the first place—so that incarnate souls might have a way to express themselves with their whole beings, body and mind together. Children learn implicitly through this type of poetry that language has space for life and soul.

Frye says in another essay that “Poetry is the most direct and simple means of expressing oneself in words. … Poetry is not irregular lines in a book, but something very close to dance and song, something to walk down street keeping time to. Even if the rhythm is free it’s still something to be declaimed. The surge and sweep of Homer and the sinewy springing rhythm of Shakespeare have much the same origin: they were written that way partly because they had to be bellowed at a restless audience^.”²

We are living in a restless age. We are a restless audience. We need bellowers of rhythmic, sweeping, sinewy verse³ and poems like “Jabberwocky,” with its tight rhythm and surging story, are just plain fun to bellow. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that children love to bellow it. Some adults I know do, too. I think it’s probably good for bellower and bellowee alike. Can you imagine walking into Piggly Wiggly or Safeway and all of a sudden hearing someone in the parking lot reciting—with feeling—“Jabberwocky”? That would be something to experience. Can you imagine being the one reciting it in said parking lot? That would be even better.

In a 1962 lecture called “How Does a Poem Mean?” the acclaimed poet and translator John Ciardi⁴ said, “It is not absolutely essential for a poem to mean anything. You start message-hunting it relentlessly and you destroy it. … A poet is not a deliverer of messages… He’s performing an act of language. Experience is the measure [of poetry].”⁵

“A poet is not a deliverer of messages.” This is not to say that we don’t receive messages through a poem, or that the poet doesn’t have a message in mind when he writes a poem, but simply that the message is not the point. If it were, prose would do just as well if not better. The point of a poem, of Poetry itself, is to experience meaning through the shape of the poem as a whole, to experience an “act of language” that the poet performs or rather, that the poet allows language to perform through him. As Flannery O’Connor said, “A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.”
Poetry is the same; the meaning of a poem is the poem.

This shift in focus should come as a relief to folks who have had the experience of analyzing a piece of poetry to death in school, or folks who tried to analyze a poem and never could find “the meaning” they were assured was there. Enjoying a poem is first, last, and everything in between. Don’t know what it means? Let the sounds wash over you. Experience the language unfold in the poem. This shift also legitimizes playful and nonsense poetry as just-as-much Poetry as serious-faced “adult” poetry. Children can grow into complex poetry but we never outgrow the poetry of our childhood. Not unless we become too childish to enjoy what is delightful.⁶

Children have an enjoyment of words as words, as rhythmic delights tumbling from the mouth, before they learn to speak properly; that is, before they learn to communicate meaning as we think of it. As Frye says, “Prose is a much less natural way of speaking than poetry is. If you listen to small children, and to the amount of chanting and singsong in their speech, you’ll see what I mean.”⁷ But somewhere along the way, this enjoyment begins to recede. It is a sad fact that children don’t typically grow to love poetry more as they get older; they don’t even seem able to hold on to what they do love most of the time. Most children learn to un-love poetry almost entirely by the time they reach their adult years. But anyone can regain their love of poetry. You just need to follow the advice of Carroll’s King of Hearts and “Begin at the beginning.” And that means poems like “Jabberwocky.”

It sounds simple, and it is, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy. The older we get, the more we tend to live off processed language: ready-made responses, fast-food prose, canned phrases, bagged slogans, frozen clichés—it’s almost all we find in our adult lives. Processed language tends to have the same kind of effect on our persons as processed food does on our bodies: it narrows our taste and shrinks our appetite for what is really good for us. We will have to work to build back a taste for Poetry.

But it is worth the trouble; a diet that consists only of declarative prose will lead to emaciation of the soul. I call the massive amount of poetry in Scripture as witness. We need Poetry. The simpler, sillier forms of poetry that children enjoy (like “Jabberwocky”) help us re-experience Language as something that can be as refreshing as a cup of cool water to a weary traveler. Read through “Jabberwocky”—out loud is best—and you will see what I mean. It is good. The rhythm, the story, the invitation to movement, the feel of the words—even the words that our adult brains know are not “real” words—rolling out of our mouth and solidifying in the air is a good feeling. And the poem not entirely meaningless. Nonsense poetry is not meaningless poetry. “Jabberwocky” and poems of its kind reminds us that language is not only for texts and meetings and emails. It is not only for teaching or self-expression or communicating ideas. Language is just as much for play as anything else and play is essential to a healthy life, literary or otherwise.

For readers who “don’t get poetry” or think “poetry is high-brow,” you just haven’t tasted the right dish yet! The table is full—overflowing, even!—and the feast has plenty of options available for you to try. There is a poet tuned to your frequency, I guarantee it. Sample some dishes cooked up by Carroll or Lear. Hilaire Belloc is one if you like a bit of dark humor (we do). Rachel Field, Sara Teasdale, Robert Frost write about the natural world in ways that move both children and adults. Shel Silverstein is always a favorite. Maybe nibble a few haikus. If you are at a loss, try the small, punchy treats brought by Mother Goose. They are delicious. Find an anthology of poetry for kids and explore. Keep trying, keep tasting. It is worth the effort.

For those sophisticated readers/writers/poets who think they are beyond Carroll and Mother Goose, that poetry is “serious” or “artistic” or should be “relevant” or is a means of “self-expression”, that poetry is more haute cuisine than hot dogs—maybe it is, sometimes. But I think you might need to re-read your Chaucer, your Shakespeare—goodness, your Dante! Especially the Inferno. The greats were not above sing-song verse or puns or—brace yourself—explicit body humor.⁸

For everyone who has ever been a child, Poetry is for you. Poetry is your alma mater, and though you might feel like you have grown-up, graduated, and left behind it’s celebrated halls —or that Poetry has grown too erudite and left you behind—I’m here to tell you that you are still enrolled as a part of its “sparkling audience.”⁹

Poetry is many things. It is essential, in every sense of the word. It is a door into Faerie. It is a guide through a dark wood. Poetry is also a kaleidoscope, a bouncy house, a roller-coaster, a merry-go-round. Poetry is fun! And yes, Poetry is indeed a hospitable feast. If you are unsure where to start, may I suggest pulling up a seat at the kid’s table? There is plenty of room. Come and eat!

Poetry is a human process; it’s about as natural as a human process gets.

John Ciardi

1. “Ideally, our literary education should begin, not with prose, but with such things as ‘this little pig went to market’—with verse rhythm reinforced by physical assault. The infant who gets bounced on somebody's knee to the rhythm of ‘Ride a cock horse’ does not need a footnote telling him that Banbury Cross is twenty miles northeast of Oxford. He does not need the information that ‘cross’ and ‘horse’ make (at least in the pronunciation he is most likely to hear) not a rhyme but an assonance. He does not need the value-judgement that the repetition of ‘horse’ in the first two lines indicates a rather thick ear on the part of the composer. All he needs is to get bounced. If he is, he is beginning to develop a response to poetry in the place where it ought to start. For verse is closely related to dance and song; it is also closely related to the child's own speech, which is full of chanting and singing as well as of primitive verse forms like the war-cry and the taunt-song. At school the study of verse is supplemented by the study of prose, and a good prose style in both speech and writing is supposed to be aimed at. But poetry, the main body of which is verse, is always the central powerhouse of a literary education. It contributes, first, the sense of rhythmical energy, the surge and thunder of epic and the sinewy and springing dialogue of Shakespearean drama. It contributes too, as the obverse of this, the sense of leisure, of expert timing of the swing and fall of cadences. Then there is the sense of wit and heightened intelligence, resulting from seeing disciplined words marching along in metrical patterns and in their inevitably right order. And there is the sense of concreteness that we can get only from the poet's use of metaphor and of visualized imagery. Literary education of this kind, its rhythm and leisure slowly soaking into the body and its wit and concreteness into the mind, can do something to develop a speaking and writing prose style that comes out of the depths of personality and is a genuine expression of it.” Northrop Frye, The Well-Tempered Critic

2. What Frye says about “a restless audience” is why on days the children were more unruly than usual, I would pull out my guitar and sing songs like “Skip to My Lou” until I was hoarse; my young children loved skipping and shout-singing along with it and could dance to it for longer than I could sing it. Songs like that gave their restless energy a focus and an outlet.

3. I can’t help but think of Joffre Swait here; if anyone could bellow verse for us, he could.

4. John Ciardi is one of my favorite 20th century poets. His range of ability as a poet is impressive; a skilled poet in his own right, he also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy, taught poetry at the collegiate level, wrote poetry textbooks, innovated poetic forms - and wrote several volumes of hilarious verse for kids. Respect.

5. I highly recommend watching the lecture, available here: “How Does A Poem Mean?”

6. “Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence.” C.S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds; Essays and Stories

7. Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination

8. The butt-trumpets in Dante’s Inferno might be my favorite example of the … uh, earthy alongside the sublime.

9. “How Does A Poem Mean?” lecture (again)