A few weeks ago in class, as Ann was introducing us to Ezra Pound and his fellow Modernists, she noted that Pound considered the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson to be too concerned with sound. Apparently, Tennyson wanted his poetry to be pretty more than he worked to make the words important. I took personal note of this because in my little exposure to Tennyson, I’ve found his poems to be absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, from personal experience, I consent that Pound had a point.
I first encountered Alfred Lord Tennyson last fall when my kind of embarrassing family band, 3 Skuzins and a Funkle, learned a rendition of his poem "Crossing the Bar."
My cousin Emma and I found the song to be beautiful, and we sang it whenever we had gigs (which we are proud to acknowledge were almost always at church coffee houses or the occasional retirement home). Anyway, we sang the song at our grandfather’s 80th birthday celebration last year and it was just a little embarrassing when, being the scholarly type who would totally do this, he put us on the spot in front of about forty people and asked us to explain what the poem was about. Well… we really hadn’t thought about it! Most of our songs happen to be about death, so we assumed as much, but we enjoyed singing the words so much that we’d failed to think much about what they meant. Of course, Poppop then walked us through an explication that I’m not going to dwell on now.
The point of this is that last year, I most likely did rate poetry on how pretty it sounded. It is more natural to do this than to slow down and contemplate the ideas and questions that a poem raises. I still thoroughly enjoy Tennyson’s work, and I don’t think it should be cast aside, but in the future I will need to use the tools I’m acquiring in this class to give the text the attention it deserves!
P.S. I thought it would be fun to let you listen to our version of “Crossing the Bar” because I believe poetry can absolutely be enjoyed as music. I had my dad upload it from our CD onto his ReverbNation account. Feel free to give it a listen and go ahead and check out my dad’s music because I think he’s kind of awesome! (Also, the song features Emma as the singer and Justin Yoder as cello-playing extraordinaire.)
Maddie, thanks for this fun personal reflection on the musicality of Tennyson. Your song is beautiful and I think one could easily get hooked to playing it over and over, especially since the musicians are so awesome;-) Your Dad's music is also terrific--are you sure there isn't an Irish strand somewhere in this stalwart Mennonite family? Thanks for sharing the talent!
ReplyDeletePS on Tennyson--lots of his poems also have meaning, but yes, the sounds could charm an insomniac into sleep.
I can attest to that last part...to a point. Perhaps more like charm the insomniac into a state of such serenity that they are content with a long night. In other words, it's a beautiful song, based off of a beautiful poem.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point about losing sight of the ideas in poetry and being caught up in the sound and structure. Both of these things aid in understanding the poetry, but it is also important to digest the content and background of the poem as well.
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