Poems from Poems: Intertextuality by Brittany Hackett A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY Ogden, Utah April 24, 2013 Poems From Poems: Intertextuality By Brittany Hackett No creative writing, whether poetry or prose, is created in a vacuum, but is rather an intertextual web of quotations, imitations, and influences. No creative work is completely original, but that doesn't mean it can't be unique. For example, William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors pulled heavily from Roman playwright Plautus's Menaechmi. Both plays have twins separated at a very young age. Later in life, one set of twins goes in search of the other, which begins the comedy of mistaken identities and the ensuing chaos. Like Menaechmi, The Comedy of Errors ends with the reuniting of family and order restored. Unlike Menaechmi, Shakespeare uses two sets of twins; one set are sons of the merchant and the other set are slaves belonging to the merchant. Also, Plautus has one of the twins kidnapped and the father dies from grief. However, Shakespeare chooses to separate the twins by a shipwreck and has the father survive.1 Although, the plays are somewhat similar, they are also both original in their own right. This is just one example of intertextuality in a well-known creative work. In this project I will explore the impact intertextuality has on writing and how many texts have a beginning in or are the product of another text. Intertextuality is a term Julia Kristeva is credited with coining in the 1960's. Kristeva, influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure and Mikhail Bahktin, tried to blend their major theories, semiotics and dialogism, to demonstrate their intertextual relationships in the creation of literature. Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and how they relate to overall meaning. It is through intertextuality that words continue to have specific meanings throughout a given text. Kristeva explains dialogism as the idea that every "utterance" is the "intersection of a number of 1 It is the father, while he is pleading with the duke to let him live at the beginning of the play, who introduces the tragic story of the separated twins to the audience, thus setting up the play. voices" (Becker-Leckrone 93). An example of both would be the word famine. Using semiotics, the word famine means starvation due to a lack of food. It doesn't matter what text one reads, the word famine immediately brings to mind images of starving people. The poem "Give Me Three Grains of Corn, Mother," by Amelia Blanford Edwards, is a poem about famine because what she describes is a starving child begging his starving mother to feed him. The lines below illustrate the hunger: Give me three grains of corn, Mother, Only three grains of corn; It will keep the little life I have Till the coming of the morn I am dying of hunger and cold, Mother, Dying of hunger and cold; And half the agony of such a death My lips have never told It has gnawed like a wolf at my heart, Mother, A wolf that is fierce for blood; All the livelong day, and the night beside, Gnawing for lack of food For I read the famine in your cheek, And in your eyes so wild, And I felt it in your bony hand, As you laid it on your child ... (1-12,21-24) In the line "For I read the famine in your cheek" (21), the word famine is used to evoke an image of a sunken face from hunger. The word holds its meaning between texts. With the idea of dialogism, the word famine would be the "utterance" that would bring up past and present uses of the word famine to shape meaning. For instance, if a character in a book were having a conversation with someone from Ireland, famine may be referring to the Irish Potato Famine. Semiotics and dialogism are two theories that are intertextual in nature. Intertextuality essentially means one text helps shape another text. This is done through allusion, metaphor, quotation, parody, and other technical and poetic devices. Utah's first poet laureate, David Lee, sometimes uses epigraphs to enhance his poems. The epigraphs are usually a quote from another poet's work. "What I'm trying to do is create a dialogue with another poet or a dialogue with thoughts from the past...I thoroughly enjoy doing that. I don't think poetry comes out of a vacuum; it is a perpetual dialogue... By putting that epigraph down I'm literally letting the reader know where my thought process began," David Lee said in an interview I conducted with him for this project.2 David Lee's use of epigraphs proves that "Authors of literary works do not just select words from a language system, they select plots, generic features, aspects of character, images, ways of narrating, even phrases and sentences from previous literary texts and from the literary tradition" (Allen 11). Take fantasy, for instance. One is hard pressed to find any fantasy writer that hasn't been influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien, "He's always there in the background like Mt. Fuji—and when you can't see him, it's because [you're] standing on his shoulders" (Faktorovich 12). Tolkien's take on elves, pointy eared, and graceful, show up in other literary works, as do his old, wise, white-bearded wizards. For Example, Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter is based on Gandalf (they're practically the same guy). Throughout The Hobbit and the Lord of The Rings trilogy, Gandalf is a wise mentor, yet conveniently absent during key moments of the stories, leaving the other characters to fend for themselves and develop on their own. Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series is constantly doing the same thing. He is absent through most of the books, appearing only to dole out key bits of advice or guidance to Harry. Additionally, Gandalf has to "die" in Fellowship of The Ring in order for Frodo and 2 David Lee is an American poet who has written numerous volumes of poetry, served as Utah's Poet Laureate from January 1997 to December 2002, and has been honored by the Utah Endowment for the Humanities as one of Utah's top twelve writers of all time. Aragorn to come into their own as leaders. Dumbledore also has to die in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, so Harry can take the last step of his hero's journey on his own. In French theorist Roland Barthes' essay, "The Death of the Author," he basically says there is no one author and that each creative work is made up of many authors. He states: We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single "theological" meaning (the "message" of the Author-God) but a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture ... the writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them. Did he wish to express himself, he ought at least to know that the inner "thing" he thinks to "translate" is only a ready-formed dictionary, its words only explainable through other words, and so on indefinitely. (Allen 13) Authors are constantly and inescapably influenced by other authors. Everything they've read and been inspired by, is brought together in a text. They do have the ability to make original work, though. According to Barthes, "[the author's] only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them." His point is that the author will inevitably draw on previous texts he is familiar with, but the author still has the ability to construct a text in such a way that is original. Take David Lee's poetry. He writes about rural life, using colloquialisms and oral narrative. Neither method is original; common speech is common speech; but he uses them in such a way that he makes a typical day become poetic. According to formalist critics, like Cleanth Brooks, it is the poet's job to take that which is ordinary and make it extraordinary. As an example, I'll compare David Lee's poem "Fence Repair" to Robert Frost's "Mending Wall." Both are narrative poems that feature common folk performing mundane tasks. Although similar in theme, both are clearly original (and not influenced by each other at all). "Mending Wall," by Robert Frost, is written in blank verse. It begins with two neighbors meeting in the spring to repair a stone wall that hunters put holes in. It's a mundane task the two characters in the poem do each spring. They call it "mending-time" (11). Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbour know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."... (1-7, 11-15, 25-27) The conflict of this narrative poem is that the narrator doesn't understand why the wall is needed: "My apple trees will never get across/And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him" (25-26). They don't have any cows or livestock they need to keep separated on either side of the fence. The narrator tells his neighbor his thoughts on the issue, but "He [the neighbor] only says, 'Good fences make good neighbours'" (27). The poem illustrates the neighbors breaking barriers through conversation as they establish physical, geographical boundaries with the stone wall. The narrative poem "Fence Repair" by David Lee mimics natural speech with its use of free verse. Also about the mundane task of setting up a barrier, the poem differs greatly from Frost's "Mending Wall." It begins with a dialogue between the narrator and a man named John: What's the matter with you today sed John you and Jan fighting? Oh no I said it's not that it's a letter I got that's bothering me. Must be from the govement or the insurance, I can understand that. No, John, it's not them this time it's from a friend. Did he die or summin? You aint sed a decent word all morning I might as well be working by myself and let you set on the nailkeg unrolling barbwore. (1-13) The poem continues with dialogue between the two characters and reveals information about the town, such as the preacher's daughter getting knocked up in the eighth grade by a 24-year-old (46-49). In the end, John tells the narrator to stop being upset about a letter and focus on the task at hand. This poem is similar in theme to Frost's, but is completely different in its use of colloquial language and free verse instead of blank verse. The poems deliver different messages making them similar, yet original. A clear example that supports the theory that authors are influenced by other authors' work is found in how the early Romantic poet Leigh Hunt's "The Story of Rimini" influenced John Keats' sonnet, "On Leigh Hunt's Poem 'The Story of Rimini.'"And one may add even a third and fourth level to this concept of intertextual influence by examining the influence Dante Alighieri's Inferno had on Hunt's poem. Clearly, other poets influence poets; one such example is found when comparing Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Blow, Bugle, Blow" and "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes. Both contain instances of verbal repetition. In "Blow, Bugle, Blow," note the repetition in the last two lines of the stanza: The splendor falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. (1-6) The repetition of dying shows the importance of the word in the poem. Repetition is used as an emphasis. Similarly, repetition in Alfred Noyes' "The Highwayman" is used to emphasis important parts of the poem and to intensify dramatic effect. In this stanza, the focus should be on the highway man riding to an old inn-door: The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding— Riding—riding— The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door. (1-6) Poetry by children often shows intertextual influence in rhyming, reflecting the look of such popular "children's" poets as Shel Silverstein, or poems like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." An example would be the basic end rhyme used in Silverstein's poem "Peckin."' The saddest thing I ever did see Was a woodpecker peckin' at a plastic tree. He looks at me, and "Friend," says he, Things ain't as sweet as they used to be." (Silverstein 83) Silverstein uses basic rhymes in his poetry, such as "he" and "be." They are words that children are familiar with and can easily see the rhyme scheme. "Are" and "star" are also exact and overused rhymes, which the lullaby "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" uses. Children are taught to rhyme certain words together by repetition of a poem or song. Repetition is an important part of helping children learn. When learning to read, repetition is helpful in drilling in the sound specific words make. If they see the word "star" repeated throughout a poem or book, they begin to realize that every time they see "star," it makes the sound. Patterns help with memory. Because rhyming poems are often used when developing children's cognitive skills, whether memorizing poems that help children learn how to do math or read, children begin to associate rhyming poems with the poetry overall. Therefore, when later learning to write poetry, beginning poets tend to stick to rhyming couplets or other rhymical forms with which they are familiar. They tend to shy away from unfamiliar forms like free verse. They are influenced by the poetry they have read. David Lee says that reading improved his writing: "I started writing poetry as a kid, as a very small kid, as a matter of fact. I always thought I liked poetry but I didn't read anything back then. I mean I knew songs, I knew nursery rhymes, I read a little bit of Longfellow that I can still quote from memory whenever my memory decides to speak to me. But as far as really reading poetry, I didn't, and consequently I never wrote anything that was worth much of a tinker's damn ... I just wrote mostly rhyme and later a little bit of meter and lots of abstractions and beauty, sappy, love poems and God poems and tree poems and 'how my puppy dog' poems, but once I started reading poetry then I took off and started going in a different direction." So, as a child Lee was familiar with nursery rhymes and songs, but not much else, and consequently he wrote poetry drawing from those influences. He wrote in rhyme and meter on cliched topics. It was reading and becoming familiar with other poetic works that helped him develop his poetry. He started writing more seriously by imitating poetry from other poets. The idea that poems are created from poems can be explored by examining primary works of literature, such as Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," Sir Walter Raleigh's "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd," and "The Bait" by John Donne. In the late 16th century, Marlowe wrote a poem called "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." It goes: Come live with me and be my Love, And we will all the pleasures prove That hills and valleys, dale and field, And all the craggy mountains yield. There will we sit upon the rocks And see the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. There will I make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle. A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull, Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold. A belt of straw and ivy buds With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my Love. Thy silver dishes for thy meat As precious as the gods do eat, Shall on an ivory table be Prepared each day for thee and me. The shepherd swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May-morning: If these delights they mind may move, Then live with me and be my Love. (1-28) Sir Walter Raleigh wrote a poem in response to the shepherd in Marlowe's poem. He called it, "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd." Like Marlowe's poem, it is also written in iambic tetrameter. If all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love. Time drives the flocks from field to fold When rivers rage and rocks grow cold, And Philomel becometh dumb; The rest complains of cares to come. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall, Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten— In folly ripe, in reason rotten. Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, Thy coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee and be thy love. But could youth last and love still breed, Had joys no date nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move To live with thee and be thy love. (1-24) This poem serves as an example of a poem created from a poem. To add another level of intertextuality, I will bring in John Donne's poem, "The Bait." Come live with me, and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, With silken lines and silver hooks. There will the river whisp'ring run Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun; And there th' enamour'd fish will stay, Begging themselves they may betray. When thou wilt swim in that live bath, Each fish, which every channel hath, Will amorously to thee swim, Gladder to catch thee, than thou him. If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth, By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both, And if myself have leave to see, I need not their light, having thee. Let others freeze with angling reeds, And cut their legs with shells and weeds, Or treacherously poor fish beset, With strangling snare, or windowy net. Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest The bedded fish in banks out-wrest; Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies, Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes. For thee, thou need'st no such deceit, For thou thyself art thine own bait: That fish, that is not catch'd thereby, Alas! is wiser far than I. (1-28) Donne's poem was also written as a response to Marlowe. It carries over the famous line from Marlowe's poem, "Come live with me and be my love" (1). This is another example of a poem created from a poem. It demonstrates intertextual relations in the creation of literature. Along with the examination of secondary sources dealing specifically with intertextuality, I have asked two well-known contemporary poets, David Lee and Mary Elizabeth Gillilan, their views on intertextuality and how such can be incorporated into poetry interpretation and writing. In a previous example, I explained that David Lee sometimes uses epigraphs in his poems to create a dialogue. Mary Gillilan, published poet, author of two novels, and editor-in-chief of the Bellingham, Washington based literary journal Clover, A Literary Rag, says that she too is a fan of the epigraph, "It marks the beginning of a conversation between poets—and I love that. This is purely intertextual, I think. The two poets bridge time and cultures and life experience." Intertextuality is an important learning tool, and so I decided to focus my questions on the subject. Do you feel deliberate imitation of another poet is a good exercise in learning to write poetry? Mary: I found it a fun exercise. I liked the insight of having a poet guide my way of expressing myself. I tried this method out on William Kloefkorn's poem, "Horseshoes and Hand Grenades." I wanted to get to my point quicker than Kloefkorn got to his - so I did what he did slowed it all down and I kept to the couplet format. I learned something about subtlety - and I had a deeper understanding of his poem. My poem remained mine. I think this sort of imitation is done in other arts and works well in poetry. I woke up this morning with the phrase 'written in Nebraska hymn style' in my mind. Am I channeling Kloefkorn? I like to think so. David: I believe that trying to duplicate what someone else did to find out how they did it is an incredibly important exercise. When I find a poem that I think is absolutely brilliant, I want to find out why I think that and why I didn't write that poem. And the best thing for me to do is to deconstruct it, tear that poem completely down, try to enter the writer's mind and find out how that writer made that work ... Do that then try your best then to walk away from it. To take what you can and use those skills that you've picked up along the way, but don't keep the same subject matter.3 Why is reading so important for someone wanting to write poetry? Mary: There is a simple logic here—if you want to do something, learn about the thing you want to do. Poetry is an art and understanding the art encourages and motivates the poet. Understanding line breaks and stanzas can be taught, but reading poetry—especially aloud—is a fine teaching tool in poetry construction. Understanding that the music of poetry also is learned by ear is an important lesson. David: When I teach classes, even now, it's an automatic statement that's going to come out of my mouth, "Reading poetry is at least 50 percent of the act of writing poetry. You've got to read." I will contradict that now by saying when I'm in the act of writing poetry, when I'm really working on a book, and that's the way I write poems, I stop reading poetry because of the 3 Lee adds that imitation can be a double edged sword. He says, "I was solicited to submit poems for a prose poem anthology, and so I thought I'd pay homage to some of my teachers, so I did imitations of their work in a prose format. Well, one of the teachers I did was not pleased by it at all. The fact that I dedicated the poem to him made no difference. He thought I had ripped him off royally. He made my life very miserable for a period of time." kind of mind I have if I keep reading poetry I will bring other people's poetry into what I'm writing. But when I'm not writing, and in the conscious act of writing the book, I try to read maybe a book of poetry a day. Who influences your work? Mary: Emily Dickinson, David Lee, William Kloefkorn, my three dogs—many sources - too many to list. I love to see how poets use language. Pablo Neruda does wonderful things with imagery. Samuel Coleridge "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." And my old pal T.S. Eliot - "The Book of Cats." e.e. Cummings and on and on. David: Probably the first major influence was Aeschylus, the great playwright, because he's the one who's given credit for inventing the deuteragonist, or the second speaker in poetry, and since I'm really interested in dialogue, Aeschylus was my first role model. The language of the King James version of the Bible is also a major influence ... Geoffrey Chaucer is a major influence on me because of his framework tale—a story inside a story inside a story ... Along with Dante Alighieri. I think the Inferno out of the Divine Comedy is just a massively important and influential piece of work because it was Dante who taught me how to use literal people around me in my work... My favorite writer is John Milton. He's inside me. He's inside my blood ... I guess I could add Eliot too. And what these writers all have in common is they all wrote longer works, and I'm really known for writing longer works, and I'm also known for writing those books that tie together almost like novels. The living writers ... my friend and adopted big brother Bill Kloefkorn. Bill and I did three books together. He would write his poems, I would write mine, and we would try to create poems that had a dialogue going through the book ... Kloefkorn taught me more about writing poetry than any person I've ever known because we worked together so well... I guess my favorite living poet today is Eleanor Wilner...She knows more about mythology, I think, than William Butler Yeats did. And she uses myth better than any writer I've ever known throughout the history of literature ... Another contemporary writer is a graduate of Weber State University, Rob Van Wagoner. Rob, now that Bill Kloefkorn has died, Rob sort of replaced him. He's my younger brother. We have a constant literary dialogue.4 Are all of your poems influenced by other texts? Mary: No. Poetry is not simply an academic exercise—an intellectual endeavor. A good poem strikes an accord with mind and soul. The first poetry I wrote came through me, before anything about poetry was studied by me or explained to me. The schooling in poetry widened my eyes. Knowing what to do with the impulse to write poetry, I find comes in part from seeing how other poets handle metaphor and timing and music in poetry. Ending and beginning a poem are learned arts - but the soul of the poem would be best discussed with references to Carl Jung or Rumi. Is any work created in a vacuum? I do not search texts for my writing—but certain stories I read as a child still have influence. I would be reticent to say that experience is the only master of the word. Julia Kristeva says, "Any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another." Do you agree with this statement? How do you find your own voice amidst so many influences? 4 Other influences of Lee include Ian McEwan, William Faulkner, Flannery 0'Conner and Eudora Welty, to name a few. Mary: Not a whole lot. My own voice sings me to sleep at night. My own voice has been telling me stories as I have gone off to sleep all my life. I am clear about that. No mystery here. I think Kristeva's statement is overthought—gone south of the analytical edge. Of course we are prodigies of experience—textual and otherwise—the inner voice we have is guided if we are lucky by the poets we read and the teachers among us, but at the end of the day, the voice we hear that compels pen to paper is our own. And as a poet I must trust that—this is where the spark of soul comes in. David: I got my teaching job down at what was then Southern Utah State College and because it's such a beautiful place down there, especially for a kid who grew up in panhandle, flat, Texas, those mountains blew me away. And so I started writing romantic, nature poems. And of course I would I would go in my office, pull the blinds down so I wouldn't see it and I would write poems about nature, which is the way a lot of people do it. And none of them were any good. It was important that I did it. I was moving the pencil across the page. I was learning how to put words together. I was learning craft and technique. But I remember there was a day where nothing would come and suddenly the pencil started moving in my hand and I wrote ... That was the first time the voice came through me and demanded that I listen to it. And that was a major transformation of me ... If it wants to be written; it will come to me in dream ... When I started dreaming my poems and letting the voices come alive in my dreams and talk to me, and then when I would get the pencil and paper, I would write down what they had told me, that's when I became a writer. I really don't think people develop a voice I think the voice is there and it comes to you. I tell my students I don't think anyone chooses to become a writer. I think the words choose you. And if they choose you it's as much a curse as it is a blessing because once you accept the choosing, you're their slave. I never really thought of myself as a 'poet' as much as a vehicle. The poems pass through me. I'm a receptor. My poems are given to me from the outside and I filter them through my language and experience and then I get a number two pencil and write them down on a piece of paper. When describing intertextuality, Roland Barthes says, "The text is a tissue of quotation drawn from the innumerable centres of culture." How does this concept relate to intertextuality in your writing? Mary: We do not live in a vacuum. Everything from a chickadee's song to the movie you saw two days ago - to Sonnet 116 - has an impact for me. This question brings Joseph Campbell's A Hero with a Thousand Faces to mind—mythology and poetry hold hands in many respects. What are your views on intertextuality and how it can be incorporated into teaching poetry? Mary: I liked the imitation exercise—I think it might work well for someone experiencing writer's block because it reduces the process, and probably enables another part of the brain to assemble a poem. It might be useful for the person exploring the age old question of "What is a poem?" It also is a great way to understand another poet. Do you think poetry can be learned? David: I think there is a lot about poetry that not only can, but must be learned. I think there are techniques. I don't think anyone can do it all without some work. But I do think there are certain gifts and talents ... Poetry started as something waiting for me to discover it and once we made the movements toward each other then it became my mistress. It became my lover and I became totally devoted and dedicated to her. But does it work that way for everybody? I don't know. I'm not everybody. I can only tell how I did it. But in my mind, since that's how it works for me, I think that's how it ought to work for everybody else. What impact has intertextuality had on your work? Mary: I am not an academic poet, so I admit, not much or maybe best put, unintentional. I read poetry because I love it. I write poetry because I am compelled to. I have a chapbook called After Oz. I read every book of L. Frank Baum, and the influence is there. And Emily Dickinson and I are soul sisters. Roland Barthes wrote an essay called "Death of the Author." Do you agree that the author is dead, that texts are full of so many influences that there is not really one author of any one text, but many authors? David: I don't know that I agree or disagree with that. I see where he's coming from. That's sort of like T.S. Eliot saying 'Bad writers borrow; good writers steal. You've got to dip your hands down into the flow of literature.'... I don't think I want to take away the idea that there's not one author because when you come to a really good author ... Poetry is not created in a vacuum it is lonely work it is not group work, but we're all in it together and we all interrelate. For students who are learning to write poetry, having them imitate poets is a great way to start. They become familiar with different styles, meters, rhymes, and themes. In addition to learning different types of poetry they, I believe, will seek to explore a favorite poem more deeply, layer by layer. I adopted this idea after being required to write a series of poems in parody of Wordsworth's Prelude, in a Romantic literature class. I found myself examining the Wordworth's book-length poem more deeply than I normally would in my effort to emulate the style. It seemed easy, but I learned much in the process—looking for themes, whether Wordsworth was using open or closed form, and so on. Assignments like this help make poetry lovers, and those who don't particularly like reading poetry, take the time necessary to dig deeply into a poem working to extract meaning, and in so doing, develop some understanding of the technicalities they, may, in turn be able to incorporate into their own poetic compositions. As part of my analysis on how intertextuality works, I have written a poem to serve as an example of intertexutal influence. I chose to parody William Blake's "Introduction to the Songs of Experience." In my first reading of the poem, I felt the narrator was urging the reader to listen to the "Bard" who holds the knowledge of centuries. The Bard has experienced much, yet continues to sing his "happy songs," instead of turning to darkness and depression. The poem is written to uplift the reader. However, with just one quick reading, I wasn't able to absorb the technical aspects the poem contains: HEAR the voice of the Bard! Who Present, Past & Future, sees: Whose ears have heard the Holy Word That walk'd among the ancient trees, Calling the lapsed Soul, And weeping in the evening dew; That might control The starry pole, And fallen, fallen light renew! 'O Earth, O Earth, return! Arise from out the dewy grass; Night is worn, And the morn Rises from the slumberous mass. 'Turn away no more; Why wilt thou turn away? The starry floor, The wat'ry shore, Is giv'n thee till the break of day.' (1-19) By setting myself the task of imitating Blake's poem, I had to look at "Introduction to the Songs of Experience," in depth. First, I began looking for patterns. I counted the syllables in each stanza, 6888, 58448, 68338, 56449. No specific pattern, but I noticed the third and fourth lines of the last three stanzas are shorter than the first, second and fifth. The shorter lines hasten the stanza, but then the longer lines at the end and beginning of each stanza force the reader to slow down and, in a way, absorb the emotion the writer is trying to evoke. For instance, the line "And fallen, fallen light renew!" (9), follows two short lines, so the reader is forced to slow down and, with the commas, is required to pause and then finishes out the line with the exclamatory "... fallen light renew!" (9). As light is usually a metaphor for innocence, I read it as such, and read the exclamation as a plea for the reader to bring back some of the blissful child-like innocence they had before they gained adult-worldly experience. The light and dark motif is presented multiple times in the poem. Besides the aforementioned "fallen light renew," which brings up "light," the word "starry" is mentioned twice in the poem. Stars contrast with the night sky. The lines "Night is worn/ And the Morn/Rises from the slumberous mass" (12-14), give the idea that night is done with the darkness and ready for the sun to raise from it. I find the final stanza climactically powerful when it shows all the beauty that can be seen when looking at it in the light. What may appear a dark mass in the night becomes a "... watr'y shore" (18), which "Is giv'n thee till the break of day" (19). So, until the darkness comes again, the reader is given a glimpse of the beauty the earth offers. In the "Songs of Experience" dark is a metaphor for worldly experience and the negative discoveries that come with that—such as learning not all are trustworthy. I think Blake is trying to convince the reader to live life, like the Bard, who is not lacking in worldly experience yet is not overwhelmed by the negative. In short, the author is trying to tell the reader to take the good with bad. Aside from syllable count, and the light/dark metaphor, I noticed Blake's use of rhyme. The rhyme scheme of the poem, although not always exact, goes ABAB, CDCCD, EFEEF, GHGGH. Other notes I made were that the last two stanzas are directly pleading with the Earth to renew the light. So, I decided that when I wrote my imitative poem, I would have the narrator speaking directly to someone or some thing. I did not directly parody "Introduction to the Songs of Experience," but after analyzing Blake's poem, I pulled some elements that influenced me to write "The Young Ingenue." The poor, young ingenue Who sees beauty ubiquitous By believing everything true Soon finds all she knows fictitious Optimism incarnate Avid lover of life Shining spirit Goodness inherit She isn't privy to strife. 'O innocence, O naivete, revive! Sing songs of joy and love again Forget he's alive Let beauty survive Rise from your dreary inward den. 'Return from your shell Why not share with me your dreams? Leave your inner hell All is well Everything is not as it seems.' To begin with, I took the idea of restoring innocence from Blake's poem and inserted it into mine. The focus of this poem is the young ingenue. An ingenue is naive and lacks experience; she is the very embodiment of innocence. Because she's inexperienced, she is not aware of conflict. She is unaware of the world that surrounds her and the malevolent people she may come in contact with, therefore she is happy. I chose to show the young ingenue happy in her ignorance so that the final two stanzas will have more of an impact emotionally. It examines the stark contrast from a joyous to a dejected young woman. The experience that opened her eyes to the imperfectness of the world was a bad relationship, which is briefly mentioned in the line "Forget he's alive" (12). I decided not to dwell on the conflict that caused her to become so miserable because that is not the point of the poem. Like Blake's poem, it doesn't matter what made the soul miserable, circumstances have brought the person to this point and the poem is pleading with the person to come out of the darkness and find that there is still good in the world amongst the bad encountered. To give my poem some structure, I took into account Blake's use of rhyme. I mimicked the ABAB, CDCCD, EFEEF, GHGGH format. I also used slant rhyme such as my use of "ubiquitous" (2) to rhyme with "fictitious" (4). Now, to keep the similar impact of the longer lines following the two shorter lines, I tried to use the same syllable count. It was difficult to follow, so I tweaked it to fit in with what I wanted to say. For example, instead of four syllables in the third to last line in the final stanza, I used five. I liked the deep pleading nature of "'0 Earth, O Earth, return!'" (10) in "Introduction to the Songs of Experience." I wouldn't normally put "O" in my poetry, but I found the "O's" added a solemnity that I wanted to keep. I decided to have line 10 in my poem imitate Blake's' with "'0 innocence, O naivete, revive!'" I also kept the last two stanzas as the narrator speaking directly to someone. At least for me, when I read something that is meant to be for someone else, like how the single quotes in the poem show that it is talking directly to someone/something else, it's like peering into someone else's conversation, which makes the emotion it evokes more raw. It's not a summary of what was said, but the direct, no holds bar, emotion the speaker is conveying. I think I may try this approach more often in my poetry. Although I imitated Blake's poem, my poem is original. "The Young Ingenue" was influenced greatly by "Introduction to Songs of Experience," but they are definitely not the same poem. And, by creating a poem through imitation of another poet's creative work, I learned more about the poem and the writer. As I said before, I didn't get much out of my first quick run- through of Blake's poem. It took multiple readings and an in-depth look to be able to extract greater meaning and find some of the technical elements he used to create the poem. I may not have learned everything there is to know about Blake or his poem, but I learned a great deal more than a simple once over. I also wrote a better poem than I would have if I was just told to read through Blake's poem once and then write a poem influenced by it. In addition, I learned some poetic elements that I will try out later in future poems I will write. By modeling Blake's poem, and providing literary examples, I demonstrated how creative works are an intertextual web of quotations, imitations and influences, whether consciously, or subconsciously, realized. Works Cited Allen, Graham. Intertextuality. London: Routledge, 2000. Print. Becker-Leckrone, Megan. Julia Kristeva and Literary Theory. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Print. Donne, John. "The Bait." Luminarium.org. Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2013. Edwards, Amelia B. "Give Me Three Grains of Corn, Mother." Usbornefamilytree.com. The Usborne Family, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2013. Faktorovich, Anna. "Interview with Janet Brennan Croft, Editor of Mythlore" Pennsylvania Literary Journal: Editing Technique. Vol. 3. Edinboro: Anaphora Literary, 2011. Print. Frost, Robert. "Mending Wall." Robert Frost's Poems. Ed. Louis Untermermeyer. New York: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2002. Print. Gillilan, Mary. Personal Interview. 13 Apr. 2013. Lee, David. "Fence Repair." A Legacy of Shadows. Port Townsend: Copper Canyon, 1999. Print. Lee David. Personal interview. 12 Apr. 2013. Marlowe, Christopher. "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." Bartleby.com. Bartleby.com. n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2013. Noyes, Alfred, and Charles Mikolaycak. The Highwayman. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1983. Print. Noyes, Russell. "Songs of Experience: Introduction." English Romantic Poetry and Prose. 1956. New York: Oxford UP, 1967. Print. Plautus, Titus, and Terence. "Menaechmi." Roman Comedy: Five Plays by Plautus and Terence. Ed. David M. Christenson. Newburyport: Focus Pub./R. Pullins, 2010. Print. Raleigh, Sir Walter. "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd." Poetryfoundation.org. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2013. Shakespeare, William. "The Comedy of Errors." William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1994. Print. Silverstein, Shel. "Peckin'." A Light in the Attic. New York: Harper & Row, 1974. Print. Tennyson, Alfred Lord. "Blow, Bugle, Blow"Allpoetry.com. Allpoetry.com. n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2013.