Mark Jarman: Assignment 4

Mark Jarman (1952 - ) is a New Formalist. He takes traditional forms (for example, the Petrarchan sonnet) and applies to them a twenty-first century spin. Jarman grew up in Southern California, where his father was a minister. He is currently the centennial Professor of English at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Here are some especially interesting/useful websites to familiarize you with Jarman:

a brief guide to New Formalism

a recording of Jarman reading Ground Swell

a January 1999 interview with Jarman published in The Cortland Review, in which he discusses his poem "The Word 'Answer'"(which is like four sonnets together):

"The Word 'Answer'"
"Prayer exerts an influence upon God's action, even
upon his existence. This is what the word 'answer' means."
-- Karl Barth, Prayer

Lightning walks across the shallow seas,
Stick figures putting feet down hard
Among the molecules. Meteors dissolve
And drop their pieces in a mist of iron,
Drunk through atomic skin like a dreamy wine.
The virus that would turn a leaf dark red
Seizes two others that would keep it green.
They spread four fingers like a lizard's hand.
Into this random rightness comes the prayer,
A change of weather, a small shift of degree
That heaves a desert where a forest sweated,
And asks creation to return an answer.
That's all it wants: a prayer just wants an answer,
And twists time in a knot until it gets it.

There's the door. Will anybody get it?
That's what he's wondering; the bath's still warm;
And by the time he towels off and puts on
His pajamas, robe, and slippers and goes down,
They'll be gone, won't they? There's the door again;
And nobody's here to answer it but him.
Perhaps they'll go away. But it's not easy,
Relaxing in the tub, reading the paper,
With someone at the front door, ringing and pounding,
And -- that sounds like glass -- breaking in.
At least the bathroom door's securely bolted.
Or is that any assurance in this case?
He might as well go find out what's the matter.
Whoever it is must really want ... something.

We ask for bread, he makes his body bread.
We ask for daily life, and every day,
We get a life, or a facsimile,
Or else we get a tight place in a crowd
Or test results with the prognosis -- bad.
We ask and what is given is the answer,
For we can always see it as an answer,
Distorted as it may be, from our God.
What shall we ask for then? For his return,
Like the bereaved parents with the monkey's paw,
Wishing, then wishing again? The last answer,
When we have asked for all that we can ask for,
May be the end of time, our mangled child,
And in the doorway, dead, the risen past.

With this prayer I am making up a God
On a gray day, prophesying snow.
I pray that God be immanent as snow
When it has fallen thickly, a deep God.
With this prayer I am making up a God
Who answers prayer, responding like the snow
To footprints and the wind, to a child in snow
Making an angel who will speak for God.
God, I am thinking of you now as snow,
Descending like the answer to a prayer,
This prayer that you will be made visible,
Drifting and deepening, a dazzling, slow
Acknowledgment, out of the freezing air,
As dangerous as it is beautiful.

-Mark Jarman


Finally, here's a performance of Jarman's Unholy Sonnet 20 ("If God survives us, will his kingdom come?") set to music:



Prompts for Tuesday (select one):

1)Pick one of Jarman's Unholy Sonnets and discuss it in depth. Is Jarman's poem a sonnet? Why or why not? How does it differ from Donne's poetry? How is it similar? Do you believe Jarman is still a formalist if he takes such liberties (ie, for you, when is a sonnet no longer a sonnet?)

2)Examine one of Jarman's Unholy Sonnets in relation to one of Jarman's longer poems in the packet (or "The Word 'Answer'") Would the sonnet have worked better in longer form, or the longer poem been more effective condensed into a sonnet?

Please be as specific as possible, and remember to PROOFREAD your response before you post. As always, I'm available to answer any questions.

John Donne: Assignment #3

For next Thursday, I'm asking you to write a Petrarchan sonnet. You'll appreciate the Divine Meditations (Holy Sonnets) more. So, let's get 'er Donne!



John Donne often "broke the rules" when writing his sonnets: meaning he departed from a strict Petrarchan form. He deviated knowingly and skillfully. In order to break the rules, you first need to learn them.

The poet Petrarch (1304-1374) popularized the sonnet in Renaissance Italy. He penned a sequence of love poems addressed to Laura, a married woman he saw in a church and idolized/stalked.



The English later adapted the form, adding a closing couplet and a different rhyme scheme, and the Shakespearean sonnet was born.

Donne wrote in the original Italian form. A Petrarchan sonnet specifies 14 lines divided into two parts. The first part is the Octet (8 lines), which presents an idea, often problematic and doubt-inducing. The second part is the Sestet (6 lines), which comments on, or offers a solution to, questions raised in the Octet.

Now things get crazy. The Petrarchan sonnet employs a set rhyme scheme which changes between the Octet and the Sestet. Remember -- the Octet introduces a philosophical quandary or question, and the Sestet attempts an answer. So the rhyme scheme in a Petrarchan sonnet changes to reflect the shift in subject matter.

The movement from Octet to Sestet happens in line 9. In Italian, the word for this "turn" is Volta, and it marks the introduction of the poem's second idea. The first eight lines in a Petrarchan sonnet have an ABBA ABBA rhyme scheme. After the Volta, the next six lines can rhyme a variety of ways:

1) c d d c d d
2) c d e d c c
3) c d c d c d

(Of course, once you've considered subject matter, and sectioning, and rhyme scheme, you still have to write in iambic pentameter .)

OK, a sonnet isn't easy, so take a deep breath. It starts with baby steps. I would first decide what I wanted to write about. Visualize the separation between Octave and Sestet. What is your speaker struggling with/questioning in the first eight lines? What happens at the Volta to change the tone of the poem, to attempt to resolve or clarify doubt in the last six? Read Donne's Holy Sonnets closely. Read them out loud . Get a feel for his sounds and rhythms.

In your own sonnet, think about using enjambment as well as slant rhyme (hurt/heart) to contemporize your voice. Be creative. Think metaphorically. If you aren't writing in perfect iambic pentameter, keep going -- Donne did -- and remember that poets tweak form, that sometimes, like Donald Hall says, a poem starts out north but ends up south. Check out Marilyn Hacker if you're stuck (she writes modern Petrarchan sonnets). Wikihow also has a decent explanation of how to write a sonnet (be sure to focus on the Petrarchan).

Next Thursday, I'm asking that you submit not just your final sonnet to me, but your multiple drafts.

Finally, here is your prompt for this week (response due Tuesday by noon):

Pick one of Donne's Holy Sonnets and examine the Volta. Consider some of the following: What happens in the turn? What consumes the speaker in the first eight lines? Is it a spiritual concern? Is it stated explicitly, or indirectly through metaphor? What resolves in the last six lines? Do questions get answered/problems fixed? Does the speaker's tone change towards his subject?