The true origin of free verse and making room for it in our modern Amharic poetry

L.M.Tesfaye

“Free verse” is a type of poetry that does not have a fixed or regular meter and rhythm (though it has an unstructured naturally flowing rhythm of its own) and that does not have a rhyme scheme as well, unlike formal or traditional poetry. If you have read some books about English poetry, or simply have searched on the internet on the origins of the free verse poetry style, you might have come across an American by the name of Walt Whitman as being the pioneer with his groundbreaking publication in 1855, just some few years before the American civil war started. According to some, that was a period when Americans felt the need to detach from European influence and define a distinctly American identity in every aspect including literature. Later, the vers libre (free verse) movement of the 1890s in France is also credited for the further development and popularization of this type of poetry in Europe. The influences of the innovative writings of their fellow American (i.e. Walt Whitman), and also of the late nineteenth century French vers libre poetry on several famous American poets of the early twentieth century like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot etc., are usually noted. These American poets were students or readers of French literature and poetry. Hence, the mid-nineteenth century works of Walt Whitman and the late-nineteenth century French vers libre poetic literature, had found very committed disciples among the early-twentieth century English language poets, especially American poets who popularized it further, thereby extending its frontier.
 

What many people may not realize is that, Walt Whitman like many intellectuals of his generation was a keen reader of the Bible. But surprisingly only few ascribe and give due credit to the Holy Bible as the obvious influence on Whiteman, and hence as being the actual origin or starting point of the modern free verse poetry style. No fair person of sound judgement will dispute the fact that the poetic books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs from the Old Testament of the Bible, are among the most profound poetic writings in human history. Also, numerous passages in the prophetic books of the Bible are very poetic. It is there in plain sight for all to see. Ofcourse, for Christians and Jews they are more than poetic books. They are actually the inspired word of God. But I am focusing here on their poetic writing aspect. Whether Whiteman was a committed believer or not, is beside the point here (actually he was a religious skeptic). Nevertheless, the fact remains that his novel poetic writings in free verse was influenced by his reading of the Bible, and the poetic writings therein. Hence, it is quite incorrect and unfair to categorize the origins of free verse merelyas part of the literary avant-garde and modernist movements of the nineteenth century, early twentieth century, and the so-called postmodernism that followed.

One point that could arise here is how the poetry writings of the Bible in the original Hebrew were constructed. That is a topic of inquiry in Biblical studies. Ancient Biblical Hebrew poetry has its own unique features like parallelismand repetition. I leave that kind of analysis to the experts on the field to elaborate. It definitely would enrich and help us if we know the idiosyncrasies of ancient Hebrew poetry. However, I do not believe it was written in a metrical and rhyming format as we understand formal poetry today. But irrespective of how the poetry was constructed in the original language, we have a unique style of poetic writings in our translated Bibles. The poetic writings of our translated Bibles (whether in English, Amharic or any other language) obviously were not written in formal poetry style. Rather, they actually more resemblethe poetic writings that we designate as free verse poetry in our modern times. Hence, by reading the King James Bible, Walt Whitman drew inspiration from the different features and styles of Biblical poetry that influenced and shaped the groundbreaking free verse poems he later published.

If we agree with the above premise, then in all the languages in which the Bible has been translated, a formof free verse poetry writing (i.e that resembles free verse poetry as we know it today) has been there all along. That includes the Amharic language. Leaving aside the ancient Geez Bible for the current argument, at least from the very first Amharic translation of the Bible, we have had such a poetic literature in our Holy Writ. But for one reason or the other, the free verse style of poetry has not penetrated the Amharic literature. This style of poetry is not common in Amharic poetic anthology. It is still the salient feature of mainstream modern Amharic poetry to have a structured meter and rhythm (having several variants), along with rhyming schemes. Once, I read somewhere about one Ethiopian poet from the older generation (whose name I forgot), saying that as a kid he used to try and experiment writing in the free verse style in Amharic. But he did not continue and develop it further. I also read about the late literary critic and poet Solomon Deresa, once writing an Amharic poem in “blank verse” and getting a lot of heat as a result. However, the blank verse style though it is a poem without a rhyming scheme like free verse, but unlike free verse it is a structured poem with strict meter and rhythm. Ofcourse, there could be some exceptions from contemporary works of recent times. But it is fair to say that free verse is still not a recognized style of expression in the mainstream modern Amharic poetic literature. The late towering figures in modern Amharic poetry like Kebede Michael, Mengistu Lemma, Tsegaye G/Medhin, Gebrekirstos Desta and Solomon Deresa were all well-read intellectuals of their time, who had travelled extensively and had a direct exposure to the early and mid-twentieth century literary movements of Europe and America. Probably they had a good reason for not introducing free verse during the belle époque orgolden era of modern Amharic poetry. Perhaps they might have felt that it would be a tough sell to a society accustomed to the beauty of rhyming and rich word plays of the traditional Amharic poetry. Even the poetic writing style of the late artist and poet Gebrekirstos Desta, though it later became one of the components of our modern Amharic poetry format, at the beginning it faced a resistance and criticism just like his modernist paintings. Hence, bringing free verse to our poetic literature at the time may have been quite a challenge to these Amharic poetry elites. Whatever the case, free verse has not got a foothold in our Amharic poetic literature to this day.

In response to the often disputed controversial remark by the German intellectual Theodor W. Adorno:“ To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbarism”, some poets of the second half of the twentieth century may have been motivated to write in free verse instead of the formal rhyming and metrical poetry style, so as to better capture the mood of the chaotic, non-harmonious and devastated world around them. Similar prevailing sentiments of the time, are believed to have contributed to the rise of certain kinds of artistic movements, like Abstract Expressionism, Existentialist Art etc. in the years following World War Two. However, what Theodor W. Adorno meant by that remark has been a topic of hot debate. In any case, one can not fail to notice that the free verse poetry style has flourished throughout the twentieth century, which has been marked by a lot of turmoil and chaos, contrary to the widespread optimism with which it started. Ethiopia, besides passing through the turmoil of the early to mid twentieth century like every other nation, has also passed and is still passing through its own unique local turmoil for the last fifty years. However, unlike Europe and America , free verse poetry has not been utilized to capture the life and tragedy, as well as the aspirations and frustrations of our generation. I want to hasten to say that free verse poetry is not necessarily associated with tragedy and turmoil. Nothing could be further from the truth. One can just read some of the beautiful and lofty poetic writings of the Bible like Psalms and Song of Songs, to see that is not the case at all. Also there have been many modern secular free verse poems that were not associated with turbulence and tragedy. But all the same, it is also a fact that free verse has been used as a way for a more freer poetic expressions that captured the sentiments of the turbulent times of the past century, that was plagued with severe economic downsides, devastating world wars, holocaust, famines and genocides.

The famous American poet Robert Frost was a critic of the free verse style of poetry. Once, he was asked if he ever writes free verse, and he responded “ I would no more think of writing free verse than of playing tennis without a net”. This response of Robert Frost is widely quoted. However, there is a lesser known response by Carl Sandburg (another renowned American poet and a contemporary of Robert Frost) who was known for widely writing in free verse. In response to the often repeated Robert Frost’s remark he said“ One of our foremost poets has said that he would no more think of writing free verse than of playing tennis without a net, but I would have him know that I have not only played tennis without a net but have used the stars for tennis balls”.This shows that, not even the recognized giants in the English poetry were in agreement on the free verse poetry style. There were other prominent critics of free verse as well. Ofcourse, like any other kind of arts and literature, there could be well-crafted as well as sloppy or poorly-crafted free verse poems. Good poetry, whether written in formal verse or free verse, must be rich in imagery and figurative language, and should use few but carefully chosen concentrated words that have depth in meaning and that evoke certain emotions. However, despite the critics, free verse as a distinct genre of poetry has flourished as part of the twentieth century English literature, and still continues to be a popular style in this century as well.

The question whether it is time to formally introduce and make room for the free verse style in our mainstream modern Amharic poetry, would primarily be a topic for the literary experts and academics. As I surmised earlier, introducing free verse to the general Amharic poetry audience that has been accustomed to the formal poetic style for quite so long, could be an uphill challenge. But, perhaps there is a better way. The late literary critic and poet Edith L. Tiempo from the Philippines, in her monograph on free verse entitled “Six poetry formats and the transforming image”¹, critically evaluates and compares English poetry of the recent times (twentieth and twenty first century) and categorizes them into six types or formats giving their salient features. Then she champions one of the formats as her favourite, giving her reasons and offering some examples in the book. She describes her chosen format (which happens to be the sixth type or format) as follows (highlighted in italics).
…

1. A species of free verse: in metaphoric structure; with rhymed lines or other traditional features; with or without meter; with internal limits; the lines expressed as prose-like statements. Result: poetry well crafted.

No. VI is a variant procedure of free verse in which this writer, for one, currently finds room for both discipline( using rhymed lines or other traditional features) and spontaneity( mostly using lines expressed in prose-like statements)—and finds the result intellectually and emotionally suitable.

Result: a species of free verse using rhyme or other traditional features as a controlling safeguard from “ carefree-versing” into prose.
…

Essentially, she advocates for a hybrid or mixed approach, that takes aspects from both the formal or traditional style of poetry and the free verse style of poetry. I personally find this mixed approach (as described above from her book ) or some variant of it, quite appealing. And I feel that perhaps that might be a good way to introduce the free verse style to our modern Amharic poetry. Instead of the pure free verse that is devoid of a structured meter and rhyme scheme , a hybrid approach could be more palatable to our Amharic poetry audience. Hence, I believe it is worth experimenting using this approach. Basically, when writing such kind of mixed type poems, one can incorporate some aspects of formal verse as much as possible (or whenever possible) to have some sense of order and restraint, while at the same time branching out freely in a free verse style to express poetic thoughts. It is worth mentioning here that the late artist and poet Gebrekirstos Desta, had some poems that could relate in some ways to this kind of hybrid approach. Hence, it would also be beneficial to go back and check his works in a fresh light, as it could be a safe point of departure for experimenting in mixed or hybrid kind of poems.

I hope the points raised in this article would be a good topic of debate and discussion, among the contemporary Amharic literary circles and audience. In the past several years, the Ethiopian public has shown great interest and appetite for poetry. Hence, I believe it could be the right time for our contemporary poets to experiment with novel ways of poetic expression, during the current turbulent times our country is in, where chaos, severe economic woes and brutal political repression, have become the order of the day.

May God bless Ethiopia,

Reference:

Tempo, Edith L., 2007, Six poetry formats and the transforming image, University of the Philippines Press