Sea Changes: a Narrative Poem in Sprung Pentameter

Wayne Jones and Elaine Jones (unrelated), in their late 20s, are still undergoing growing pains. They come together through mutual need (loneliness/physical attraction), but recognize almost immediately that mutual need is not enough, that they have succeeded only in cheating themselves. He’s a carpenter, poetry his north star, the world (Elaine included) his subject matter. She’s a secretary, fresh from a bad marriage, suspicious of men who use poetry to cover shortcomings. Both are looking for diversion. It’s a coming-of-age story, brimming with home-truths—but the Epilogue deepens the coming-of-age theme to another more profound, perhaps the only theme that matters.

Despite the interest of the narrative itself, its more unusual merit is its format: a new approach to rhyme. For instance, while “curiosity” and “city” satisfy the conventional requirement of a rhyme, “ity” being the rhyming syllables, it is a soft rhyme, not a hard rhyme such as “luminosity” and “curiosity,” or “pity” and “city.” The stress in “curiosity” is on “oss,” and in “city” on “cit.” “Oss” and “cit” are not rhymes, but centuries of usage have inured readers to soft rhymes. Rhyming syllables for “oss” in “curiosity” would be found in “blossom,” “imposter,” “posse,” and “jostle” (among others), each taking “oss” for its root sound. Similarly, rhyming syllables for “city” would be found in “Britain,” “critic,” “grit,” “glitter,” “little,” or “Hitler” (among others), each taking “itt” for its root sound. To take another example, “Elizabeth” is similarly linked to “lizard,” “dizzy,” “business,” “prism,” “Ms.,” “his,” “quiz,” and “risible” among others. To sharpen the point: if we call such linkages Correspondences, then “Peter” and “sweeter” are rhymes—and “Peter” and “sweetheart” are Correspondences, but not rhymes. Incidentally, “Peter” and “sweeter” are also Correspondences (Correspondences and rhymes).

On a related note, in Sprung Pentameter, each of the 5 stresses in each line finds a Correspondence in the neighborhood above or below the same line—and not necessarily at the end of the line. The story was written originally in prose, then blank verse, then free verse, then sprung rhythm, then finally in its current form, Sprung Pentameter, which receives a more thorough explanation in the book itself, in a Note precisely relating the author’s intent. The process, begun in 1979, took 40 years to reach its present state. The following is a sample:

Poems are words bejeweled—and, as jewels feed not the miner, poems feed not the poet, but the ones left behind, the readers of the words, caretakers of the works of Poe and Plath and Berryman, who cared not a dime for Poe and Plath and Berryman in their time, and care less for the Poes, Plaths, and Berrymans living today than the dead of yesterday—but such is the way of the world.

Jewels of the earth break their miners, not their owners, not the wheelers and dealers, the middlebrow middleclass civilians who care so much for art—but less (if at all) for artists—who go to the opera and theater and movies to be seen and heard, not to see and hear; who read for knowledge, not wisdom; scholarship, not insight; entertainment, not understanding—to be for an instant enchanted, removed from care (but remain unaware).

This stolid self-satisfied business tycoon, fat with prosperity, measures success by acreage, treasures treasures treasured by others, prizes price over value, appearance over reality, and dwells with his spouse (who shops till she drops) in a house that might elsewhere house villages.

The poet ponders the imponderable: the bond between art and the world. All business tycoons are no more goons than all poets are loons. At their best, they’re yin and yang, sun and air and sea and sand—a wonder he’d best let be.