The making of a box and placing of contents within: Exploring self-imposed constraint and detail selection in the cat poems of William Carlos Williams, Elizabeth Bishop, and WB Yeats

Some thoughts on free verse poem composition

In the late 19^th Century Romanticism fades and Modernism steps up to change the game; people across Europe and America are shocked and displaced in the aftermath of WW1, and creatives begin searching for tones that better match the distortion of their reality. Modernism pushes and calls for a revolution, for poets and artists to portray the ‘real’ world through a transparency of language.

Largely beginning with Ezra Pound and the Imagist movement, modernist poets sought to radically change the poetic landscape, experimenting heavily with new styles and methods, breaking the boundaries of traditional form, subject matter and style, and experimenting with line breaks, syllabics, and presentation on the page; there was a distinct shift toward writing in free verse.

‘Free verse’ has become an integral facet of contemporary poetry, yet even if we don’t write in traditional form we’re still using some kind of form for our poems - we utilise tercets or quatrains, internal or end rhyme, visual structure, rhythm and melody.

In this piece I’m exploring how consciously utilising self-imposed constraint in free verse helps produce intricate and impactful pieces. Constraint is difficult; it forces you to think differently, to adapt your work, and often to pare it down in ways you otherwise wouldn’t. It’s an effective way of producing new effects and getting outside your own head. While studying in Germany I took a short story class with a visiting US professor; over that course we looked at a variety of writing constraints—refusing to use ‘e’, setting specific wordcounts, lists of things for inclusion or exclusion, etc. Initially I found the exercises frustrating, but the more I tried the more I discovered potential to move beyond my usual boundaries; I became better at problem solving, and the solutions I found took me in fresh and interesting directions, adding new dimensions to the pieces I produced.

This piece explores some of the ways three quite different poets have approached constraint within their free verse pieces. It also touches on detail selection and how, despite the general subject similarity, the lens and specific details in each poem mark out its individual tone and meaning. I’m interested in why and how we choose the details we do: if these are absent, enhanced, or replaced, how much does a poem lose or change?

I’m asking these questions because they’re ones that arise for me in my work: how, from the great pool of everything, do I present my poems, create my form, pick my details? I’m hoping this exploration will afford me some insight into other poets choices so I can make deeper, more meditated ones of my own.

Finally, why cats? Because why not cats. I love cats. They have been, and still are, a source of joy and fascination worldwide; appearing in literature and art throughout history, and surely on into the future as well. The poems presented here can all be found in the anthology ‘Cat Poems’, Ed by Elizabeth Bishop.

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Poem (As The Cat), William Carlos Williams

Poem (As The Cat)
William Carlos Williams

As the cat
climbed over
the top of

the jamcloset
first the right
forefoot

carefully
then the hind
stepped down

into the pit of
the empty
flowerpot

The placement of line breaks is a big conversation within contemporary poetry. But despite being a central feature today the humble line break had little life as a technique in its own right before William Carlos Williams began experimenting with it as a device to open up space in unexpected ways and places, changing where stresses and emphasis fell, and slowing reading.

Unusually placed line breaks disrupt details which may otherwise be read as a single unit of sense, inviting closer observation, inspection, and interrogation of language; when applied to everyday matters and subjects this effect exposes the interesting within the mundane and provokes an unusual questioning. Williams’ decision to indent lines, cut them unexpectedly, and place them in stepped arrangements was a big move away from the musicality inherent in the formal poems of previous eras; instead of a musical unit, he presented pieces written in ‘spoken language’, broken up and arranged in a way he felt would mirror the often unrhythmic nature of everyday speech. He was particularly interested – largely influenced by his time with Ezra Pound and HD at Pennsylvania University – in creating “swift, uncluttered, functional phrasing”, and searched for a way to manifest and exhibit an ‘American Poetics’ in the face of the long and strong British poetic tradition.

“Poem (As The Cat)” is a wonderful example of using line breaks to highlight the intricacies within the ordinary and so unlock that secret door into an elongated moment of new consideration. There’s no punctuation, and without the line breaks it could be read as a single sentence: “As the cat climbed over the top of the jamcloset first the right forefoot carefully then the hind stepped down into the pit of the empty flowerpot.” Encountered in this way the poem loses the length and space it previously held, and appears – apart from the position of ‘carefully’ – as a relatively ordinary descriptive sentence. By breaking the lines where he does Williams creates a nine-line, three stanza poem from this single sentence, with three lines each in the first two stanzas and six in the last. The poem is physically elongated across the page, taking up more physical space and demanding more mental space. This additional space forces a slower reading, drawing attention to each of the cats movements and simultaneously mirroring the careful and deliberate manner with which it moves. The poem and the cat become interlocked rather than two distinct units, and the image created in the reader’s mind is exact.

In writing this moment Williams also highlights the juxtaposition between the serious intent of the cats careful movement and the ever-familiar reality of its endeavour—to sit within a container. In some ways this poem foreshadows all those reels and memes of cats squeezing into boxes and bowls; it’s a humorous exhibition of an amusing feline trait—it’s comedic, yet also delicate and gentle, graceful and tender.

Although not written in strict syllabics most lines consist of only three or four syllables, with only a single line in the whole poem containing five. This use of plain, single syllable words fits well the simple, commonplace style; had more compound or complex words been chosen it would change the poem’s feel and cadence, and perhaps create distance from the cat by overcomplicating its description and so shifting focus towards the act of observation. Instead there’s no suggestion of any metaphor or hidden meaning, and this direct focus works as enhancement.

When thinking about detail selection I notice here it’s the total omission of other detail in the surroundings, weather, speaker, jamcloset, flowerpot, or elsewhere that serves to impress such singular focus on the cat and brings the reader so entirely into the poem’s moment. Yet it’s not devoid of detail. The cat ‘climbed’ over the jamcloset, the ‘right forefoot’ moved ‘first’ and ‘carefully’, and the space within the ‘empty flowerpot’ is a ‘pit’. Climbing suggests determination and intent, the use of ‘first’ slows movement, the qualifier ‘empty’ clarifies space, and ‘pit’ is suggestive of a small, enclosed, cave-like place. These small, uncomplex details are well chosen to work in tandem with the form and style. We’re left asking: what is it to be a cat, unconcerned by the concerns of man, stepping down into a small container in which you might make your temporary home?

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Lullaby for the Cat, Elizabeth Bishop

Lullaby For the Cat
Elizabeth Bishop

Minnow, go to sleep and dream,
Close your great big eyes;
Round your bed Events prepare
The pleasantest surprise.

Darling Minnow, drop that frown,
Just cooperate,
Not a kitten shall be drowned
In the Marxist State.

Joy and Love will both be yours,
Minnow, don't be glum.
Happy days are coming soon —
Sleep, and let them come…

Entirely different in form, content, and style, Bishop’s “Lullaby for the Cat” utilises three quatrains, a regular rhyme scheme, regular syllabic pattern, direct address to the cat, and wider political undertones. This poem doesn’t mimic its subject, and there’s a clear distinction between speaker and subject. There’s also reference to the outside world which gives the poem political and social context, and dates it. Creating and adhering to her own self-imposed constraints, Bishop’s poem is tightly woven and complex.

By employing quatrains, syllabics, and rhyme Bishop has expertly combined aspects of traditional form along with a lullaby rhythm to create a structure unique to this piece. This is a fabulous example of how you can mix and match aspects of form within free verse to create new entirely new forms for specific purposes, enhancing the nuance of individual pieces.