Chapter 4. Special Effects

Sound instrumentation (phonetic orchestration) is the selection of sounds within a poem that possesses artistic and expressive significance corresponding to the content. Let us examine the various kinds of sound instrumentation and their proper use.

Alliteration is the repetition of identical consonant sounds.

Notice how masterfully the consonant cluster “гр” imitates the roar of the elements. Or take Pushkin:

Here we hear the hiss of the punch itself thanks to the repeated consonants “п” and “ш.”

One must not overuse alliteration, because a poem can easily become overloaded with effects. Alliteration is meant to emphasize a particular action, but it should by no means run like a red thread through the entire poem. Although I do know one example of excellent use of alliterative effect throughout a whole poem. In one of Yanka Dyagileva’s few poems, each quatrain seems devoted to a particular consonant: p, m, l, and so forth. For example:

Assonance is the repetition of identical vowel sounds. Assonance serves the same purpose as alliteration.

Here the sounds “у” and “ю” are intended to evoke the whistling howl of an arrow in flight or the sound of a bowstring snapping taut. Assonance, incidentally, is encountered less frequently than alliteration and is considerably more difficult to employ. The rules are the same: do not overuse it.

Onomatopoeia consists of words whose sound suggests the auditory qualities of the phenomena being depicted. Thus, both assonance and alliteration should logically serve the purposes of onomatopoeia. If, in a tender lyrical poem, you build your alliteration upon harsh sounds like “г” and “б,” you risk being misunderstood.

In every line Derzhavin imitates the sound of the phenomenon he describes, even if the sound is not entirely accurate and partly invented by himself. Yet—it is beautiful!

In any case, onomatopoeia in poetry has limited significance. When I hear fashionable contemporary poets croaking out their verses, constructing them entirely upon imitations of animal noises, I begin to feel ill. One must know moderation in all things.

Before proceeding to a detailed examination of fashionable and modern effects, let us consider several more classical methods of ornamenting a poem. In particular, stylistic figures, which include anaphora, inversion, repetition, as well as rhetorical questions, aposiopesis, ellipsis, and others.

Anaphora is the repetition of similar sounds or identical words at the beginning of each line of a poem.

Anaphora generally implies a form of enumeration, yet at the same time it emphasizes that enumeration, creating tension and gradually increasing emotional intensity. At least, that is the case here. At other times, on the contrary, it may reduce tension—for example, when the enumeration consists of Tyutchev-like beauties of nature. Anaphora may be lexical (as in the example above, where the opening words are repeated), syntactic (where entire verbal constructions are repeated), phonetic (where similar sounds recur in different words), or stanzaic (where the repetition occurs not in every line but in each new stanza).

In general, the enumeration of identical or similar phenomena is an excellent device, allowing the reader to remain uncertain about what will happen next while at the same time preventing boredom. Such enumerations may be extremely varied. For example, in Gumilev:

Gumilev incorporates into the poem an enumeration of great navigators. At the same time, he not only skillfully adapts exotic foreign names to the poetic line. He teaches. Surely, after reading such lines, one cannot help becoming curious about who exactly Lapérouse or Gonzalo might have been. Another example:

Here we see an example of alliteration encompassing the synonymous verbs listed in the first line (an element of artistic tautology), after which the initiative is “taken over” by the nouns. Naturally, the enumerated objects must be similar in nature.

Sometimes a poem, even a long one, consists entirely of the uninterrupted enumeration of events, objects, actions, or characteristics. For example, Brodsky’s “Postcard from Lisbon.” It begins with the line “Монументы событиям, никогда не имевшим места:”, after which come precisely those events (bloody wars that never occurred, phrases swallowed at the moment of arrest, a hybrid of a naked body and a coniferous tree, the inventor of an engine fueled by scraps of memory, naked constitutions, and so forth). Mikhail Shcherbakov has a song unique in its structure entitled “Woke Up in the Morning.” It is unrhymed, and its first stanza (19 lines) consists of a consecutive enumeration of the events of a single day in a human life:

...and so on.

The second similar stanza consists of a mad enumeration of human qualities surrounding the hero of the first stanza.

...and so on. This is, of course, excessive. One should no more abuse repetition than sound instrumentation. Yet from time to time it can be interesting to play with this effect.

A special form of repetition is anadiplosis—the repetition of the end of one line at the beginning of the next. This device is extremely ancient:

An example of anadiplosis in Russian literary poetry:

When anadiplosis is compressed, we obtain initial rhyme.

Of course, inversion also plays a very important role in poetry—that is, the violation of the conventional order of speech, which gives the phrase a new expressive emphasis. Let us take a classical quatrain:

If we were writing prose, we would say it this way: “Одинокий парус белеет в голубом тумане моря. Что он ищет в далёкой стране? Что он кинул в родном краю?” An entirely different phrase. Inversion allows a prose phrase to be fitted into poetic meter and places emphasis upon the necessary words.

Antitheses (contrasts) also produce a striking effect in poetry:

Most often, antithesis serves as the basis either for an entire poem or for a complete section of it united by a common idea.

The most widespread and effective means of artistic ornamentation is, of course, the metaphor. I should like to dwell somewhat longer on the search for good metaphors. A metaphor is, essentially, the figurative meaning of a word used in place of its primary sense. And remember: absolutely anything may be replaced by a metaphor. Yet there is one golden rule: do not obscure the meaning to such an extent that it becomes incomprehensible to everyone except yourself! Metaphors must be used in moderation. Otherwise, you may end up—as often happens with Boris Grebenshchikov (with all due respect)—with a beautifully phrased collection of words so overloaded with metaphor that nobody can understand anything. Metaphor should alternate with direct statement. And one more thing: a metaphor is not a synonym. A metaphor may correspond not merely to a word but to an entire expression, an action, virtually anything at all; it may even constitute an entire system of expressions, a phrase, or a whole stanza. As a brilliant example of the use of metaphor, let me cite Marina Tsvetaeva’s untitled poem written in 1939:

What astonishing metaphorical transitions we encounter here: people are sharks of the plains! Wolves of the squares! To drift means to move downward, along the current of backs. Every phrase, every line is a metaphor unique in its poetic power. Above all, metaphor is meant to seize the reader, to catch hold of them and never let go, but instead hand them onward to the next metaphor. And at the same time, everything must remain understandable. Not every individual word, perhaps, but the overall thread, the meaning, the essence. In this poem one senses a note of ultimate despair.

Metaphor itself is a variety of trope. A trope is a general term denoting the substitution of one concept for another. Tropes also include metonymy (the replacement of a word by another related, adjacent, or similar one—essentially a synonym rather than an image), comparison, hyperbole (exaggeration), and so forth. Yet no form of trope constitutes as powerful a stylistic device as metaphor.

The search for a beautiful metaphor is not particularly difficult. It simply depends on what precisely you wish to emphasize through the substitution. For example, “the constellation Virgo” may beautifully be replaced with “the constellation of a woman who has never known men”—a fine metaphor (though somewhat resembling metonymy) that attempts to veil the true meaning. In Gumilev’s splendid “The Animal Tamer,” for instance, the entire poem is one continuous metaphor.

The first two stanzas introduce us to the setting: we drift into the poem and see a young, courageous animal tamer calmly demonstrating his art before the audience. Everything appears perfectly concrete. But…

And here the metaphor appears. As yet we do not understand what sort of magical beast inhabits the tamer’s dreams. But Gumilyov develops the metaphorical image further.

This is the climax of the poem, the highest pitch of emotion and a terrible rupture. The beast brings death to the tamer. But what kind of beast is it?

A stunning metaphor. Until the final stanza, the thought does not even occur to the reader that the poem is about love. And yet it is about love, and about nothing else.

Powerful metaphors also “inhabit” the poetry of Oleg Medvedev. For example, he elegantly veils death as a train traveling skyward to Surkharban (a traditional Tatar folk festival). “You fell asleep to the singing of turbines, awoke to the snorting of horses…”

Here we also encounter an element of metonymy: the phone call to the girl signals the death even before the listener reaches the word “dead.”

Thus, metaphor and metonymy are varieties of trope. A trope is a turn of speech or a word used in a figurative sense. I have dwelt so extensively on metaphor because it is the most widespread and the most striking of all such devices. Tropes also include: hyperbole (exaggeration: “rivers of blood,” “an ocean of laughter”), litotes (the opposite of hyperbole; deliberate understatement: “a tiny little peasant”), periphrasis (the replacement of a word by a descriptive expression conveying its meaning: “the king of beasts” instead of “lion”), personification (prosopopoeia, a form of metaphor in which the qualities of animate beings are transferred to inanimate things: the soul sings, the river plays…), synecdoche (a form of metonymy in which a part stands for the whole or vice versa—Скажи-ка, дядя, ведь недаром Москва, спалённая пожаром, Французу отдана?)

Poets also make wide use of such stylistic figures as comparison (a word or expression containing the likening of one object to another, or one situation to another: “strong as a lion”), allegory (the figurative representation of an abstract idea or concept by means of a concrete image: the lion as strength and power; justice as a woman with scales), grotesque (the depiction of people and phenomena in a fantastic, grotesquely comic form based on sharp contrasts and exaggeration), irony (the expression of mockery or slyness through indirect meaning), sarcasm (a contemptuous, caustic form of mockery; the highest degree of irony), allusion (a hint conveyed through a similar-sounding word or through reference to a well-known fact, historical event, or literary work: “the fame of Herostratus”), antithesis (the juxtaposition or opposition of contrasting concepts or images: “So few the roads we have traveled, so many the mistakes we have made…”), antiphrasis (the use of a word in the opposite sense: “hero,” “eagle,” “sage”), asyndeton (a construction lacking conjunctions between homogeneous words or parts of a whole:

Also noteworthy are polysyndeton (the excessive repetition of conjunctions, creating additional intonational coloring), gradation (the gradual intensification or, conversely, weakening of homogeneous expressive devices in artistic speech), invective (a sharp denunciation or ridicule of a real person or group of persons; a variety of satire), apophasis (when the author alters or refutes a previously expressed thought), metathesis (the transposition of sounds or syllables within a word or phrase, often used as a comic device: “обветрится” becoming “обвертится,” “перепёлка” becoming “пеперёлка,” and so forth), catachresis (the combination of semantically incompatible words which nevertheless form a meaningful whole: “when the crayfish whistles,” “to devour with one’s eyes”), oxymoron (the combination of contrasting or opposite words: “living corpse,” “gigantic dwarf”), parallelism (the identical or similar arrangement of elements of speech in adjacent parts of a text, creating a unified poetic image), chiasmus (a form of parallelism in which two parts are arranged in reverse order: “We eat to live, not live to eat”), parcellation (an expressive syntactic device in which a sentence is intonationally divided into independent fragments graphically separated as distinct sentences: “And again. Gulliver. Stands. Hunched over.”), syllepsis (the combination of heterogeneous elements under a common semantic or syntactic dependency: “The gossip’s eyes and teeth blazed up”), symploce (the repetition of opening and closing words in adjacent lines or phrases with varying middles, or of middles with varying openings and endings: “And I sit, full of sorrow, alone I sit upon the shore”), euphemism (the replacement of indecent, coarse, or awkward words and expressions with softer and more indefinite ones: instead of “pregnant” — “expecting a child,” instead of “fat” — “full-figured”), ellipsis (the omission in speech of a word implied by the context and recoverable from it), and acromonogram (the repetition of the end of one line at the beginning of the next).

Let me devote a separate paragraph to such an interesting figure as application. Application is the embedding into the text of a literary work of a well-known expression (a proverb, saying, prose or poetic excerpt, and so forth) either as a direct quotation or reference, or in some altered form. For example:

Applications should be used carefully, so that the borrowing does not appear to be mere banal plagiarism. In other words, the quotation must be sufficiently well known that its authorship will not be attributed to you; moreover, its original authorship should itself provide some food for thought—there must be a reason why you chose to quote precisely this line by precisely this author.

Well then, I believe I have said enough about stylistic figures. Do not forget that this handbook is not a dictionary of literary studies. I have not even mentioned the majority of stylistic figures existing in the Russian language, so as not to overload you with information. I shall now attempt to explain, in an accessible way, the non-classical methods of ornamenting poetry—one might say, the fashionable modern ones.

There will be a fair amount of repetition in this section, because part of this material has already been discussed in the section devoted to rhyme. In particular, I spoke there about muftolingva, proper names, and foreign words. Now, however, I shall examine each of these topics in greater detail.

Word formation (neologisms). So then, invent new words—do not be afraid to do so. The main thing is that their meaning should remain understandable. Newly coined words may be found, for example, in Brodsky:

And although the Russian language contains no such word as “тихотворение,” we instinctively understand what it means. In Tsvetaeva, neologism serves the purpose of becoming a rhyme:

“Глушизна” is something more terrible than mere deafness. It is an abyss in which sound disappears. One might also invent, for example, вершизны. The ending “зн” here lends an element of astonishing grandeur.

The already-mentioned Willy Melnikov, of course, surpassed everyone who attempted word formation before him. Melnikov’s muftolingva (macaronic neologisms) are unique both in their construction and in their semantic richness.

“Номоскрёб” is a gigantic silent building, “небосрество” and “взлетайна” suggest the mystery of flight, “шприцешпиль”… Melnikov invents such profound and astonishing words, and yet in all this verbal madness he does not depart by a single iota from the canons of classical Russian word formation. Note also how masterfully the rhyming English phrase “cloud nine” is inserted here (incidentally, this is the title of George Harrison’s 1987 album). Here are several more examples of muftolingva taken from various poems by Melnikov:

In general, muftolingva are a particular case of contamination, a device also employed by the classical poets:

The general case of contamination may include not only the formation of new words from familiar ones, but also the formation of new phrases from idioms and quotations: “Чем дальше в лес, тем третий лишний”, for example.

Melnikov, of course, is a maximalist. One should not attempt, in imitation of him, to overload a poem with macaronic neologisms and invented words. Yet when used appropriately, as in Tsvetaeva or Brodsky, terms you invent yourself may appear remarkably beautiful. Experiment to your heart’s content!

Oleg Medvedev provides a skillful example of the use of word formation:

“Скитайский” is a blend of “китайский” (“Chinese,” such a word exists) and “скитальский” (“wandering,” such a word does not exist, but why not?). The resulting meaning is double-layered and quite beautiful.

Another variety of neologism (that is, newly coined words) is the so-called zaum. A peculiar phenomenon, largely devoid of semantic content, zaum cannot really be recommended for frequent use. Yet in humorous poetry it may prove quite appropriate. Zaum rejects the Russian language as a means of communication in literature and instead proclaims a poetic language incomprehensible even to its own creators.

Here is an example of prose close to zaum by the Constructivist writer Aleksey Chicherin:

Кремль мерк. Крем вер мрел изо рва морем рваного рёва; кремнёвое, кроме мозгового мора — орало роем ёмких рокотов, безтравых травм, орав пролеточных боровов и трамвайных Варавв. Соборов лококольные тики икали и калеными грецкими китонами грели грехи хилых — в 7 всем всеношня. Веисённия сени, веисёлыя, лысыя, яркия, учуявшия кующаго ярь ярилу, ликовали о лицах весенних все; рыскали, жиреюще рея ярились, прокураты, к поюшкам сердечников и ниц.

Elements of zaum as a playful principle in poetry may also be found in folklore, children’s counting-out rhymes, and teasing chants.

The stylistic device of metathesis is likewise a method of word formation. It consists in the transposition of syllabic parts within words, altering their sound and sometimes even their meaning. For example: “lerigiozny” instead of “religiozny” (“religious”); humorous distortions such as “porochny malosyonok” (“vicious little piglet”) or “Bronetyomkin Ponosets” instead of “Bronenosets Potyomkin,” and so forth. The famous lines in Samuil Marshak’s poem “Here’s How Absent-Minded He Was” are constructed upon the principle of metathesis:

Foreign words (barbarisms). I have already written about this in much greater detail than about muftolingva. Nevertheless, I shall repeat myself and speak about all manner of foreignisms in still greater detail. The undisputed champion of such practices is, surprisingly enough, the same Melnikov. I would not, however, recommend imitating him, since his work is highly peculiar and somewhat anomalous.

German and English words incorporated into muftolingva produce a highly interesting effect. But Melnikov was a polyglot and combined many different languages in his poetry. Not everyone is capable of such feats. Let me therefore give an example of the skillful use of a foreign word in order to achieve the proper meter:

How does one fit into the meter a disyllabic word stressed on the first syllable, while also emphasizing the killer’s singularity? “Солдат” (“soldier”) would be an excellent word, except that the stress falls incorrectly. So instead we insert the German “zoldat,” which carries precisely the stress we need (firstly) and at the same time fits splendidly into the “German” atmosphere of the song (or poem).

In this example, the words are not merely foreign, but in fact commonly used precisely in their foreign spelling. Music in the style of “love” is essentially soul music; the word “Chevalier” elegantly replaces the banal word “wine.” And “Leica” takes the place of the word “camera,” which would fit the poem rather awkwardly. In general, foreign words lend poetry a modern flavor and make it possible to handle themes that are not traditionally accepted in classical Russian poetry. For example, like this:

Have you seen the “Silent Hill” movie? Now you will have to.

Those were examples drawn from my own work. Nevertheless, this device is widely used by other contemporary poets as well. Here are two similar examples:

The word “repeat” fits beautifully into the poetic line of the first poem. In the second, the German counting cadence emphasizes the measured marching step of the soldiers.

Wordplay, too, may at times be woven very effectively into the foreign speech of Russian poetry.

“Greyhound” here refers to the American bus company. Yet at the same time it is also a breed of dog—and thus we arrive at the image of an “iron hound of the endless highways.”

Vulgarisms. Now this is something I have not yet discussed. And I should, because vulgarisms too may at times be employed in poetry to remarkable effect. Of course, one may understand vulgarisms simply as Russian obscenity, widely used in poetry, for example, by Ivan Barkov. But that is not the point. Coarse, colloquial, and sometimes grammatically incorrect words and expressions should be used above all to intensify the thought being expressed, to provide a more emotional characterization of the figures involved. In Mayakovsky’s famous “The Poem of the Soviet Passport,” for instance, there are the lines:

This is a classic vulgarism, emphasizing the author’s harsh attitude toward the subject under discussion.

Here the vulgarism “навернёшься” (“you’ll go crashing down”) emphasizes an everyday, dull-witted attitude toward death, a sort of “as-if-that’s-just-how-it’s-supposed-to-be.”

At times vulgarisms are intended not to emphasize an attitude, but simply to “plug” a gap in the poetic meter. We shall later speak about the harmfulness of little filler words such as “уж”; vulgarisms, however, sometimes look somewhat better in such a role.

Here the vulgarism “блин” serves not only as an artistic device—alongside the word “ёкнула,” both emphasizing the folk flavor of the song—but also plugs a gap, supplying the missing syllable in the meter (before the caesura—amphibrach, after the caesura—dactyl; incidentally, the combination is handled very skillfully).

And finally, a few more words about obscenity. Many contemporary poets and writers (the latter more often) proudly proclaim that profanity is an inseparable part of language, without which they supposedly cannot do. Yet Tolstoy somehow managed without it. And Gogol. And Nekrasov. The notion that obscenity is perfectly normal in poetry is often nothing more than a justification for one’s own vulgarity. Only a couple of times in my life have I encountered instances where profanity truly belonged in a poem. Obscenity is not the same thing as vulgarism. Profanity is a highly specific and complex element of language. If a person is incapable of expressing feelings without profanity, then that person simply does not command the language. Profanity is appropriate only in rare and highly specialized cases. Therefore, dear poets, please write beautifully—without obscenity and without vulgarity. Additional material on this subject may be found in my companion article to the “Handbook,” “Profanity in Poetry: Appropriate and Otherwise”. There I examine in detail the circumstances under which one may allow oneself the use of obscene vocabulary without crossing the line.

Even while avoiding obscenity, however, one may sometimes capture that subtle boundary separating vulgarity from irony. A fine example is the remarkable poet Mark Freidkin, who jokes masterfully and with a touch of bawdiness in almost every song, yet never loses his charm. For instance, what could be better than his marvelous “Song of Universal Loss of Virginity”!

Funny, and not without vulgarisms. Yet—not vulgar.

Rarely used words. Another means of ornamenting poetry is the use of uncommon, infrequently encountered words and expressions which may perhaps compel the reader to reach for an encyclopedia in order to discover their meaning, thus serving an educational function as well. To this same category I would, in principle, also assign proper names that we do not often encounter in everyday speech.

A reader unfamiliar with what a bucephalus is (here used as a common noun, meaning simply a mighty horse) will become curious about it. In much the same way, they may wonder where Ur was located (Mesopotamia), who the Sumerians were, and, of course, who the Eloi are. Meanwhile, a well-read person familiar with these concepts will enjoy recognizing them, putting their erudition to the test.

Here we effectively “hook” the reader with the name of Saint-Germain, as well as with scolopendras and especially dipsads. I distinctly remember that I could not find the meaning of this term anywhere except on the Internet, and even there only in a couple of places repeating the same copied definition. Just in case, dipsads are mythical species of snakes that supposedly (according to the Pharsalia) inhabited the deserts of Libya.

Apart from the two brilliant rhymes (especially белым–парабеллум), this quatrain masterfully intertwines the modern medical term “antidote,” the somewhat archaic word “алым” (scarlet) (now largely replaced by “red”), and the name of a pistol.

A special type of using a proper name in poetry is the sphragis—the mention within a poem of the poet’s own name, that is, the author of the verses. In the ancient world there was the epigrammatist poet Phocylides, who inserted the line “And this was spoken by Phocylides” into many of his epigrams. Here is a ghazal by the fifteenth-century Timurid poet Ali-Shir Nava'i; the author’s name is included in the final bayt:

I will not give any further examples, since I believe the idea is already clear enough. Expand your erudition and pass it on to the reader.

Modern and archaic words (neologisms and archaisms). Language, as I have already said, never stands still. Consequently, new commonly used words appear—sometimes slang expressions, yet not vulgarisms. Why should we not use them in poetry, if we use them in our everyday speech? As Alexander Vasilyev wrote:

This is, of course, not the finest example, but it is crammed with so many trendy little words that I simply could not resist.

The fashionable modern word “flyer” somehow combines in a bizarre way with the surname of a French royal dynasty and the title of a black book of spells.

Laboratory terms also belong to the modern category: diode, sensor, cuvette. At the same time, the archaic word “вязь” is also present here. One more example:

First of all, there is an excellent rhyme with the word “востоке”; secondly, the phrase “электронный кладенец” is used wonderfully here, serving as a very apt description of a weapon from Star Wars.

Modern words are much easier to use than archaic ones, because the former fit quite naturally into our everyday speech. The latter, however, are not so easy to employ correctly and appropriately. Archaisms work especially well, for example, in traditional quotations. That is, if we are quoting the Bible, then the old Russian “не убий” is naturally more fitting than a modernized version. One may quote from The Tale of Igor’s Campaign or from the Revelation of John the Theologian—it does not matter. But simply stuffing archaic words into poems is wrong. After all, can one really say, “I gazed into her eyes and drank beer”? Hardly. Archaic words for eyes, cheeks, and neck must harmonize with the meaning of the poem, with its plot and the temporal framework that shapes it. Marina Tsvetaeva used archaic words brilliantly—artfully, in a deeply Russian manner. Look how harmonious it is:

Or:

“Острожник” (from ostrog) is perceived by us precisely as a prisoner of that era—the late nineteenth century, no later. Moreover, in the first example we see an excellent case of alliteration built around the sound combination “ож.”

The pitfalls in using archaisms are as follows. Dear poets, please do not fill a “missing” syllable with particles such as “уж”! This is an archaism that categorically does not belong in modern poetry and merely clutters the language. Likewise, do not replace words like “эти” with “се” or “этот” with “сей” simply to obtain the correct syllable count. That, too, is an unjustified and foolish use of archaisms. In fact, the fewer particles and other auxiliary parts of speech there are in a text, the better! Use modern and archaic words carefully: if there is no harmony between them, the poem is not worth a rotten egg.

Illiterates. These are speech sounds not represented by letters, or represented only conventionally—calls for silence, whistles, spitting sounds, wheezing, snoring, sobbing, and so on. Thus, for example, the sounds a coachman makes to stop a horse are conventionally written as “whoa!”, a whistle as “fwee!”, and a sneeze as “achoo!”. Examples:

Wordplay. One of the most interesting special effects is wordplay. In order to “catch” a beautiful play on words, one must possess a highly developed feel for language and a large vocabulary. Brilliant wordplay is often found in the poetry of Konstantin Arbenin. For example,

Боливар–переварит. The meaning is crystal clear (this is a modified quotation from The Roads We Take by O. Henry), while the phrasing itself is absolutely marvelous. Another quotation from Arbenin—indeed, several from the same song:

Or:

Or:

Besides Arbenin, many others have used wordplay masterfully to emphasize particular ideas. Incidentally, Melnikov’s muftolingvа are also a type of wordplay.

A variety of wordplay connected with rhyme is the holorhyme, which is discussed in the section “Entertaining Versification”. Here, however, I will give only a single example of a holorhyme:

As we can see, in holorhymes adjacent (sometimes alternating) lines are written absolutely identically; the difference in meaning is achieved through different division into words and different punctuation. Incidentally, an excellent exercise for developing a feel for wordplay is the so-called wavewalker, which is discussed in the section “Entertaining Versification”.

Quite often, in order to lend a poem a certain effect, it is preceded by a so-called motto, that is, a brief saying that establishes the principal tone or general mood of the work. A motto is something akin to an epigraph; it is often a quotation from a classic work or a Latin aphorism, and sometimes a dedication to someone. A motto must necessarily correspond to the poem, and its use must be justified.

Let me summarize this section. The most important rule of embellishing poetry is this: never overdo the embellishment! Foreign and slang words, muftolingva, proper names, and encyclopedic terms must under no circumstances overshadow the meaning of the poem or its essence. Everything should be used in moderation! Use embellishments only where they truly help emphasize something. Do not cram them into every possible corner! Remember this, and everything will turn out splendidly.

One of the most important ways of creating a beautiful poem is the грамотное and elegant construction of the poetic phrase. The simplest method of construction is the case in which each line forms a complete sentence, or when one sentence joins two lines and ends at the close of the second.

This is precisely how most poets begin to write. But it is far too simple. It is much more effective to break a phrase in the middle of a line, striving even in poetic speech to construct complex subordinate sentences of the kind we ordinarily use in prose. In my opinion, Joseph Brodsky achieved absolute perfection in this.

I have quoted this poem here in full for one very simple reason. Using it as an example, one can analyze more than half of all the poetic devices described in this treatise. But first of all, look at its structure. The gigantic opening sentence—complex, filled not only with enumeration but also with extremely intricate turns of phrase, enjambments, and prepositional rhymes! Could you write like that? The second part differs noticeably from the first—and that is precisely why it stands out. Several fairly short sentences spread across two stanzas. And the shortest of all is the final one, concluding the poem. Essentially, the moral.

Besides the astonishing structure of the poem, one can observe here almost every device I have mentioned: stylistic figures, proper names, even initials, encyclopedic words, vulgarisms, archaic expressions—everything imaginable. A little textbook of poetry contained within a single poem. In general, the carrying over of part of a phrase from one line into another, or from one stanza into another, does not have a full-fledged English term. In his dictionary of poetic terms published in 1925, Yakov Zundelovich applies to it the French term enjambement.

Joseph Brodsky repeatedly returned to complex, lengthy, information-overloaded phrases.

If in the first poem (“On the Death of a Friend”) the magnificent sentence structures are fitted into a strict three-foot anapest, then in the second the meter is scarcely observed at all—which nevertheless does not prevent the poem from being extremely beautiful.

Wonderful constructions may also be found in the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva:

I cannot help noting that parentheses and dashes are rather simple ways of extending a phrase, inserting something into its middle that does not directly relate to its essence. Both Brodsky and Tsvetaeva make extensive use of this device.

Strive toward long, complex sentences. Break them into lines. Slice them apart, cut them to pieces—whatever you like. Write beautifully! And as for how sentences should not be constructed, you may read about that in the article “Wonderful Stylistics” in this textbook.

Young poets suffer from one chronic illness. With enviable regularity, they either lack syllables to fit the meter or, conversely, have too many of them. Sometimes there are simply not enough words to express an idea; at other times, the idea becomes so tangled in unnecessary words that it is impossible to understand the essence at all. As a result, poems become filled with vast quantities of verbal clutter that spoils the verse and interferes with its proper perception.

The most harmful kind of stylistic clutter is particles. For example, the particle “уж.” I have already mentioned it earlier. If you are short of words, insert some word that actually carries meaning, but not an archaic particle that is usually inappropriate in context. Words such as “тот,” “тут,” “уж,” “се,” and the like belong precisely to this category. “Взял тут Коля пылесос и убрал ту кучу роз.” In this stanza, “тут” is entirely unnecessary, and “ту” even more so. It is better to rework the whole phrase, use different turns of speech and different words, but rid yourself of verbal cockroaches. Remember: long, beautiful words look much better.

Nowadays, the particle “уж” may be used only in certain fixed expressions, such as “Ну, что уж теперь вспоминать…” or “Куда уж тебе!” or “Вы уж постарайтесь!” But not in the meaning of “уже.” “Уже” and “уж” are two entirely different words with different semantic functions.

Again, earlier we discussed the archaic pronouns “сей,” “сия,” and “се.” I emphasize that they are appropriate only in retro-style poems that stylistically imitate the manner of versification from two centuries ago. Replacing “этот” with “сей” in a modern poem is unacceptable. Indeed, using an excessive number of pronouns in general (especially “тот” and “этот”) is harmful. One should rid a work of an overabundance of auxiliary parts of speech. I repeat: the fewer prepositions, conjunctions, particles, and pronouns there are, the better.

In literary speech, the word “тут” is intended exclusively to indicate the geographical location of some object. I consider its use in reference to time unacceptable—except perhaps in humorous folkloric contexts. Incidentally, the word “здесь” in its more literary variant is preferable to the colloquial equivalent.

There is another fashionable habit. A hero named Pyotr Petrovich Petushkov is mentioned in the first line. And then in every subsequent line the pronoun “he” is repeated endlessly. The possession of some object by this same Pyotr Petrovich is marked ten times over with the pronoun “his.” Why? It is verbal clutter. If these repetitions do not carry any emphatic weight, then they serve no purpose, because even without them it is perfectly clear who is doing what in the poem—and who is not. Incidentally, note that these are peculiarities specifically of the Russian language. It cannot be compared with English, where “his” may be repeated many times without diminishing the elegance of the speech.

I suppose there is little point in continuing. Write as you feel compelled to write. The main thing is that your poems outlive you.