Chapter 5. Entertaining Versification
In this section I have used several excellent ideas from Nikolai Shulgovsky’s book Entertaining Versification (1926). I cannot say that Shulgovsky was a brilliant poet. But he was a magnificent literary scholar; his books on versification can serve as textbooks helpful both to beginning poets and to established authors. The section “Entertaining Versification” is devoted to poems that do not always possess great artistic value, yet represent extraordinarily interesting examples of poetic amusements.
Poems of mysterious form. Such poems include the acrostic, mesostic, telestic, and tautogram.
Acrostic is a poem in which the initial letters of each line, read from top to bottom, form a word or expression. If they form a name, the acrostic is called a nomogram. Most often, names are encoded in acrostics; thus, such poetic exercises usually function as dedications. Here is an example of an acrostic-nomogram in which the first and last name of a young woman are concealed:
Naturally, the content of the poem should correspond to the image of the person to whom it is dedicated. Acrostics are not easy to write. But on the other hand, they impose strict limitations through their initial letters, which somewhat restrain the flight of imagination. Here is an example of a simpler acrostic dedicated to poetry:
An acrostic may also be word-based ("Герману Лукомникову"):
Do not become overly enamored of acrostics. Everything should be used in moderation.
Mesostic is a poem in which the letters forming the “mysterious” word are located not at the beginning, but arranged in the middle of the poem. An especially original form is the so-called labyrinth poem, in which the letters of the “cipher” form some kind of figure, are arranged diagonally, or follow some other pattern. Let us try, for example, to conceal the word “любовь”:
Content-wise, it turns out to be utter nonsense (since it was improvised), but the word “love” can nevertheless be read diagonally. It is formed by the 1st letter of the 1st line, the 3rd letter of the 2nd line, then the 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th letters respectively. In some mesostics, spaces are counted as letters as well. Moreover, words may be encoded in a staircase pattern, simply in a straight line (for example, the 3rd letter of each line), and so forth. Incidentally, different sources interpret the concept of the mesostic differently. Kvyatkovsky’s classical dictionary defines a mesostic as a poem in which the letters forming the “mysterious word” may be arranged only vertically—that is, the word is formed solely by the second, or third, or tenth letters of each line. Poems written like the one above are, in that interpretation, specifically called labyrinth poems. An example of a more classical mesostic may be found below (“Алеет закат...”)
Telestic is a poem in which the final letters of each line form a word or phrase. A variety of the acrostic.
By combining mesostics and acrostics, one may obtain, for example, the following form (a sonnet, incidentally):
In fact, there are countless ways of concealing various words and names. There are labyrinth poems in which the same phrase may be read diagonally both from right to left, top to bottom, and from left to right, top to bottom; encoded words may be arranged in staircases, squares, triangles, stars within the poem—in short, in any manner imaginable. For example, here is Gleb Sedelnikov’s quadruple acrostic sonnet dedicated to Marina Tsvetaeva:
There are even sixfold and tenfold ones!
There are also acrostics in which not the first letters, but the first words of each line form a phrase.
A peculiar variety of the acrostic is the abecedarius (alphabet poem). In it, the initial letters of all the words or lines consecutively form the alphabet in either normal or reverse order.
An abecedarius may be either line-based (as in the example above) or word-based:
A reverse abecedarius, in which the initial letters form the alphabet not from А to Я but in reverse order, from Я to А, is encountered very rarely:
A more detailed discussion of letter-based and syllabic acrostics, telestics, mesostics, labyrinth poems, line-based, word-based, and reverse abecedarii may be found in Lecture No. 7 by Tatyana Bonch-Osmolovskaya from her course on combinatorial poetry, “Sequences. Letter Sequences: Abecedarii and Acrostics. Mesostics and Telestics. Phonetic Sequences. Complex and Multiple Acrostics. Labyrinths,” as well as in various articles by Ivan Chudasov.
Tautogram is a poem in which all words begin with the same letter. For example:
The Russian poet Ivan Chudasov wrote an entire cycle of tautograms for nearly every letter of the alphabet, thereby proving that such a thing is entirely possible. One of the most monumental tautograms is considered to be the grand Latin poem Pugna Porcorum (“The Battle of the Pigs”) by the Dominican monk Iohannes Placentius, in which every word begins with the letter “p” (1530). Tautograms may also be terminal (all words ending with the same letter) or initial-terminal (all words both beginning and ending with the same letter). Here is an example of an initial-terminal tautogram:
Another form of trick poetry is the lipogram—a poem in which one or several sounds are completely absent (for example, Gavrila Derzhavin’s poem “The Nightingale” is written without the sound “r”). The most difficult type of lipogram is the univocalic—a poem in which only certain vowels are used. For example, the “O” univocalic:
In another variety of the univocalic (monoconsonantism), the author leaves only a single consonant (L).
In the end, different types may also be combined. Here, for example, is a tautogrammatic univocalic:
A remarkable experiment in combinatorial poetry is the so-called anagraph. An anagraph is a poem composed entirely of specific letters taken from a particular word or phrase. An excellent example of such a poem is the anagraph “Харитонову,” written by Boris Grinberg (a dedication to the poet Yevgeny Kharitonov):
As we can see, Grinberg uses exclusively the letters contained in the title “Харитонову.” In general, Boris Grinberg is one of the leading poets working in the genre of combinatorial poetry; he is the inventor of several new forms of combinatorial verse. Personally, I was absolutely astonished by such an experiment as the metametagram. Grinberg himself admitted that it was one of his most difficult poetic experiments.
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ИГРА ГОРОД ДОРОГ Обрети ветра гора,
розы загоритесь...
Сиры правила. Игра
жарит — покоритесь!
— Город нагреет! —
Дрань ржёт,
Рясами зреет
Храм, врёт!
Среди руна крестов ворчат,
Грянут утро рая...
Руки жаркие врача,
кроны вырезают.
Морить?
Обречь?
Мерь прыть.
Вправь речь!
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ИГЛА ГОЛОД ДОЛОГ Облети ветла гола,
лозы заголитесь...
Силы плавила игла,
Жалит — поколитесь!
Голод наглеет
Длань лжёт,
Лясами злеет
Хлам влёт.
Следи луна клестов, волчат…
Глянут, утло лая —
Луки жалкие влача,
клоны вылезают.
Молить?
Облечь?
Мель — плыть.
Вплавь — лечь.
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Two poems are formed from one another simply by replacing the letter “р” with “л,” while these letters occur in every word of the poem. If you manage to write something like this, I shall ask to become your student.
A peculiar method of lipogrammatic restriction is the so-called prisoner’s constraint. It consists in the prohibition against using words with “tails” that protrude below the even line of the verse (that is, letters such as у, щ, ф, р, д, б). This is a purely visual restriction, since in different typefaces the “tails” belong to different letters.
A more detailed discussion of tautograms, lipograms, pangrams, and other alphabetic constraints may be found in Lecture No. 12 by Tatyana Bonch-Osmolovskaya from her course on combinatorial poetry: “Limits: Alphabetic Constraints. Tautograms, the Lipogram. Pangrams and Lipogrammatic Pangrams. Heterogrammatic and Isogrammatic Poems by Georges Perec.”
There are also more complex forms of mysterious verse. For example, crypts. A crypt is a poem in which every line contains a caesura exactly in the middle. Moreover, it may be read both from right to left and from top to bottom. For example:
| Хранить любовно «да» Могу ли я теперь Не буду никогда Любить тебя, поверь — |
я обещала вечно, на свете жить одна? кокеткой бессердечной, веселье пить до дна |
| Я обещала вечно На свете жить одна Кокеткой бессердечной Веселье пить до дна |
Such a poem, when read from right to left, necessarily requires continuous rhymes before the caesura. Notice that the meaning of the poem becomes completely opposite depending on the direction in which it is read!
A type of playful versification similar to the crypt is the epomonion. It is something intermediate between crypts and visual poetry, which can be fully perceived only on the page.
| Эфирный | траву | и истребляет. | ||
| огонь | палит | |||
| Твоих уст | сердце | и оживляет. |
Thereafter, the epomonion continues both vertically downward and horizontally according to the following scheme:
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | ... | ||||
| 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | |||||
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | ... | ||||
| 10 | 12 | 14 | 16 | |||||
| 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | ... | ||||
| ... | ... | ... | ... |
Another trick form of versification is the palindrome. Palindromes read the same in both directions.
Most often, in terms of meaning, a palindrome is nonsense—which is evident from the example above—and serves a purely technical purpose. If you have written a palindrome poem, you may certainly be proud of it, but believe me—I have never once encountered palindrome poetry filled with genuine meaning. Some sources refer to a palindromon as a variety of palindrome—a poem composed of individual palindrome words. I have never encountered such examples in literature and am inclined to believe that a palindromon is, in essence, the same thing as a palindrome.
Closely related in principle to the palindrome, though naturally much simpler, are anagrams—that is, poems whose lines consist of rearrangements of the letters in the neighboring line (or word, or couplet). Just as there are palindrome words and phrases, there are also anagram words and phrases. Anagram poems are encountered rather rarely. Here, for example, is an anagrammatic couplet by Valery Bryusov:
There also exists the concept of the homograph. Homogram is a punning poem in which neighboring lines are written absolutely identically, while the diversity of meaning is achieved through different division into words and different punctuation. Most often, homographic lines occur in pairs, though they may also alternate in crosswise fashion. The first poem in literary history to contain an element of homography was Derzhavin’s canonical:
For the most part, homograms are two-line constructions and represent a strict letter-by-letter redivision of a phrase or word, resulting in a new reading of the original text. The collision of these readings produces a striking effect.
Sometimes a homogram is turned into a peculiar kind of riddle: one of the two lines is chosen, its letters are written without punctuation or spaces, and in that form both possible readings must be guessed, which gives it an expressive ambiguity. For example: НЕТУЖИВЫХОДНАМЕСТЬ (Нету живых, одна месть. / Не тужи! Выход нам есть. Dmitry Avaliani). By the end of the twentieth century, homographs had reached an unprecedented level of complexity; for example:
A more detailed discussion of homographs may be found in Ivan Chudasov’s article “Several Observations on Pavel Baykov’s Homographs”.
An original anagram-like experiment in combinatorial versification is the vstroy (integration). Usually these are one-line or two-line poems—in other words, very short verses. As an example, here are several vstroys by Boris Grinberg:
Closely related to vstroys are the so-called wavewalkers (or wavebreakers). Wavewalkers are based on wordplay in which words merging together in rapid pronunciation create something new, not always visible on the page. For example:
The first of these two poems (“Icarus”) belongs not to “pure” wavewalkers but to the so-called serpentines. Unlike wavewalkers, serpentines may incorporate several other subgenres of combinatorial poetry, including the homograph and the logogriph (as in this case). Personally, I do not consider wavewalkers to be poetry—still less high poetry. But once again, they are an excellent training exercise. Wavewalkers are especially useful for practicing wordplay.
An interesting example of trick versification is the anacycle—a poem written in such a way that it may be read equally well both from top to bottom, left to right, and from bottom to top, right to left. An anacycle is read in both directions not letter by letter (as in a palindrome), but word by word. Unlike the reverse poem, the sequence of narration, the rhymes, and the rhyme scheme are preserved. Anacyclic poems are an extremely rare phenomenon even within experimental poetry.
Translated, this Latin anacycle means: “Your feat, not your crime; virtue, not wealth, allows you to rise to this exceptional glory. To this exceptional glory, it is not wealth but virtue, not crime but your feat, that allows you to rise.” In the Russian language, anacycles are encountered extremely rarely. For example:
A more detailed discussion of letter-based, syllabic, word-based, and phrasal palindromes, as well as reverses and circular reverses, may be found in Lecture No. 4 by Tatyana Bonch-Osmolovskaya from her course on combinatorial poetry: “Single Rearrangements of Lower-Order Textual Elements within Higher-Order Texts. Palindromes. Letter Palindromes. Reverses. Palindromes of Proper Names. Nonstandard Palindromes: Circular Reverses and Rotational Reverses. Syllabic, Word-Based, and Phrasal Palindromes. The Palindromes of Golenishchev-Kutuzov and Bryusov. The Palindromes of Minaev and Nikolai Polevoy.” Anagrams, spoonerisms, and related forms are discussed in her Lecture No. 3 on combinatorial poetry: “Anagrams. Letter Anagrams of Words and Phrases. The History of the Anagram and Kabbalah. Anagrams of Proper Names and Their Significance. Exotic Anagrams: Antigrams, Minigrams, Contrepèteries, and Spoonerisms.”
In general, all acrostics, mesostics, telestics, tautograms and lipograms, palindromes and anagrams belong to combinatorу poetry, or to constrained writing. In combinatorу poetry, meaning is subordinated by ninety percent to the poem’s highly complex technical forms. Combinatory poetry is excellent as an exercise and helps develop, for example, one’s vocabulary and ability to play with words. But no matter what you say, I cannot call such a genre high poetry. Nevertheless, if this topic interests you, make use of the links to lectures on combinatory poetry in the concluding section of this textbook.
One should also not overlook the so-called logogriph—a poem based on the gradual reduction of initial sounds. In poetry, logogriphic verse is encountered rather rarely and usually only in fragments:
A similar kind of wordplay characterizes the rhopalic verse—an ancient playful form of poetry in which the words gradually increase in syllabic length: the first word is monosyllabic, the second disyllabic, the third trisyllabic, the fourth four-syllabled, and so on. Thus the line seems to broaden like a club.
An original trick genre is the pattern poem—a poem whose lines visually form some figure or object: a star, cone, heart, cross, pyramid, rhombus, and so forth. Pattern poetry was popular in European Baroque verse and also attracted the attention of Russian poets: the first pattern poems in Russia were composed by versifiers at the very dawn of Russian poetry—in the seventeenth century, when poetic “alchemy” was highly fashionable. One of the greatest poets of that era, Simeon of Polotsk, also wrote several examples in this genre (in the shapes of a labyrinth, cross, and heart). In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, pattern poems were cultivated by Derzhavin, Sumarokov, Rzhevsky, Apukhtin, Rukavishnikov, and other poets. In general, pattern poems are little more than a poetic amusement in which form predominates over content. For this reason, truly high-artistic examples are extremely rare. As an example, here is Aleksey Apukhtin’s triangular poem:
A more detailed discussion of pattern poems, snowballs, ropalic verse, and other experiments in visual poetry may be found in Lecture No. 8 by Tatyana Bonch-Osmolovskaya from her course on combinatorial poetry: “Sequences in the Number of Lower-Order Textual Elements within a Higher-Order Textual Element. Ropalic Texts: Letter Snowball, Syllabic Snowball (Ausonius, Bryusov), Word Snowball. Avalanche. Pattern Poems.”
A few more words about the cento. A cento is a kind of literary game—a poem composed of lines already familiar to the reader from the works of one or several poets; the lines must be arranged in such a way that the entire poem is united by some common meaning or, at the very least, by a coherent syntactic structure that gives it the appearance of a complete work. As a poetic joke, centos are always the more amusing the better acquainted the reader is with the poems from which the borrowed lines are taken. Here is an anonymous cento composed from lines of various fables by Ivan Krylov:
A cheerful and cento-like type of versification is macaronic poetry—satirical or humorous poetry in which the comic effect is achieved through the mixing of words and forms from different languages. The term originated in Italy. A good example is the text of the song “Stop Narcotix” by Dr. Alexandrov:
Related to the cento is such a playful genre as the bouts-rimés—a poem written to a set of predetermined rhymes. Bouts-rimés exists as a kind of salon game. For that reason, it is usually improvised and possesses all the artistic features characteristic of improvisation. The poetic devices revealed in the process of creating bouts-rimés—in the use of the prescribed rhymes—may also be observed in the creation of ordinary poems, since in many cases poetic inspiration proceeds from a discovered rhyme. In the perception of bouts-rimés, when the rhymes are known in advance, the effect is built upon surprise—and at the same time the naturalness of the conception in relation to the given rhymes.
Elements of bouts-rimés may also be found in ordinary poetic speech. This applies to poems employing banal rhymes. As with the perception of bouts-rimés, the rhyme in such cases is guessed beforehand. The use of a banal rhyme can be successful only when it displays a kind of inner necessity. This is achieved in the same way as in the creation of bouts-rimés: through the unexpectedness and simultaneous naturalness of the conception in relation to the banal rhyme. An example of a banal rhyme (горе–море, печаль–даль) inwardly justified by the artist’s entire conception may be found in the poetry of Valery Bryusov:
A brilliant use of the banal rhyme (морозы–розы) may be found in Pushkin: he deliberately emphasizes its banality and thereby gives it an entirely unexpected application—and through the unexpectedness of its use, the banality itself is overcome:
And once I encountered yet another fascinating experiment that unquestionably belongs under the heading of “entertaining versification.” I do not even know what to call this genre, and therefore I invented a special term for it: half-word verse. A half-word verse is a poem in which the words are incomplete, cut off midway, yet both the meaning of the poem (without requiring the reader to consult a dictionary to decipher individual words) and its technical features—such as rhyme and meter—are preserved. The only examples of this genre I have managed to find were poems by Andrei Bolkunov:
Apart from Bolkunov, elements of half-word verse may be found in the work of many poets, but poems written entirely in such an original manner I have encountered only in his work.