veronika week 6 response

In "The Poem and the Story", by Harold Scheub he discusses how emotion can be put into form by using poetry to tell a story. So many emotions can exist within a poem. It can tell a tale of our fears and nightmares, or greatest dreams. The emotions of both the writer, and more importantly, the audience, are vital. However constructing said poem to be informative, historical, and aesthetically pleasing could be quite difficult. The task to accomplish is to be able to untie the emotions of the poem with the heart of the main story so that the audience can feel a true emotion in its clearest sense. After telling a short narrative about an ethnic event, Scheub is able to explain the true ideas of molding a poem into a story: “Oral poems evoke, express, explore, and mold feeling. History and narrative are among the materials that foster this process. The poem is in one sense a dramatization of history”(29). When the author is able to speak aloud and evoke a certain emotion with emphasis on certain words, the audience is then able to understand exactly what the author meant at the exact moment he meant it. It leaves very little to the imagination when read allowed because the reader can express the words and phrases the exact way he or she perceives the line. The unspoken words in the story however,, to serve as evidence for the poetry. The dramatization of the poem can help emphasize certain moments in history but it is also important to read into the history and facts on your own. I enjoy the possibility of emphasizes with poetry because it can be taken in so many way. A poem is not always as it seems and what it means to one person, could be completely different from what it means to another person. When the audience becomes personally connected to the story that you have to tell because the words you have written move them in some way, then I believe you have reached a whole new level of entertaining an audience. Also, the ability to connect to completely different worlds, as it is discussed in this article, is quite interesting as well. I began to get slightly confused as Scheub begin a to discuss pieces of a poem in detail and how a certain author constructs a poem within a narrative. When he speaks about how the rhythm changes into a new rhythm in this stanza: “He was so tall, he touched the heavens. And he was beautiful, this forebear of Diltz’ Intaba: He was beautiful”(32). I suppose what he means is that the pattern of his wording changes from stanza to stanza. Though I still fell as though this is poetic and moving and gives the reader a chance to understand the magnitude, size, and deserved respect that should be given to the man in question. This article was very clear on how to express emotion in form by using poetry. It was helpful to see examples although at times I found them to be slightly unclear. The point was very apparent in the sense of allowing the audience to gain an emotional connection to your story and to gain an emotional appeal which is important in most stories and the information was a slight eye-opener. Ali Reyes

After reading “The Poetics of Storytelling”, I have come to realize that it is true that a story cannot exist without a poem and every poem cannot exist without a story. Harold Scheub, the author, tells his audience that in able to extract emotions from a viewer, one must create emotion within the story. The way to get emotion in a story is to make a poem into a story. Poems have always allowed certain emotions to be expressed, and therefore are essential in being part of a story. With no poem, there is nothing to work around to create a narrative. Even simple images that are shown in a certain way, such as images that suddenly appear, can extract emotions from watchers. This way of presenting images is referred to as rhythmic in the article. Rhythm is a key part in the making of poems, proving that poems are needed to express emotions within a story. Also, repetition is another essential part of a poem and a story. First, one must start with a core of the story. Building upon that, different images are repeated to evoke the full emotion that the story-teller is trying to convey. Therefore, poems are the basis for story-telling. It is stated in the article that words are just the beginning of a story. In order for emotion to come from those words, a poem must be written. In “A Page from a Journal”, the author tells the reader that “without feeling, there is only talk”. This reinforces the fact that there must be some sort of reaction from the audience in order to make words into a story. Also presented in “A Page from a Journal” is the idea that if one image is repeated many times, that a certain emotion will emerge. This feeling will become stronger and stronger with each repetition of the image. And repetition, as seen in the earlier article, is a vital part in a poem. This repetition creates a rhythm, which is necessary in making a poem, and, thus, in telling a story. Both of these articles help to prove that poems are incorporated into a story, and vice versa. Therefore, with the evidence presented to me, I agree that since no story can be considered a story if no emotions are touched upon, and poems create emotions and feelings, that there must be a poem underlying the story that brings out the emotions of the narrative.

Harold Scheub’s “The Poem and the Story: The Poetics of Storytelling,” confronts this idea that “there was never a story without a poem.” This statement clearly states that every story has, at its core, characteristics of poetic style. This would imply every story has underlying rhyme, meter, lines, rhythm, and verses. In some sense I believe this to be true because poems do not necessarily need to be in a strict iambic pentameter, or a set style; some poems are in free verse, meaning they have no set meter, verse, and rhythm. Also, free verse poems can have as much effect on the reader’s emotions as a specific style poem. Therefore, in storytelling and stories, the words could be considered to be in free verse style, with no set meter, and the words have a rhythmic beat to them, in the way of assonance, consonance, repetition, and etc. Ultimately, I believe that this idea of story and poem coexisting is plausible in the sense that when they are combined, they are able to “summon emotions from a willingly submissive audience, and weave those emotions into the poem that is the core of the story.” Another aspect of this concept of this combination of poetry and story is that also in the way the story is formed is poetic – the ordering of the images and words in order to convey these emotions as well as the nonlinear path of the story. Harold Scheub also talks of a specific example of this fusion: a story about a king, and a poet’s view of the king. Here his story is seen in the format of a epic poem, because it is an extended poem over a long period of time. In his analysis of this story, Scheub tells the reader that the poet was not focusing on the king at all, but the tradition. He then later goes in to later detail saying how that without tradition we would be without direction, and that these poets and storytellers are able to link our past with our contemporary experiences, it shows how they remind us of our motivation to emotions. A good point he brings up is the fact that a poem is a metaphor: half old, half new, strengthening of this idea of tradition to the future and what unites them together is the rhythm of the poem. And thru this the emotions are brought out of the audience. Lastly Harold Scheub ends with this idea of repetition. I like how he relates this repetition to a slow blossoming of images that develops from a single image to ultimately lead to an explosion of emotions. All of these things are able to bring the audience into the core of the poem, the center, and allow them to form a reaction in their mind and understand the message of the story. Only audiences “participating in the performance” are they able to evoke this epiphany. Words are only words, “a beginning,” unless they are transformed into this idea of a narrative centered around a poem. – Garrett Chow

In “Avant-Garde Realism,” Rombes argues that the move toward realism in cinema is really not so new or experimental, but merely a return to a previous trend, with the addition of modern technology. He points out that cinema has used real-time footage since the Lumière brothers one minute takes, but haven’t, until the emergence of digital video, been able to work without the shorter time constraints. I agree with him that we’ve grown so accustomed to seeing un-“real” images and scenes that the “real” is now almost more unexpected. With so many special effects and editing techniques available, viewers have become distrustful of what they see, almost assuming that it is not a realistic representation. For instance, Rombes recalls his son asking if a crowd of people in Hero was real. In this sense, realism in cinema seems to have come full-circle. As technology has advanced, and more people are able to obtain digital imaging equipment, I think more people are inclined to equate the form with reality. Home videos are easier and result in higher image quality now; and many people may relate higher image quality with being more realistic, as well as associating what they see digitally with what they make digitally. What is interesting to me throughout the discussion is sort of the assumption that “real time” equates to reality. Due to the absence of rapid successions of editing, or obvious special effects, the viewer is more apt to feel that the scene is real. While this is obviously not always the case, we are often inclined (at least at first glance) to make that association. And, even if the viewer knows that the events are not actually real, it may make us feel like the story is more believable, that the characters are more real. He talks about re-exploring “human-ness” and a tendency toward stripping away the special effects and montage, but then returns to how cinema has always longed to work with longer and longer takes, but only recently has been able to, which explains the recent return to realism. This is definitely a factor, and of course the 95 minute takes would not be possible without digital technology, but I think it’s also a natural result of almost rebellion against the long-standing trend away from reality. As he says about Eyes Wide Shut’s lack of box-office success being related to style, shifts in artistic style are an ever-changing part (and reflection) of society. They’re also cyclical – just as mainstream society has historically gone in cycles of conservativism and progressivism, popular artistic styles go through phases that incorporate or reject various amounts of realism.

“The poem never exists without a story, nor can a story stand without a poem” (Scheub 25). At first glance, I would have to disagree with Mr. Scheub on his views about stories rooted in poetry (and vice versa). How is it that a story cannot stand without a poem? There have been thousands of stories throughout history that have amazed audiences, and many of these stories have little to do with what we perceive as conventional poetry. From Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five,” to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” stories such as these have little or not use of obvious rhyme or verse. However, before I dismiss Scheub’s opinions on stories and poetry, I must play devil’s advocate and try to see the situation in his point of view. After looking up various definitions of poetry, I have discovered that poetry can simply be defined as a, “composition that, though not in verse, is characterized by great beauty of language or expression” (www.dictionary.com). Based on this definition, it seems as if poetry does not need to be directly melodic or sweet-sounding. Rather, poetry is any composition or work that one can find beauty through the words used in the piece. Going back to my examples of “Slaughterhouse Five” and “Frankenstein,” although the authors of these stories did not intend to tell these stories as forms of poetry, they did, however, include all the necessary elements that would warrant these works as models of poetry. Stories such as these convey intense emotions and sentiments. What is more captivating about these stories is that the emotions they convey can usually relate to people on a personal level. Many critics have said that the mark of a good story is if audiences can walk away from a story knowing that they have truly been touched/impacted on a private level. Any story that can do this must be immensely expressive, and therefore there is a sense of beauty in their emotive capabilities. Hence, if these stories are works of beauty, why shouldn’t we consider them forms of poetry? Essentially, Scheub’s argument can be considered valid if he is trying to say that stories and poetry are one in the same. Throughout “The Poem and the Story; The Poetics of Storytelling,” Scheub uses a story about a poet, Mdukiswa Tyabashe, and his interactions and views of his king. In the selected passages from Tyabashe’s stories, one can easily observe Tyabashe’s use of rhythm, rhyme, meter, and verse. Like Homer’s “Illiad” and “Odyssey,” the Tyabashe’s story in itself is a long poem that utilizes rhythm and rhyme in order to strengthen the views of his king and emotions that he wishes to convey. Unfortunately, not all stories we read/encounter include or emphasize the typical elements of poetry found in Tyabashe’s composition. According to Scheub, it is our job, as readers and students of life, to find the poem in the story (Scheub 26). Perhaps we can find this so-called poetry in certain elements of a story such as the conflict and resolution, the illustration of key characters, or the diction used throughout. Regardless of where we find this “poetry,” I do agree with Scheub that three specific things do occur in all stories: 1) there is a historical aspect in which images are shaped by myth; 2) there is a narrative aspect in which images are moved from conflict to resolution; and 3) ther is an aesthetic aspect in which emotions are given form. In both stories and conventional poetry, we can find these three aspects working together to produce something beautiful. I suppose that I the end, it is still the individual who chooses what he believes to beautiful, and in turn – poetic.

I wasn’t sure which one to post on, but this one had two at the time I started typing this; safety in numbers, right? I just have a few thoughts on Scheub’s paper. I found his connections between the poem and the story, and the elements throughout to be sensible in the least, and personally agree with his findings. I was never quite sure though, that he implied or stated anywhere that all stories need to have a poem. I don’t think that’s necessarily true, I did agree though with the poems implicit argument of imagery. He uses some very nice examples to describe this. Especially in the end, “The story teller leans forward, pipe tobacco smoke curling around her head: ‘You begin with the remembered image,’ she said, ‘Everything builds on that.” I chose this quote because I think it also most agrees with the phenomenon in film (persistence of vision). To carry visual movement we must have a recollection of the previous image, and that in turn goes into mise en scene, and what makes such an image memorable. His discussions about how imagery set up a mood is also of key interest. Storytelling is heavily reliant of descriptive sensory words largely words that the vast majority can quickly identify with; like, the feel of hair, smoke curling, things that no pocket of people in the world can deny a conception of. Such visual imagery can be most often found in a poem. Though I believe many forms of writing would be so much better if they tried to create a more tangible image of things. Oxymoronic in some cases, but our interpretation can fill in the blanks. Every story needs a rhythm; the rhythm is just another form of persistence of vision. The imagery of stories, oral and written, require the imagery to evoke the proper emotion. These images aren’t to evoke emotion alone, but instead the imagery is broken into two different parts, first the primary mythic images, which though are more distant from the audience are larger than life, and create an emotional state, the second repertory of images are contemporary, to cement or detail the first set of images. This breakdown was very precise listing the two ways in which images influence a story, both in linear movement, from conflict to resolution, to pathos from the audience. The middle of his article, when he discusses the importance of music, loses me. I don’t necessarily agree that story’s told in song, or with ambient music in the background create better imagery. If he’d mentioned stories told in verse I might have been more inclined to agree. --A. Peltier

Scheub mentions a number of aspects in this article that he doesn’t explicitly state. Instead he hints at these topics. For examples he doesn’t mention exactly what his article is about. The “Poetics of Story Telling” is about what elements one must use to be a good storyteller. He mentions all of these elements throughout the text. He also doesn’t explicitly state what story telling is. Reality is created in the mind, thus any reality is virtual. What story telling does is attempt to create reality through the use of words. However, and Scheub mentions, that words are only the beginning to the architecture of words. For a story to be told well it has to take aspects of the poem. What is a poem? A poem is an arrangement of words according to their meaning and respect to each other. This form is patterned over different arrangements of words, known as rhythm. Scheub goes into detail, “At the core of a poem is metaphor; half of that metaphor is as old as time itself, and half of that metaphor is as fresh as today. What unites the two halves of metaphor and makes them the same is rhythm” (35). Why is it important to bring two (or more) metaphors together? This is something that is instinctively entertaining to the human. Just as a human eats and sleeps, it looks for patterns. Perhaps it is man’s ability to see into the future based upon the past that makes this entertaining. I think that is where Scheub gets his half passed half present approach to metaphors. From all that aforementioned we can conclude that the form in which humans receive prefer to receive information is in the form of structured words (specifically patterns). Now that we now what a story is, we can look at what a (good) storyteller is. The most effective way to create a good story is to be in tuned to your own desires as a story receiver as well. There are certain human abilities that are too complicated to explain using words. For examples, to tell someone exactly how to walk would be impossible. But one can explain things in human terms. One does not know exactly what it is to stand up and move legs in the fashion of walking but one has experienced standing and moving legs. Thus to explain walking to someone the storyteller must access the persons data associated with standing and moving legs. Just as a storyteller tells a story I tell this story in a poetic aspect, using relative terms. Scheub brings up emotions and feeling many times in this article. He would agree that using relative (to people) terms allow people to re-experience whatever the story is. Thus the storyteller doesn’t actually create anything but simply manipulates data that is already there resulting in a new reality, a new experience, and new life to the story receivers. This is probably why Scheub brings up the line, “It is profoundly true that, as far as our emotional lives and histories are concerned, there is nothing new under the sun: our traditions regularly remind us of this” (30).