A Reading in Temporal Poetics:

E.E. Cummings' "maggie and milly and molly and may"

10

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

--E.E. Cummings (CP 682)

In E.E. Cummings' "maggie and milly and molly and may" from 95 Poems

(1958), the speaker tells the story of four girls who go to the beach to play. One girl,

Maggie, finds a singing shell that makes her forget her troubles. Another girl, Milly,

makes friends with a starfish. A third girl, Molly, is chased by a crab. And a fourth

girl, May, finds a stone.

I. Four Readings

The simplest reading of the poem, certainly, is just literal. The girls at the

beach have different experiences. This is how life is for individual human beings.
Being different, our experience of the same world, even the same beach on the same

day, is different for each of us. The sea is how it is, not because it provides us with

some commonly shared beach, but because we are who we are when we experience

this beach. Human beings are unique subjects not common objects. And so, as the

poem says in the end, "it’s always ourselves we find in the sea."

If the literal is put aside and the poem is read as symbolic, the next most

available reading of the poem is religious, an allegory of Cummings' Unitarian

transcendentalism. In this reading of the poem, the different experiences that each

of the girls has at the beach is not the result of just subjective difference and chance

encounter. Each experience glows with the emblematic value of the overarching

oneness of creation given us through the love and grace of the one indwelling God.

In this reading, shells, starfish, crabs, and stones are not just random experiences. In

every way imaginable, they are us, too, a part of the indivisible whole, and so,

however small, however accidental, however a result of the moment at this beach at

this time, they speak volumes: "it's always ourselves we find in sea."

Rushworth Kidder (202-203) psychologizes and aestheticizes these literal

and religious readings to find two more responses to the poem. For Kidder, on the

first of these readings, the poem becomes a "group portrait." The things that the

girls find at the beach are not just evidence of the overall oneness of Being but

emblems of their contrasting personalities.

These girls, in other words, are to be identified by what they find.

Maggie, the "sweetly"" troubled one, finds a singing shell. Milly,
"languid" and friendly, takes pity on a "stranded" starfish. Molly,
both "chased" and, as Bethany Dumas notes, chaste, is an active
imaginer of horrors, and appropriately locates her objective
correlative in a crab. May is the dreamer, who in her "smooth round
 stone" comes upon a symbol resisting simple categorization. Not
unlike Cummings, she envisions a situation where normal values
are reversed: the "world" is "small," while "alone" is large.

On the second of these readings, Kidder turns the poem back on itself and reads it as

an allegory for poetry.

If, like so many Cummings poems, this one is also about poetry, then
these four playmates may stand for four different sorts of writing.
Going down to the shore of the unconscious, not unlike the people
in Frost's "Neither Out Far nor In Deep," they return with different
sorts of images. Poetry, to some, is simply a sweet singing that covers
up troubles. To others it is a means of social justice, a way to give attention
to the plight of the stranded. To many it is an exercise in surreal
fantasizing. To still others it is a search for the transcendental. Losing
egotism ("a you and a me"), we are able to find "ourselves," our real
identity, in this sea of the unconscious and, or for that matter, in poetry.

As far as they go, I agree with and appreciate all four of these responses to

the poem. In "maggie and milly and molly and may," the sea might indeed symbolize

poetry, and playing by this sea, the girls do indeed encounter different things, each

of which symbolizes different aspects of a transcendental realm associated with

their different personalities/selves. The major limitation in these readings is not

what they say but what they leave unsaid. These responses just read the poem as

though it were prose, and even so, as though it were a story (with a plot, characters,

and the like), and not a discourse (that occurs in a certain order, with certain parts

relating to other parts, etc.). None of these readings mentions that the poem is

metered or written in six couplets. None of these readings mentions the poem's

syntax or its use of rhetorical schemes, of any sort (sonic, syntactic, lexical, etc.).

None of these readings mentions the poem's use of parallelism or its opposite,
theme-and-variation. None of these readings mentions the poem's use of sound. And

so forth. Therefore, none of these readings even considers what all poems, of

necessity, must do when they relate meaning to sound to rhythm to syntax to

rhetoric, as they use these different forms simultaneously but coherently to build up

a formal pattern. In the rest of this essay, I will explore how a more inclusive

attention to the poem affects how we might experience it.

II. A Reading in Temporal Poetics

The first thing we might notice about "maggie and milly and molly and may"

is the importance of fours, quadratic structures, to the overall content and form of

the poem. In the story told by the poem, four girls encounter four things. And in the

form of the poem, these encounters are presented in four-beat lines, in four central

couplets, flanked by four additional lines, two lines on each side, a metrical

anacrusis and coda, which provide an introduction and conclusion to the poem's

center. As a result, in this poem, fours echo up through the metrical structure from

metrical line to metrical stanza to metrical section, isolating the middle eight lines of

the poem, where the four girls encounter their respective objects. In fact, this

organization into fours is so pervasive that it strongly suggests that the four girls, in

some way that we need to understand more fully in order to interpret the poem, are

embodied extensions/"tellings" of this quadratic metrical structure.

Fours are important in poetry, the formal literary genre. Both in poetry and

elsewhere (language, psychology, biology, society, etc.), form is paradigmatic and

derives from rhythm, which is componential. There are four rhythmic components:
meter, grouping, prolongation, and theme, each of whose qualities gives us one of

the forms in the many four-part paradigms that build up form as we know it (cell,

tissue, organ, system; noun, adjective, verb, adverb; earth, water, air, fire; earth, sun,

star, moon; etc.). The contrasting/complementary qualities of the four rhythmic

components can be presented succinctly in what I call the temporal paradigm:

The Temporal Paradigm

Temporal
Features Cyclical Centroidal Linear Relative

event-event similarity difference- similarity- difference

relation in-similarity in-difference

temporal occurrence correspondence transition connection

figure repetition prominence direction distinction
succession proportion implication simultaneity

subject-subject participation obligation cooperation individuality

relation

subject-event subjective objective-in subjective-in objective

relation subjective objective

semiotic icon emblem index symbol

relation

cognitive reaction affection exploration creation

process passive reciprocal active improvisatory

clock time: past present future relative

orientation

relational
scope proximate local regional global

event
position initial medial final peripheral

curve of
energy fall rise-fall fall-rise rise

structural
volatility fixed constrained volatile free

How these rhythm qualities organize forms into quadratic paradigms (biological,

linguistic, psychological, social, historical, cultural, etc.) can be presented succinctly

in what I call the poetic paradigm.

 THE POETIC PARADIGM

Temporality Cyclical Centroidal Linear Relative

I. Psychological and Neurological

sociobiology colonial invertebrate social insect higher mammal human

neurology hind/reptilian brain mid/mammalian brain left cortex right cortex
faculty perception/body feeling/emotion will/action memory/thought
sense touch smell/taste hearing sight
vision primal sketch full sketch 2 1/2 D 3-d
phylogeny australopithicus homo habilis homo erectus homo sapiens
ecology mineral vegetable animal human
ontogeny child youth adult elder
psycho-pathology manic-depressive psychosis neurosis amnesia

II. Historical and Cultural

Western culture Ancient Medieval/Renaissance 19th Century Modern

-1100 1100-1750 1750-1900 1900-
philosophy formism organicism mechanism contextualism
economy hunting/gathering agriculture industry information
religion polytheism monotheism naturalism humanism
social economy tribalism feudalism capitalism socialism
settlement city state nation world
social status family/kinship estate/peer class/citizen comrade
writing orality chirography typography cybernetics
logic conduction deduction induction abduction
temporality past/traditional present/apocalyptic future/utopian relative/pragmatic
government monarchy aristocracy republic democracy
spatial art sculpture architecture painting photography
temporal art dance music literature film
social ethic communal fate personal duty social progress individual rights
personal ethic 4 wisdom faith intelligence creativity
3 justice obedience responsibility spontaneity
2 temperance charity self-reliance tolerance
1 courage purity self-control flexibility

III. Literary and Rhetorical

genre epic lyric narrative dramatic

work song poem prose fiction play
reader position language character audience author
creative process dictation revelation discovery creation
trope metaphor synecdoche metonymy irony
sound scheme alliteration assonance & rhyme consonance pararhyme
grouping fall rise-fall fall-rise rise
meter tetrameter pentameter variable free
divisioning stanzaic paragraphed chaptered arranged
prolongation extensional chiastic anticipatory fragmentary
syntactic scheme anaphora antistrophe epistrophe symploce
discourse paratactic logical temporal dialectical
semiotic relation iconic emblematic indexical symbolic
structure repetition pattern process network
position initial medial final peripheral
figuration opposition unity uncertainty multeity
contrast resolution ambiguity difference
pattern concentric geometrical asymmetrical multi-dimensional
process repetitive contoured dynamic static
proleptic climactic anticipatory anti-climactic
contradictory closed blurred open
fixed shaped directed undirected

IV. Prosodic and Syntactic

level paralanguage prosody syntax semantics
word stress weak tertiary secondary primary
prosodic foot moraic foot syllabic foot dipodic foot word
prosodic hierarchy clitic phrase phonological phrase tone unit utterance unit
syllable onset rhyme nucleus coda
intonation fall rise-fall fall-rise rise
syntactic level word phrase clause sentence
sentence relations complexing rank shift cohesion transformation
cohesion repetition substitution pronominalization ellipsis
rank shift compounding incorporation subordination parenthesis
case subjective genitive objective [oblique]
sentence types simple compound complex compound-complex
sentence types declarative exclamative imperative interrogative
transformation preposing postposing discontinuity fragmentation
speech acts statement exclamation command question
complexing apposition conjunction correlation comment
clause constituency subjectivization predication transitivity qualification
clause constituents subject predicator complement adverbial
clause pattern intransitive copular transitive adverbial
transitivity monotransitive complex-transitive ditransitive adverbial
mood indicative subjunctive imperative infinitive
adverbial adjunct subjunct conjunct disjunct
phrase structure head modifier complement specifier
word class noun adjective verb adverbial
phrase type noun adjective verb adverb/prep
verbal functions voice aspect modality tense
voice passive middle active causative
aspect perfective imperfective progressive perfect
tense past present future relative modality necessity obligation
probability possibility
word formation compounding derivation inflection conversion
function words conjunction interjection pronoun specifier
conjunction coordinating subordinating correlative comparative
reference generic specific definite proper
person 3rd 1st 2nd generic
number generic singular plural mass

V. Semantic and Thematic

archetypal earth sun stars moon

themes/images spring summer autumn winter
earth water air/wind fire
morning noon evening night
child youth adult elder
spring brook/stream river ocean/lake
heaven Eden purgatory hell
white green/yellow red/brown black/blue
mineral vegetable animal mental/virtual
east south west north
sunrise day(light) sunset/dsuk dark
gut heart hand/foot/arm head
seed/bud flower/leaf fruit branch
dew rain clouds snow
asexual homosexual heterosexual bisexual
one two three four
quantity quality relation manner
body feeling/soul action/will memory/thought
touch taste/smell hearing sight
with from into away
gold silver bronze iron/lead
awaken daydream doze sleep/dream
mother son father daughter
gluttony lust sloth/greed/anger/pride envy
foundation walls/roof door window
kitchen dining room living room bedroom
pig/bear dog/lion horse bird/cat
maze circle line spiral
God Christ/Son Holy Ghost Anti-Christ/Satan
King/President church legislature courts
 body/child garden/farm/house city mind/personality/art
athlete/general saint/priest ruler/senator/judge artist/performer
beginnings middles ends peripheries
wall steeple room tower
cell tissue organ system
stone wood steel plastic
mountain valley plain/moor forest/woods
grass flower bush/hedge tree

Given that poetry is formal, one way to think of what poetry does is that it

reveals to us what form is and does. Form is usually submerged, concealed,

subconscious. Poetry brings form to the surface by displaying it--arranging it,

playing with it, exploring its possibilities. As a result, when we use poetry to recover

our full selves, what we recover is form, our human form. 1

For instance, in the meaning/symbolism of the poem, what the four girls in

the poem each encounter playing by the sea does not as much mimic their

personalities, as Kidder suggests, as complete them, providing what they each lack,

and in doing so, flushing out their full selves. Maggie is a troubled worrier. Her

diseases are social and cognitive. And so the sweet singing shell that she discovers,

with its more physical and emotional qualities, puts her at ease. Milly is emotional,

and therefore the type of fish that she befriends, a languid, fingered, stranded star,

gives her the physical, social, and intellectual qualities that she lacks. Molly is

passive/receptive, and therefore more perceptual/physical, and so the

spontaneously flamboyant and aggressive activity of the crab that chases her is also

her complement. And May might indeed be an imaginative dreamer, given how she

characterizes what she finds as small and alone. But what she brings home, a

smooth round stone, being qualitatively more physical and emotional, is also what

she lacks. Once complemented with what they lack, each girl

discovers/recovers/realizes the same thing, our full human potential.

Maggie and the Shell:

Cyclical: shell, sang

Centroidal: sweetly
Linear: discovered, troubles, couldn't
Relative: remember

Milly and the Starfish:

Cyclical: languid
Centroidal: befriended, rays, five
Linear: fingers
Relative: stranded

Molly and the Crab:

Cyclical: thing, was chased

Centroidal: bubbles
Linear: raced, blowing
Relative: horrible, sideways

May and the Stone:

Cyclical: smooth, stone, world, large

Centroidal: home, round
Linear: came
Relative: small, alone

Other forms in the poem besides meaning/symbolism are also unusually full

and therefore also symbolize/enact/express a recovered wholeness. For instance,

given its lively tetrameter meter, on a first reading, we might associate this poem

with Cummings' many masterful songs. But on a second reading, it becomes evident

that this poem is quite a bit more complex rhythmically, and therefore generically.

For instance, instead of a duple pulse, it has a triple pulse, which makes the meter
both caudated at low levels and melismatic. Given the constraints on this

dol'nik/duple-triple verse form in English, this melisma is produced by prolonging

heavy syllables in the poem, whose sound then rings out clearly: may, beach, play,

day, shell, sang, stranded, star, rays, languid, fingers, were, thing, raced, blowing, may,

smooth, stone, me, ourselves, sea.

Line 1

/v v / v / vv / Stress
maggie and milly and molly and may
. part
. line
. . lobe Levels of Metrical Beating
. . . . tactus
. . . . . . . . . . . pulse

Line 2

/ / \ v / \ / / / Stress
went down to the beach(to play one day)
. line
. . lobe Levels of Metrical Beating
. . . . tactus
. . . . . . . . .. . . pulse

Line 3

\ / \ v /v v / \ / Stress
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
. section
. stanza
. part
. line Levels of Metrical Beating
. . lobe
. . . . tactus
. . . . . . . . . . . pulse

Line 4

/ / \ \ / v v/ v v / v \ Stress
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and
. line
. . lobe Levels of Metrical
. . . . tactus
. . . . . . . . . . . . . pulse Beating

Line 5
/ \ v / v v / v / Stress
milly befriended a stranded star
. part
. line
. . lobe Levels of Metrical Beating
. . . . tactus
. . . . . . . .. . . pulse

Line 6

\ / / / v / v / Stress
whose rays five languid fingers were;
. line
. . lobe Levels of Metrical Beating
. . . . tactus
. . . . . . . . .. . . pulse

Line 7

\ / \ \ / \v / v v / Stress
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
. stanza
. part Levels of Metrical
. line
. . lobe Beating
. . . . tactus
. . . . . . . . . . . . pulse

Line 8

\ / / \ \ \ v / v \ stres
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
. line
. . lobe
. . . . tactus
. . .. . . . . . . . . . pulse

Line 9

/ / / \ v / / / Stress
may came home with a smooth round stone
. part
. line Levels of Metrical
. . lobe
. . . . tactus Beating
. . . . . . . . . . . pulse

Line 10

\ / \ v / \ \ / \ v/ Stress
as small as a world and as large as alone.
. line
. . lobe Levels of Metrical
 . . . . tactus
. . . . . . . . . .. pulse Beating

Line 11

\ \/v \ / \ v / \ v / Stress
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
. part
. line Levels of Metrical
. . lobe
. . . . tactus Beating
. . . . . . . . . . . . . pulse

Line 12

\ / \ \ / \ / \ v / Stress
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
. line
. . lobe Levels of Metrical
. . . . tactus
. . . . . . . . . . . pulse Beating

In addition, many intonational units in the poem, while rising in their overall

contour, end weakly, on unstressed syllables, which gives the poem a rise-and-then-

fall, or waved, feel: maggie, sweetly, troubles, milly, molly, sideways, bubbles, etc.

Line 1

_________________________________
/ \ intonational unit

maggie and milly and molly and MAY

Line 2

_______________________________________
/ \ intonational unit

went down to the BEACH(to play one day)

Line 3

__________ ________________ ________>>

/ \/ \/ intonational unit

and MAGgie discovered a SHELL that sang

Line 4

>> ________ ______________________________ ____>>

 \/ \/ intonational unit

so SWEETly she couldn’t remember her TROUbles,and

Line 5

>>____ _________________________
\/ \ intonational unit

MILly befriended a stranded STAR

Line 6

________ _________________________
/ \ / \ intonational unit

whose RAYS five languid FINgers were;

Line 7

________ _______________________________
/ \/ \ intonational unit

and MOLly was chased by a HORrible thing

Line 8

____________________ __________________ _>>>

/ \/ \/ intonational unit

which raced SIDEways while blowing BUbbles:and

Line 9

>>__ __________________________________
\/ \ intonational unit

MAY came home with a smooth round STONE

Line 10

__________________ ___________________
/ \/ \ intonational unit

as small as a WORLD and as large as aLONE.

Line 11

____________________ __________________
/ \/ \ intonational unit

For whatever we LOSE(like a you or a ME

Line 12

___________________ ____________________
/ \/ \ intonational unit

it’s always ourSELVES we FIND in the sea

Cummings' placement of parentheticals, such as (to play one day) and (like a you or

a me), and use of syntactic inversions, such as whose rays five languid FINgers were,

and focusing structures, such as it's always ourSELVES we find in the sea, have a

similarly waved, lyric effect. Given its metrically less prominent two-line anacrusis

and two-line coda surrounding its more metrically prominent 8-line center, the

higher-level metrical structure of the poem also has this rise-and-then fall, lilting

form. Notice that the poem also has several overtly amphibrachic (or weak-strong-

weak) words (disCOvered, reMEMbered, beFRIENded, whatEver) and clitic phrases

(and MILly, and MOLly, and MAGgie, disCOvered, she COULDn't, reMEMber, her

TROUbles, it's ALways). The poem is also significantly narrative and dramatic,

exhausting the rhythmic and generic possibilities. For instance, while it concludes

with the present tense (lose, find), first person (we, ourselves, me), reflexive

pronouns (ourselves), and a two-line metrical coda (For whatever we lose(like a you

or a me)/ it’s always ourselves we find in the sea) that makes a general thematic

point, as a lyric might, most of the poem is in the past tense (went, discovered,

befriended, was chased, came), and third person (maggie, milly, molly, may, etc.), and

tells a story, complete with a setting (at the beach), characters (the four girls), and
plot (the objects that the girls encounter at the beat) that focuses, not on thought

and feeling, as a lyric might, but on action (going, discovering, befriending, being

chased, etc.), like a story. The poem then folds into this story four ironically

juxtaposed, parallel, and paratactically related sub-plots in the center, like a play.

The rhyme scheme (or versification) of the poem is also unusually full, going

well beyond the xaxa, xbxb, etc., quatrain rhyme scheme of a simple song. In fact, it

again nearly exhausts the possibilities by including couplets (may-day, stone-alone,

me-sea), consonance (star-were), delayed consonance (sang-thing), and tri-syllabic,

delayed rhyme (troubles and, bubbles and), with the two sets of delayed rhymes

(star-troubles and, were-bubbles and), grouped visually as couplets, giving the initial

impression of a stichic versification with no rhyme. Again, the couplets are more

lyrical; the consonance and delayed rhymes are more narrative/linear; and the

trisyllabic rhymes, being zany and playful, are more dramatic.

Sound is also unusually full. As we might expect from a song, the poem is

heavily alliterated (maggie-milly-molly-may-me; down-day: went-one-were-which-

was-sideways-whatever: sang-so-sweetly-sideways-ourselves-sea; stranded-star;

befriended-five-fingers-find; beach-blowing-bubbles; whose-home-horrible: lose-like-

alone), with even the names of the main characters (maggie-milly-molly-may)

participating in this patterning. But that is not the end of it. In addition to end-

rhyme, which we have already mentioned, the poem is also heavily assonantal

(may-play-day-rays-chased; lose-you-smooth-to-you; down-ourselves-round; find-like-

sideways; maggie-sang-stranded-as-languid; home-stone-blowing-so-alone; milly-

which-thing-fingers; beach-me) and consonantal (milly-molly-shell-horrible-while-

bubbles-small-world-always-ourselves; discovered-remembered-her-star-world-large-

for-whatever-ourselves; went-down-couldn't-befriended-stranded-and- round-stone-

alone-find-in; sang-languid-fingers-thing; remember-came-home). And there is even

some pararhyme (world-while, selves-small, befriended-find). Notice that the names

of two of the girls (molly-milly) are related by pararhyme.

Tone in the poem is also full. Narrative interest is maintained in the voice

with fall-rise/"continuation" tones on grammatical subjects, as they anticipate their

following grammatical predicates.

Fall-rise tones

v
maggie and milly and molly and may /

v
and maggie

v
and /milly

v
whose rays

v
and molly

v
and / may

v
For whatever we lose

But in each case, the following grammatical predicates resist expected

conclusive/falling tones by being exclamatory and therefore rise-fall, sometimes

because of standard intensification (e.g., so sweetly), but usually because of the

surprising meaning, rhetoric, and/or language that they intone (e.g., beach, shell,

star, fingers, horrible, sideways, bubbles, and ourselves).

Rise-Fall Tones

^
went down to the beach

^
discovered a shell

^
that sang so sweetly

^
she couldn’t remember her troubles,

^
befriended a stranded star /

^
five languid fingers were; /

^
was chased by a horrible thing /

^
which raced sideways

^
while blowing bubbles: /

^
came home with a smooth round stone /

^
it’s always ourselves

Then to keep the array of tones in the poem full, Cummings also includes one tone

that is simply rising and one tone that is simply falling, interestingly, both in the

same line, at the end of the 5th couplet, just before the final couplet, the metrical

coda.

Rising Tone
 /
as small as a world

Falling Tone

\
and as large as alone.

Finally, in addition to what we have already mentioned about tense, person,

and discourse organization, Cummings also makes full use of range of syntactic and

rhetorical structures in the poem to express a recovered wholeness. For instance,

among other things, he use all of the major clause structures in the language

(SV/intransitive, SVC/copular, SVO/transitive, and SVA/adverbial), and he

distinguishes the center from periphery in the poem by giving the textual

peripheries an anticipatory syntax where subject precedes predicate and preposed

adverb the main clause, while the syntax of the central four couplets is consistently

extensional, with a main clause being elaborated by a relative clause.

Syntax and Rhetoric

Cyclical

passives: was chased

past tense: went, discovered, sang, befriended, was chased, etc.
3rd person: maggie, milly, molly, may, shell, star, it
intransitive verbs: play
cleft: it's always ourselves we find in the sea, whatever we lose
subject-predicate line breaks:

maggie and milly and molly and may (subject)

went down to the beach(to play one day) (predicate)
extensional syntax in line 3-10:

and maggie discovered a shell that sang>>>>>extend

so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star>>>extend
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing>>>extend

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone>>>extend

as small as a world and as large as alone.

Centroidal

copular verbs: were

centering inversion: whose rays five languid fingers were
1st person pronouns: ourselves, we, me
reflexives: ourselves
adjectives: stranded, languid, horrible, smooth, round, large, small
relative clauses: whose rays five languid fingers were, which raced sideways while
blowing bubbles

Linear

transitive verbs: discovered, remember, befriended, blowing

2nd person: you
anticipatory prolongation at textual peripheries:

maggie and milly and molly and may>>>anticipate

Went down to the beach (to play one day).

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) >>>>anticipate

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Relative

proper nouns: maggie, milly, molly, may

parenthesis: (to play one day), (like a you or a me)
SVA clauses: went down, came home, raced sideways
adverbs: so, sweetly, always

theme-and-variation:

maggie discovered a shell that sang

milly befriended a stranded star
molly was chased by a horrible thing
may came home
1
Because form derives from rhythm, and rhythm creates time, I call this approach to poetry
temporal poetics. For an overview of the rhythmics that I use to ground this temporal poetics, see
Cureton Rhythmic Phrasing and "Metrical Reading." For overviews of the basic principles of
temporal poetics, see "Inner form," "Language of Poetry," and "Telling Time." For how rhythm
motivates linguistic form, see "Temporal Theory of Language." For a number of complete formal
analyses, see "Temporality and Poetic Form" for Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay,"
"Stylistics and Poetics" for Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," "Process
as Truth" for the opening of Walt Whitman's "Song of the Broad-Axe," "Jakobson Revisted" for W.
B. Yeats' "The Sorrow of Love," "Solitary Disciple," for William Carlos Williams' "To a Solitary
Disciple," "Rhythmic Process" for D.H. Lawrence's "To Women, As Far As I'm Concerned,"
"Cummings and Temporality" for E. E. Cummings' "somewhere I have never travelled,gladly
beyond," "liquor" for Emily Dickinson's "I taste a liquor never brewed," and "Map" for Elizabeth
Bishop's "The Map."

Works Cited

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Cureton, Richard D. Rhythmic Phrasing in English Verse. London: Longman, 1992.

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