The Packbats' Weblog

Stepping away from actually playing for a moment, I want to talk briefly about some of the more sophisticated reasons why I enjoy the game of putting verse in words of one beat. I will admit I've only played it a little (I've done two poems – look for Rob Z.), and contemplated it only barely more than that, but what is Livejournal for but underdigested thoughts?

One of the odd things about the game is how turning a work of verse into words of one beat is somehow like translation into another language. It isn't – it's easier – but the resemblance remains in some respects. One of the ways in which the similarity is very useful is in how you must read the poem on which you work.

Yes, you read the poem, of course. You read it, and meditate on it, and share it with your friends, and this is a fine and noble thing. Nevertheless, when playing the game of one-beat, you not only must read the poem, you have to analyse it, see every word and know the fifteen other words that could have been there and why they aren't, and recognize every allusion and know the story behind each one, note every rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, repetition, consonance, enjambment, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. "I do that already," you say. Good, I reply; I don't. But when I work a poem into words of one beat, I do, and I enjoy the poem more for it.

That's actually my two top reasons for doing it, there, or nearly so – enjoyment and education. I do it also for exposure; there are fifteen other folk in the wordsofonebeat community, and all of them have read poems I have not, and will enjoy. Then, of course, there is the fourth reason – exposure. Stage-shy as I am, I still like to perform when I think I'm doing well, and I like people to care what I think.

But I am wandering, now. I'd best return to Lord Alfred Tennyson (how to turn that into monosyllables, I wonder!), and see how to make the rest of "Tears, Idle Tears" into words of one beat. Later!

I just found out that there was/is a group on the Net which strives to speak only in words of one beat. They have a page of poems made thus here, with an FAQ here.

I think this is a fine fun thing to do (though I know it to have been done ere this). I thought to give one of old Lord Alf. Tenn.'s works a try, or Bob Frost's, but they proved too much for me; I did not know them. In spite of that, I will try a bit of E. Pound. Not a lot of long words in this one in the first place.

The Tree
I stood still and was a tree in midst of wood,
To know the truth of things not seen before;
Of Daph. and of the green tree's bow
And those gods'-hosts, that love-pair old
That grew elm-oak in midst of wold.
'Twas not ere when the gods had been
With grace bid come, and been brought right in
Straight to the hearth of their heart's home
That they might do this awe-made thing:
Yet I have been a tree in midst of wood,
And swarms of new things known as good
That had no sense in my head's sight before.


Oh, I found the one-word thing linked here. I left the poem on the post there as well.

Ed.: The wordsofonebeat comm. I joined it – it is still small, though.

Ed. 2: E. Pound's work can be found not changed here, here, and some more spots I lack the space to name.