BEST SHORT POEM EVER WRITTEN
What
is a “short” poem? In order to limit the scope of our exercise we have to specify
the meaning of “short,” even if we are going to be somewhat arbitrary.
We
define a poem as “short” if it has 10 lines or less because the number 10 stands
for a perceptually small quantity. We maintain 10 items in our imagination
handily and without much effort.
The
number 10 is archetypal. It corresponds to the total number of fingers in both
hands. Notably, 10 is the number of commandments said to be revealed by God to
Moses in the Book of Exodus.
Although
a poem a little longer than 10 lines could reasonably be described as “short,”
we begin to stretch the meaning of “short” when the total number of lines
extends into multiples of 10.
What
makes a short poem outstanding? A short poem succeeds by showing insight. The
insight is ingeniously and concisely expressed so that the thoughts conveyed are
invariably received by the reader with surprise and delight.
“Insight”
has been defined as “an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person
or thing” (Google dictionary). Insight is the keen cognizance of important relations
among one or more things apparently unrelated.
Insight
in a short poem often works by relating a winning metaphor to its subject.
QUILT
by Allison Whittenberg
Slaves
recognize the metaphor
Putting
odds together with ends
Knitting
scraps into sturdy shape
Manipulating
fabric
Irregular
shapes:
Functional,
enduring
Making
a way
Out
of no way
The
insight in this poem relates the putting together of a quilt with the difficult
life of a slave, who makes the most of what is available, “Making a way / Out
of no way.”
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| Quilt |
“To
be a master of metaphor,” Aristotle said, “is the greatest thing by far. It is
the one thing that cannot be learned from others, and it is also a sign of
genius.” (Poetics, 22)
Aristotle
would probably recognize the burst of genius in the short poem below.
FILE
NUMBER TWENTY-NINE by Ken Simpson
Obituary
The
autopsy showed
truth
died of neglect
many
years ago.
“File
No. 29,” presumably, identifies the location where the obituary has been filed
away.
Antithesis—waking
in contraposition to sleeping—and a vivid, pointed metaphor work together to produce
this next successful short poem.
THE
SILENCE AND I by Tóroddur Poulsen
Original
language Faroese
Translated
by Randi Ward
i
wake
to
the silence
outside
myself
the
way
a
bustling
city
falls
asleep
Robert
Frost’s classic “Fire and Ice” is a masterpiece of metaphor, the lines tightly
bound together by rhyme.
FIRE
AND ICE by Robert Frost
Some
say the world will end in fire,
Some
say in ice.
From
what I’ve tasted of desire
I
hold with those who favor fire.
But
if it had to perish twice,
I
think I know enough of hate
To
say that for destruction ice
Is
also great
And
would suffice.
Alfred,
Lord Tennyson’s “The Eagle,” another classic, is a figurative tour de force. The
two stanzas of the poem are tied together by meter and rhyme.
THE
EAGLE by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
He
clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close
to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd
with the azure world, he stands.
The
wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He
watches from his mountain walls,
And
like a thunderbolt he falls.
This
next short poem succeeds by ingeniously invoking the metaphor of piano sheet
music in order to flash in the mind’s eye a vivid image of flocking birds.
BIRDS
ON TRIPLICATE POWER LINES by J. M. Hall
pianist’s
furious
nightmare
sheet music—how
to
play their rearranging
flight,
flocking
claustrophobia
against
open
pale
blue
Additional
literary elements contribute to the notable impact of the poem, including
trenchant description—“rearranging flight,” “open pale blue”; and multi-level
metaphors amplified by evocative diction—“furious nightmare,” “flocking
claustrophobia.”
Insight
in a short poem does not necessarily employ your usual literary devices. It may
simply connect ideas together in a manner that gives us pause.
THE
RULE by Alexis Ellyse
In
our love
there’s
just one thing
that
I expect of you:
Tell
me what I want to hear
but
only
if
it’s true.
Addressing
the beloved, the speaker in the poem tells them that they want to hear only
what they want to hear and only if it’s true. Excluded are what is false and
what they do not want to hear even if it is true.
Doesn’t
love involve telling the beloved what they do not want to hear because it is
true and they need to hear it?
Isn’t
it sometimes necessary to withhold the truth from the beloved?
The
insight of the poet consists in connecting together ideas about love that make
us revisit the idea of love and ponder it.
Following
is another example of a poem that connects ideas together, eliciting surprise.
I
HAD A SUDDEN SCRUPLE by Ralph Wright, O.S.B.
I
had a
sudden
scruple
when
writing
this
poem
that
what
I
was saying
was
worth
less
than
silence
so
I stopped.
The
poem as it were hangs on the wall like a cutaway of religious experience framed
by relevant provisions of the Benedictine Rule on silence (Chapters 6, 7, 38,
and 42).
The
insight of the poet consists in linking his silent impulse to its religious context,
although the reader has to do their part connecting the dots.
At
the close the poem catches the reader by surprise. The poem concludes,
literally, with silence.
The
paths to a great short poem are various. The prose poem following succeeds by limning
an unexpected vision of the future. As we look past the figurative language, we
come across a disquietingly plausible scenario.
THE
DANGERS OF TIME TRAVEL by Gerardo Mena
You
wake up in the future and realize that everyone has evolved. People now have
the head of a blue jay and the body of a shiny machine that whirs softly as its
insides spin. You see two bird heads that look like your parents, but, of
course, that is not possible.
When
they see you they cry and shake their heads slowly with disappointment because
you are not like them. I’m sorry, you say, your voice rough and hard from one
thousand years of sleeping. We are all dying, they sing, their voices like
glockenspiels.
One
of the greatest short poems in the Anglophone world consists of two words linked
by an eye rhyme.
THE
SHORTEST AND SWEETEST OF SONGS by George MacDonald
Come
Home.
Inseparably
joined to the two words is the poem’s title. It supplies the context for the
entreaty and imbues it with pathos.
The
proverb—a pithy saying, often metaphorical—is a short poem genre that occurs in
oral traditions throughout the world.
In
the Christian world the Bible is a source of many commonplace proverbs. Pithy
sayings occur throughout the Bible, especially in the Book of Proverbs, from
which we cite several examples.
“With
closest custody, guard your heart, for in it are the sources of life.”—Proverbs
4:23
“Where
words are many, sin is not wanting, but he who restrains his lips does well.”—Proverbs
10:19
“Better
a dry crust with peace than a house full of feasting with strife.”—Proverbs 17:1
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| Jewish Scribe |
A
small proportion of the huge body of proverbs outside the English-speaking world
has made its way into the Western tradition through translation. Below we present
several examples from Reader’s Digest, a reputable enough publication. (The
Internet, we are only too aware, is the source of many false attributions and
quotes.)
“Coffee
and love taste best when hot.”—Ethiopian proverb
“Fall
seven times, stand up eight.”—Japanese proverb
“Turn
your face toward the sun and the shadows fall behind you.”—Maori proverb
At
least one reason why proverbs in the vernacular never make their way into the English-speaking
world is that they speak principally to the culture of origin so that they
suffer significant loss of meaning in translation. The Tagalog proverbs below illustrate
this point.
“Nasa Diyos ang awa, nasa tao ang
gawa.”
“To
be merciful is God’s, while to act is man’s.”
Almost
the equivalent of “Man proposes, God disposes,” the original Tagalog context insinuates
fatalism.
“Ang taong walang kibo, nasa loob ang
kulo.”
“A
quiet person hides his anger.”
“Ang nakatikip na bibig ay hindi pinapasukan
ng langaw.”
“A
fly will not enter a closed mouth.”
Read
in the context of Tagalog hypersensitivity and the paramount cultural value of
maintaining smooth interpersonal relations, both proverbs are pointed warnings
to take care not to offend others.
In
areas of the Philippines and inside lower socioeconomic class homes where it is
practically impossible to keep flies out because of the absence of wire screens
and air conditioners, flies are everywhere, especially during mealtimes. Given
the ubiquity of flies inside the home, a word of caution against accidentally mouthing
one is readily remembered.
An
informative introduction to outstanding Philippine social and cultural values
is available at this link:
—“Social
Values and Organization,” Ronald E. Dolan, ed., Philippines: A Country Study, 1991
Imagism
was a doctrine of poetic composition formulated by Ezra Pound. It was a
Modernist reaction against Romantic and Victorian poetry. In 1913 Pound set
forth his Imagist tenets in Poetry
magazine as follows:
1. Direct treatment of the “thing,” whether subjective or objective
2. To use absolutely no word that did not
contribute to the presentation
3. Regarding rhythm, to compose in sequence of
the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.
Poems
written in Imagist mode are often short. “In a
Station of the Metro”
illustrates Pound’s Imagist tenets and is a short poem classic.
IN
A STATION OF THE METRO by Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
One of the most widely anthologized short poems is this
Imagist classic.
THE RED WHEELBARROW by William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
No shortage of commentary on this one. See, for
example:
—“The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams,” Poem Analysis
It makes you wonder if the poem deserves all the
attention it has received.
The
Imagist approach in short poems is not unique to Modernism. Imagist poems can
be found centuries before Pound, even though at the time Imagism was not identified
by name or set forth as a doctrine of composition.
The
English translation of the Japanese poem below is a good example. The poem
captures the mood and feeling of dusk with concise, direct treatment of the
subject matter.
The lower leaves… by Sone No
Yoshitada
The
lower leaves of the trees
Tangle
the sunset in dusk.
Awe
spreads with
The
summer twilight.
A
Japanese professor of English offers a highly perceptive analysis of the poem
at this link:
—“The
lower leaves… by Sone No Yoshitada” (May 7, 2020), Poetry of Gonzalinho da Costa
A
good example of implicit Imagism is the following poem by Tu Fu, a luminary of
the Tang dynasty. The English translation below is concisely descriptive,
evoking a vivid, lucid image of a nighttime river scene.
BRIMMING
WATER by Tu Fu
Original
language Chinese
Translated
by Kenneth Roxroth
Under
my feet the moon
Glides
along the river.
Near
midnight, a gusty lantern
Shines
in the heart of the night.
Along
the sandbars flocks
Of
white egrets roost,
Each
one clenched like a fist.
In
the wake of my barge
The
fish leap, cut the water,
And
dive and splash.
The
genius of Imagist poems lies in invoking descriptive details often in combination
with figurative language in order to render a memorable scene.
Numerous
journals specialize in short poem genres—haiku, tanka, sonnet, etc. One Sentence Poems, started in February
2014, publishes several poems a month. Going strong, it’s a treasury of short
poems.
Thousands
and thousands of short poems exist, floating about like hypnotic stars in the
literary universe. If we take it upon ourselves to give out an award for the
“best short poem ever written,” we have to reduce our selection pool.
We’ve
already made a start by limiting the number of lines in a short poem to 10.
We’ve
also argued that a successful short poem shows insight. Absence or lack insight,
dullness, in a word, guarantees the failure of a short poem. The cliché would
be an especially grave sin.
The
opposite of the cliché—the keen, the original, the inventive—brings to the fore
another criterion by which we may evaluate the quality of a short poem.
A
short poem that is able to hold its own over the passage of long time—that not
only shows insight but also is able to maintain its capacity to surprise and
delight —bespeaks greatness. A great short poem is “one for the ages.”
Concededly,
this criterion favors older poems and works against many worthy poems of recent
vintage. On the other hand, this criterion allows us to usefully reduce further
our candidates for the “best short poem ever written.”
Notwithstanding
our efforts at reduction, our pool of candidates like the universe remains vast
and constantly expanding. After all, poetry deals with every possible subject,
from coffee on Monday mornings to sleeping pills at night.
We
could dramatically reduce further the number of poems we would have to consider
by limiting the subject matter. Practically all poetry, whatever the culture of
origin, deals with the motifs of love and death. They bear universal
significance in the human experience and arguably are the primal drivers of
human existence. No doubt great poetry has the capacity to treat even the most
apparently trivial subject matter in a manner that is literary and enduring. However,
if we limit our purview to the aforementioned motifs, at once our pool of
candidates is dramatically reduced and our task becomes more manageable.
Our
fifth and last criterion is brevity, meaning, “the shorter, the better.” By
itself, this criterion is inadequate, for length does not solely determine the
quality of a poem. On the other hand, a short poem that is able to do the job
with the absolute minimum required in terms of length, besides everything else,
stands out because of the virtuosity demonstrated.
Our
five criteria:
-
10 lines or less
-
Shows insight
-
One for the ages
-
About love, death, or both
-
The shorter, the better
Let’s
look at some leading candidates.
MORE THAN YESTERDAY, LESS THAN TOMORROW by
Rosemonde Gérard
It’s
true we will grow old
Older
Wrinkled
with time
But
still every day I
will hold you closer
Because
you see, I
love you
Today
More
than yesterday
And
much, much less than tomorrow
This
love poem stands out because it deals with the motif of married love. Most love
poetry does not.
The poet pulls off a surprise inversion in the last
line.
The
poem satisfies all our criteria except for endurance. Its relative newness— adapted
from the 1889 poem written originally in French, it was republished in 2003—works
against its selection.
All
things considered, classic poems because of their endurance present us with the
most likely prospects for the “best short poem ever written.”
Robert
Herrick’s “Upon Julia’s Clothes” is, in my opinion, a good contender.
UPON
JULIA’S CLOTHES by Robert Herrick
Whenas
in silks my Julia goes,
Then,
then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That
liquefaction of her clothes.
Next,
when I cast mine eyes, and see
That
brave vibration each way free,
O
how that glittering taketh me!
It’s
remarkable how poetry written approximately 400 years ago maintains its power
to surprise and delight, with the caveat that it’s a “male” poem—it is male
readers mainly who identify with the point of view of the speaker.
“Upon
Julia’s Clothes” attests to, to cite Herrick’s words, “the eternizing power of
poetry.”
I
consider this last poem, the best short poem ever written. Drum roll, please.
It’s
written in Ionic Greek by the poet Simonides of Ceos (c. 556 to 468 B.C.E.). It
memorializes the Spartans who were killed resisting the Persians led by Xerxes
I at the Battle of Thermopylae. Herodotus (c. 484 to c. 430-420 B.C.E.) reports
that he came across the elegy inscribed on one of the original monuments at
Thermopylae, now forever lost.
Ὦ ξεῖν’, ἀγγέλλειν
Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε κείμεθα,
τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι
πειθόμενοι.
English
translations abound of the original Greek, of which the following is both
lyrical and accurate.
“Stranger,
bear this message to the Spartans, that here we lie, obedient to their laws.”
Historian
Scott Manning has posted some lively commentary about the poem. It makes for
worthwhile reading. See this link:
—Scott
Manning, “Go Tell the Spartans” (April 6, 2016), Historian on the Warpath
Why
is it the best short poem written? Besides fulfilling our five criteria, the
poem memorializes an event that lies at the foundation of Western civilization.
Because Western influence on cultures everywhere has been major and lasting, the
event and the poem remain significant, even momentous, and are remembered to
the present day.
The
principal influences that form the foundation of Western civilization are
Jewish, Greek, and Roman. Some of the most influential ideas today are based on
science and modern republican democracy, both of which can be traced to their beginnings
in ancient Greece. Ancient Greece gave rise to the Aristotelian intellectual
tradition that eventually led to the Scientific Revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries. Science and technology constitute the major underpinnings
of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, which originated
in the U.K. and rapidly spread throughout Europe, the U.S., and Japan. The West
is the origin of the 19th-century ideologies of socialism and communism,
which throughout the 20th century and beyond has shaped the global
order, including the political features of the most populous nation today,
China. Socialism and communism were ideological
reactions against liberal democracy. The historical perspective of centuries therefore attests that the
influence of Greek civilization on the world has been like the proverbial
mustard seed that grew and grew until its branches overspread.
Resistance
at the Battle of Thermopylae may have ended in defeat but the legendary heroism
there inspired the Greek city-states to band together in order to defeat the
Persians, who lost decisively at the Battles of Salamis and of Marathon.
Decades later, the ever-present Persian threat of invasion drove Alexander the
Great to return the favor and conquer the Persians on their home ground. Upon Alexander
the Great’s demise, Hellenistic culture spread widely throughout the
Mediterranean, the Levant especially.
The
foregoing account demonstrates that the Battle of Thermopylae was a historical tipping
point that amplified the influence of Greek civilization on the world until the
present day.
Others, I am sure, will
profess their own favorite poems and choose another “best short poem ever
written.” All’s well, for we live in a diverse world where different points of
view co-exist.
Sources / Original or first publications:
Allison Whittenberg, “Quilt,” Imitation Fruit, Issue 13 (September
2014)
Ken Simpson, “File Number Twenty-Nine,” Torrid Literature Journal, Vol. XXIII,
No. 1 (January 2019), page 18
Tóroddur Poulsen. “The Silence and I,” Randi
Ward, transl., Beloit Poetry Journal, Vol.
64, No. 4 (Summer 2014), page 10
J.
M. Hall, “Birds on Triplicate Power Lines,” Euphony,
Volume XXIV, Number 1 (Winter 2014), page 38
Alexis
Ellyse, “The Rule,” Eunoia Review (August
10, 2014)
Gerardo
Mena, “The Dangers of Time Travel,”
Four Way Review, Issue 2 (January
15, 2013)
Sone
No Yoshitada, “The lower leaves…,” Americans’
Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project Anthology, Robert Pinsky and
Maggie Dietz, eds. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999), page 307
Tu
Fu, “Brimming Water,” One Hundred Poems
from the Chinese, Kenneth Roxroth, transl. (New York: New Directions
Publishing Corporation, 1971), page 34
Rosemonde Gérard, “More than Yesterday, Less Than
Tomorrow,” Wedding Blessings: Prayers and
Poems Celebrating Love, Marriage, and Anniversaries, June Cotner, ed. (2003),
page 169
The following “classic” poems are featured in Poetry magazine online:
Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Eagle”
Ezra Pound, “In a Station of the Metro”
William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow”
Robert Herrick, “Upon Julia’s Clothes”
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| Hoplite, 5th Century BCE, Archaeological Museum of Sparta, Greece |
