I\u2019ve just been introduced to a list of \u201cforbidden words\u201d in poetry. \u201cVermilion\u201d is one of them. But look at Hopkins\u2019 \u201cThe Windhover\u201d \u2013 how he makes \u201cvermilion\u201d burst off the tongue with a sense of sudden release and then settle into quietness. There are bigger miracles in the poem, of course, but I want to talk about this one in the context of the idea that some words are too clich\u00e9d for us to use in our poems.<\/p>\n
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The Windhover<\/strong><\/p>\n To Christ Our Lord<\/em><\/p>\n I caught this morning morning’s minion, king- Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here …..<\/span>No wonder of it: sh\u00e9er pl\u00f3d makes plough down sillion <\/p>\n Why does the forbidden word work well here? Well, because it works<\/em>, like everything else in the poem\u2013 vigorously, energetically, and in many different ways at the same time. Attempts to analyze how it all comes together collapse into bathos because so many different forces are interacting on so many different levels at once that the mind dazzles when it tries to distinguish different processes. However, it\u2019s clear that a great deal is to do with the power of the poem\u2019s phonetic<\/em> texture \u2013 not just how the words sound when you hear them but the way they feel in the mouth when you say them, where in the mouth particular phonemes are formed, the specific muscular activity involved in each and the flow of action as one succeeds another.<\/p>\n In fact the poem\u2019s phonetic density is probably the first thing that really strikes you about it. This isn\u2019t just a matter of noticing that there\u2019s a lot of alliteration, assonance and so on, it\u2019s something much more immediate, more instinctive and intimately physical. As soon as you start speaking it, your mouth is forced into extra activity. I don\u2019t normally move my lips much when I speak. Reading \u201cThe Windhover\u201d, though, I find my mouth working like the mouth of a Channel Four reporter played back at double speed. It\u2019s partly a matter of the poem\u2019s exalted tone, its declamatory and incantatory style, it\u2019s partly to do with projecting the soaring, sweeping emotions and sharp changes of emotional gear, and it\u2019s partly to do with the vocal stance required for powering through the long arcs of sound and syntax that force you into a stark choice between vigorous projection and mumbling collapse \u2013 for example when you have to negotiate that extraordinary noun phrase \u201cthe rolling level underneath him steady air\u201d with its unhyphenated compound adjective. Without going into the technicalities of \u201csprung rhythm\u201d \u2013 something I\u2019m never quite sure whether I understand or not \u2013 it\u2019s partly to do with how emphatic the stresses are and how strongly marked the contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables is. I\u2019m no phonetician, but I\u2019d say it\u2019s also to do with how much we\u2019re using the front of the mouth at the start of the poem: for example, the repeated \u201cm\u201d sounds at the start of stressed syllables in the first line (\u201cm<\/strong>orning m<\/strong>orning\u2019s m<\/strong>inion\u201d) strongly activate the lips, and all those \u201cd\u201ds at the beginning of stressed syllables in the second line throw the tip of the tongue into vigorous action against the alveolar ridge of gum behind the teeth. Such heightened phonetic activity on our part also makes us more phonetically aware as we read.<\/p>\n The kind of reading induced by the whole poem shapes our response to the final tercet and the impact of \u201cvermilion\u201d coming where it comes. Here, instead of the fast-moving, sweeping dynamics that dominate the first eight lines, or the explosiveness of the next three, there\u2019s a slow, laboured heaviness about the activity described in \u201csh\u00e9er pl\u00f3d makes plough down sillion \/ Shine\u201d, a heaviness echoed in the texture of the words by the slowing effect of the run of adjacent stressed syllables (there\u2019s a similar slowing run of stressed syllables in \u201cblue-bleak embers\u201d) and by the way the sharp enjambement throws extra weight on \u201cshine\u201d.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n …..<\/span>No wonder of it: sh\u00e9er pl\u00f3d makes plough down sillion <\/p>\n \u201cSillion\u201d and \u201cvermilion\u201d stand out not only because they rhyme on two syllables but also because the short \u201ci\u201d sound in them hasn\u2019t been clearly heard since \u201cbillion\u201d (though present in \u201cit\u201d and \u201clovelier\u201d, it\u2019s almost completely swallowed in the first of these and elided in the second). With \u201cvermilion\u201d we complete a sequence that goes back not only to the fully rhyming \u201cbillion\u201d and \u201csillion\u201d of the sestet but also to \u201cminion\u201d in line one, and that includes all those stressed and unstressed \u201c\u2013ing\u201d rhymes in the octave. This loop of sound stands out clearly because there are relatively few other short \u201ci\u201d sounds in the poem. What makes \u201cvermilion\u201d round it off so beautifully is a subtle difference in the cadence of this word in its context, as compared to \u201cbillion\u201d and \u201csillion\u201d in theirs. \u201cBillion\u201d and \u201csillion\u201d are each pregnant with the following word, \u201ctimes\u201d or \u201cshine\u201d, as our minds and vocal intonation lean out over the enjambed line ending in anticipation of a completion of sense that is yet to come. But there\u2019s nothing to come after \u201cvermilion\u201d. The unstressed, softly lingering conclusion of the word fades into contemplative silence. That\u2019s what I meant when I said that the word \u201cvermilion\u201d \u201csettles into quietness\u201d. The other effect \u2013 the impression of something bursting forth \u2013 comes from a number of factors, too many to enumerate. One works in a purely imagistic way \u2013 the radiant beauty of \u201cgold-vermilion\u201d leaps out in startling contrast with the only other explicit colour reference, the grey blue of \u201cblue-bleak embers\u201d. In purely phonetic terms, there\u2019s the way the soft sounds of \u201cvermilion\u201d releases us from the strenuous articulation that so dominates the rest of the poem. In a combination of the two, there\u2019s the way \u201cgold-vermilion\u201d seems almost to enact the moment of escape from a preceding violence and pain, or, to put it in religious terms appropriate to the way the colours are used in religious iconography, the moment of grace. \u201cGall\u201d and \u201cgash\u201d with their emphatic hard \u201cg\u201ds fuse violence of sound with violence of image. For a moment it seems as if the hard \u201cg\u201d of \u201cgold\u201d is going to maintain that kind of pressure, suddenly there\u2019s a miraculous release: \u201cgold-vermilion\u201d.<\/p>\n None of this is to invalidate the list, of course. Hopkins was a genius. We who use words in a comparatively flat and one-dimensional way do need to be careful how we use overused \u201cpoetic\u201d vocabulary. But every word swarms with potential energy if we can only find ways of releasing it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n…..<\/span>dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
\n…..<\/span>Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
\nHigh there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
\nIn his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
\n…..<\/span>As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
\n…..<\/span>Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
\nStirred for a bird, \u2013 the achieve of, the mastery of the thing.<\/p>\n
\n…..<\/span>Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
\nTimes told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!<\/p>\n
\nShine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
\n…..<\/span>Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.<\/p>\n
\nShine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
\n…..<\/span>Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.<\/p>\n