What was Extempore Poetry Like?

It's quite the dreary day here in cow country, and I have to keep reminding myself that "April Showers Bring May Flowers!" We've had relatively few sunny and warm days lately, and when we do have one, our family definitely takes advantage of it by staying outside all day. Ian, who has Sherry's skin, isn't quite susceptible to sunburn, but Aidan, who has my skin, will turn tomato red in a heart beat, so it's hats and sunblock for him.

But, this kind of weather is the perfect motivator to work long and hard on my play, so that is what I've been doing. The research has been interesting, and, although I've been doing it for the past three years, I'm still enjoying the nuances of information I've been getting. My last post sparked a question that I'm having difficulty answering, so I've been digging about as deeply as I can. The question is: what was extempore poetry like in its heyday?

I know that extempore poetry was the most popular form of poetry for some 1,800 years. I also know that there were competitions throughout all of Europe to see who the best poet was. The typical competition would begin at the local level with winners progressing through regional and national levels. At the end of the year, a champion would be crowned, and then the process would start all over again the following year. It was very similar to our sporting events in the way it was organized and the number of spectators who followed it. Indeed, the Poet Laurette (the person crowned with the golden laurel at the end of the year) was viewed as a national hero. It was most popular from 10 B.C. - 100 A.D., and then it made a resurgence from the 1600s-1800s.

But that still doesn't answer the question. We have plenty of information about the poetry contests and how they were arranged, but we have little poetry to fall back on to see what the quality was. That's because it was all oral poetry and made up either on the spot or within days of the competition. This is not exactly the perfect conditions for preserving the poetry. We don't even have the poems from the 18th and 19th centuries much less what was written in the 1st Century.

Was it good poetry? That is what I'd like to know. I mean, based upon spectator reports, it was good poetry. But how good? Is "good" measured against all forms of poetry, including written, or just against other oral poets of the time? No one seems to know. My research on Metastasio and Da Ponte leads me to believe that their extempore poetry was good but was not necessarily in the same style that they wrote in. Much of what I've read states that both men were successful opera poets because they brought much of the rawness of emotion and descriptiveness to operatic poetry.

Taking that description and coupling it with similar descriptions of other poets, it is fairly easy to infer that extempore poetry had some general characteristics. To begin with, I believe that the poets did not use a formalized meter and rhyming system to deliver their poetry in extempore. The reason I believe this is due to the difficulty of writing in those forms much less speaking in them in a highly-visible contest. Having to come up with rhymes in an A,B,C,D,E format and having the rhymes available just doesn't make sense, and it doesn't agree with what history tells me. Secondly, I believe that extemporous poetry was valued for its rich descriptiveness and emotional rawness. In other words, it had the same characteristics of stream-of-consciousness writing. The poets had to rely upon descriptiveness and emotional honesty. Their success was based upon emptying their hearts in the most colorful and descriptive way possible, probably in free-verse or with some rhyming. Third, I believe that they incorporated as many poetic devices as they could in their poetry, so if alliteration, for example, came to mind, they used it. They had to be masters of incorporating as much of this as possible.

Therefore, I can imagine a rawness with lots of descriptive flavors mixed in with multiple poetic devices. I cannot imagine a set style guiding them throughout. And by set style, I mean that they stuck to the English or Italian Sonnet form. If they did that, then they would have needed days to prepare, and most contests did not allow days of preparation. These traits show in the writing of the two greatest extempore poets around: Metastasio and Statius. So, I believe that I'm pretty much on target with my assessment.

Like I said in my last post, there are a few small groups trying to bring this art form back into our culture. Unfortunately, I've seen video of the poetry being delivered, and poets they are not. I applaud these groups for their efforts, but I would love to see some very talented poets get up there are dig deep from the inside to pull out some good emotional and descriptive material. What I've seen so far are kids who are doing nothing more than talking about something or doing what kids do best and being nastily graphic with some subjects. The sensitivity of the poet isn't there. That, I understand, comes with age. I don't blame the kids or the organizations. Who I blame are the poets who look down upon this art and who don't participate. And that is why it's not resurfacing. Too many poets are too afraid to put it on the line. If any of these organizations were on the East Coast, then I'd definitely participate. So far, though, they are all in California.