spoken word contrapuntals?

The question of content v. form is one that never gets old for me. Is form reacting to content, is content built around form? Does it switch halfway through the writing of the poem? I’m interested, sign me up.

I just about peed my pants when I saw “A Blue Black Pearl” in BumRush today. Seriously. How many contrapuntal poems do you find in a book of spoken word poems? Um, NONE. Bam, so stoked, especially after reading what a jaw-dropping four-footer this one by Clairesa Clay is.

I decided to look up what contrapuntal actually means (when not applied to poems), and the definition is unsurprising: of, relating to, or marked by counterpoint. This makes great sense, considering the latin root of the word, contra punctum, expands to very literally mean “point against point.” I think the term is originally a musical word, but I’ll leave the expansion of that to HK Rainey, since I’m almost positive she knows much more about it than me (and can probably explain it better, too).

My understanding of the contrapuntal (a poem that is multidirectional in its reading) is that, like in music, the two directions represent two distinct sounds or voices. Often, I think, contrapuntal poems tell two versions of a story within one. They are not necessarily opposing views, but definitely different vantage points. Often, one is much more poetic than the other, by fault of tricky punctuation (or none, as the case may be) or missing articles or pronouns.

In “A Blue Black Pearl,” the voices take hold right away. There is a history being told, a reparation for the past being carved out. We read down the columns for a cold, hard story. She is frank with us, tells it straight, and lets us breathe during the looping of “forty years.” There is a moment of transformation that happens at the end, but one that definitely isn’t complete without the additional reading.

The second reading, across all four “feet” of the poem, let’s the narration drop into a trance-like reflection. Instead of seeing the narrator straight on as she speaks to us, we are pushed to zoom in past her and focus on what’s happening behind the words. Whereas “forty years” was a place holder in the previous reading, it has become the drumbeat that keeps us steady with our eyes closed. Because the “forty years” lines appear in somewhat of a predictable pattern (two or three grouped closely and then a long break, in which the language becomes intense both topically and phonetically), we can pace ourselves through what might otherwise be an unusual reading. Instead, the poem seems like an incantation from this direction, a stretched mantra of healing for this blue black pearl.

By the time we reach the ending of the poem (in the second, horizontal reading), the speaker doesn’t sound any more relieved and yet we must know that she is. Like the relief after a good cry or the breaking of the sky over your eyelids after heavy meditation, we are pulled from the poem abruptly, but with a sense of self. We have a body, we know where we stand. There is some kind of intuitive hope that slips in during this hypnotizing read that couldn’t have happened within the plain narrative.

So when I return to the question of content v. form, I’m not necessarily concerned with which happened first, but with the fact that they both happened, finally. This poem would have been really long and hard to follow had it been written sporadically across the page or, pete forbid, in one tiny column against the left hand margin. Then again, not just any poem works in the contrapuntal form. Technically they do, but not intuitively or emotionally.

I guess my question, then, is how do we know which form to choose? Is it like trying on clothes, you pop the words into different forms until you find one that’s occasion-appropriate (and cross your fingers that it fits)?

And then also -- how would you read this aloud?