Sijo

"I will break the back of this long midwinter night,
folding it double, cold beneath my spring quilt,
that I may draw out the night, should my love return."

-Hwang Chin-I

The above poem is an example of a sijo poem, which a type of Korean traditional poetry. I first encountered the sijo form through an agora class and ever since then, the form has piqued my interest. I love how the sijo form manages to be so brief yet insightful at the same time. The sijo was initially meant to be a song, thus the poetic form is very lyrical.


If you like haikus, I have good news for you! The structure of a sijo is similar to that of a haiku. It is a very brief poem. The sijo is composed of just three lines that are between fourteen to sixteen syllables. From there, each line is then separated into groups of syllables. The first line has a syllable grouping of 3-4-4-4 and the second line echoes this format. However, the final line breaks this pattern. The first half of the final line (the countertheme) has a 3-5 grouping and the latter half (the conclusion) has a 4-3 grouping. Although some liberties can be taken in regards to the syllable groups as the total syllable count in each line is kept. The Sijo should have around forty-four to forty-six syllables in total. The syllables in the above poem are a little off but that's probably because it was translated from Korean to English. One of the most interesting aspects of the Sijo form (or well one of the most interesting aspects in my opinion), is how each line has a designated purpose. The first line is supposed to set up the theme of the poem. The second line develops and elaborates on the theme from the first line. Finally, the third line concludes the theme. However, there is a twist, literally. The first half of the final line should introduce some sort of countertheme. The twist can either be a thematic twist or a lyrical one.

I'll try to explain how the sijo form applies to the poem I shared above. The translation messed up some of the syllable groupings but I think the thematic structure of the three lines remained intact.

First Line

"I will break the back of this long midwinter night," (12 syllables)

The first line of the poem introduces the subject of the poem while also setting up the mood of the poem. The phrase "break the back" gives this line a violent feeling while the phrase "long midwinter night" exudes a sense of coldness and loneliness.

Second Line

"folding it double, cold beneath my spring quilt" (11 syllables)

The second line builds on the first line both thematically and by providing a little more context. The phrase "cold beneath my spring quilt" continues on the themes from the first line.

Third Line

"that I may draw out the night, should my love return." (12 syllables)

Here, "that I may draw out the night" represents the counter-theme. This phrase represents the twists. While the other two lines give off a feeling of loneliness, this phrase gives off a feeling of hope or longing. In the first two lines, the speaker seems to be sitting alone and outside at night, feeling miserable. However, the countertheme establishes that the speaker is actually waiting for something.

The phrase "should my love return" is the conclusion of the sijo. We now know that the speaker is actually waiting out the night to see their love again. By the end of the poem, I just feel warm and fuzzy. In contrast to the coldness of the first line of the poem, the conclusion is really sweet.

And that concludes my blog post on the Sijo form! If you have any thoughts feel free to leave a comment.

Bonus!

Here's a sijo poem a wrote two years ago in the agora days class. It's semi-autobiographical since this was written back when I played an unhealthy amount of Tetris. 

Working Title: Stop playing tetris, this is why you never get anything done

Keyboard clicks, the block falls down, cleanly placed, no holes in the tower

Speed increase, but hands remain sure, the fruits of hours of practice

Finally, the long block appears but I misplace it. Hours wasted. 

My Favorite Poem

Whenever anyone asks for my favorite poem or poet I always struggled to pick just one poem or poet. If I had to pick out a handful of my favorite poets or poetry though, I think that Sylvia Plath and her poetry would definitely be on that list. The vivid imagery, complexity, and generally disturbing vibe of some of her poems have always fascinated me. I was first introduced to Plath last year, in Mitchell's Coming of Age Novel Class where I read The Bell Jar, which was an amazing novel. But I think my favorite Plath poems would have to be "Nick and the Candlestick". Seriously, if you haven't read it yet you should. Here's the link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49006/nick-and-the-candlestick. But honestly, this is one of those poems that I think sounds better when read aloud. I remember watching this video in a previous English class where a man read aloud his favorite poem (which was "Nick and the Candlestick") and explained why he liked it. And I don't know, but something about the way he read the poem just elevated it to the next level for me. I've tracked down the link if you want to watch the video: https://youtu.be/uKCVsUIWLrQ . Here's also a video of Slyvia Plath reading her poem aloud too: https://youtu.be/yHJsJBm413U .

So the man from the video described "Nick and the Candlestick" as crazy and I would 100% agree with his description. I'll confess that this poem confuses me and I don't fully know what the poem is about (if anyone has any interpretations of the poem feel free to comment them!) but the raw, almost brutal, emotion in the poem really gripped me. "Nick and the Candlestick" has some of my favorite lines in poetry, so this blog post is mostly going to focus on individual lines or stanzas that I felt were powerful. Because so much of Plath's work is confessional and based on her life, I think it's important to consider what was going on in Plath's life when she wrote this poem. Plath actually has a son named Nicholas so it's highly likely that this poem is addressed to him. This poem was written shortly after Plath separated from her husband, Ted Hughes. At the time, she lived alone with her two children a house that Hughes originally bought.

Honestly, if you want a deeper understanding of this poem I would read this essay on poetry foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/143643/sylvia-plath-nick-and-the-candlestick.

Here are some of my favorite stanzas in Plath's poem:

"A vice of knives,

A piranha

Religion, drinking

Its first communion out of my live toes.

The candle

Gulps and recovers its small altitude"

These stanzas emphasize one of my favorite features of this poem -- its fluidity. The poem transactions from one brutal image to another, which gives the entire poem a chaotic feeling. Yet at the same time, the transitions feel natural and kind of make sense. For me, I just felt like the image of "a piranha religion" was powerfully horrifying. Some aspects of these lines were fascinatingly paradoxical to me. Normally, I would think of religion or communion to be uplifting things but in "Nick and the Candlestick" creates this almost-parallel world that subverts that expectation. Here communion becomes this nightmare-ish act. The poetry article I read also mentioned how these lines symbolized both life and death. The article mentioned how these lines could be referring both to the way nutrients are passed from the mother to an embryo and to the martyrdom of Christ. 

If I'm going to write about this poem, I have to talk about the ending. The ending is such a gut punch for me. I just absolutely love it.

"You are the one

Solid the spaces lean on, envious.

You are the baby in the barn."

Again, I mostly love this stanza because of how paradoxical it is. Take the phrase "the one solid the spaces lean on". On one hand, this line conveys a feeling of strength and reliability. According to this line, the baby is literally the only solid thing who is supporting the "spaces". One the other hand, this line conveys a feeling of vulnerability. If the baby is the only solid the spaces are lean on, then that situation must be pretty precarious. And of course, all of this is being addressed toward a baby which adds another layer of complexity to the lines. I wonder what makes this baby so important to the extent that it is the only "solid" and the spaces lean on him. And then there's the last line. Honestly, I don't know what to make of the allusion to Christ's birth. I don't know, this last line felt like a satisfying ending for me but I can't quite make sense of it. 

If you've read "Nick and the Candlestick" and have a favorite line or stanza, feel free to mention them in the comments!