Post by Will DockeryPost by Michael PendragonPost by Will DockeryI wrote a poem which was my version of a montage, you don't accept that, which is your right.
You can't have a personal version of an established literary device, Will.
Okay, that said, I'm ready to agree with you, can you give me a good link on the established style of "poetry montage"?
https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/langston-hughes/harlem
"Langston Hughes wrote “Harlem” in 1951 as part of a book-length sequence, Montage of a Dream Deferred. Inspired by blues and jazz music, Montage, which Hughes intended to be read as a single long poem, explores the lives and consciousness of the black community in Harlem, and the continuous experience of racial injustice within this community. “Harlem” considers the harm that is caused when the dream of racial equality is continuously delayed. Ultimately, the poem suggests, society will have to reckon with this dream, as the dreamers claim what is rightfully their own..."
Here's the first result from my Google search:
The website is called "Literary Terms," and the passage excerpted below both explains the term and provides an example:
"T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland is arguably a montage in poetic form. Eliot’s poem is a vast network of references to classical literature and poetry, and its structure is built out of a sequence of discreet images, similar to a film montage. Each image stands on its own (like a vignette), but they all work together to tell a general story."
https://literaryterms.net/montage/
"Your Dictionary" basically repeats this definition (3a): any similar technique, as in literature or music, of juxtaposing discrete or contrasting elements."
https://www.yourdictionary.com/montage
The key words are "juxtaposition" and "discrete."
Merriam-Webster defines "discrete" as follows: "constituting a separate entity : individually distinct." It defines "juxtaposition" as: "the act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side often to compare or contrast or to create an interesting effect."
A picture of a horse is unrelated to a picture of a car, or to a picture of a jet plane. However, if I showed you a picture of a horse, followed by a picture of a car, followed by a picture of a jet plane the *juxtaposition* of the three images creates a concept that does not exist in any of the images taken separately.
IOW: a picture of a horse is only a picture of a horse. But if you juxtapose it with a picture of a car and a plane, it becomes a comment on the evolution of forms of travel.
Horse = Horse.
Horse + Car + Jet Plane = history of forms of tranportation/increasing speed and distance.
Three pictures of horses would only constitute a "montage" if the juxtaposition of the images created a concept that doesn't exist in the individual (discrete) pictures.
Similarly, trees + trees + plus more trees = lots of trees. This is not a literary montage because each of the discrete images is of trees. Increasing the numbers of the trees is basic arithmetic -- not montage.
"Summer Ghosts" is a montage poem, because each of the discrete elements listed in its text take on a *new* meaning through juxtaposition:
Night and day they follow me
Just outside my range of sight,
Shades of things that used to be
Singing to me all the night,
Singing of forgotten things
Childhood dreams and fairy wings
Hours lost in idle play
Loved ones who have 'gone away'
Slingshots, bottle caps and strings
Backyard picnics, tire swings
Snakes and turtles, dogs and cats
Scuffles, skinned knees, baseball bats
Skinny dipping, fishing holes,
Schoolyard buddies, football goals
Counting stars on moonlit nights
Paper airplanes, pillow fights
Tummy aches and runny nose
Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes
Mother's kisses, father's hugs
Butterflies and doodle bugs
Popcorn, peanuts, puddin' 'n' pie
Pink cloud-dragons in the sky
Pop guns, cap guns, coonskin hats
Black eyes, fistfights, tits for tats
Fire engines, freight train cars
Fireflies in Mason jars
Goldfish, hoagies, fake tattoos
Fourth of July barbeques
Cootie catchers, toadstools, ticks
Kickball, chicken, pickup sticks
Cub Scouts, campfires, weenie roasts
Scary stories, schoolyard boasts
Red light, green light, Simon said
Bears and prayers and off to bed.
All these memories, I keep
Dear as faded photographs,
When I close my eyes to sleep
When my son or daughter laughs
When the night wind sings to me
Of all the things that used to be.
