Wyatt Prunty: No Frame Can Stop Me Now
Elderly Crossing on Green by Wyatt Prunty is about an elderly lady who is rigid in her beliefs that she is still a strong, youthful, and independent woman. In fact, the Elderly Lady is so rigid in her ways that she will even try to make the light while someone is attempting to cross the street on their signal. Through the use of metrical substitutions and frame theory, we will see exactly why she does so, and we will see how Prunty employs a variation of the ballad stanza with iambic pentameter lines and intense metrical substitutions in order to create a vivid picture of this Elderly Lady’s life.
First, we’ll take a look at Line 1;
u / | u u / | / u | u / | u /
And give her no scouts doing their one good deed
After an anapestic medial substitution, we see a trochaic medial substitution in the third position. Fussel makes this statement of a medial trochaic substitution, “It is often used like the medial spondee to reinforce images of sudden action…” (p.56). Upon Prunty placing the trochaic substitution on the verb, “doing”, an image is placed in our heads of the scouts doing their one good deed for the Elderly Lady. The device of this metrical substitution is used like a hammer, where the image of this action is the nail, and the block of wood is our brain and its creation of imagery. This emphasis on the verb “doing” is used to have readers stop for a moment and consider this specific action. Why is it that the scouts are “doing” their one good deed? Upon further inquiry, we realize that the scouts are not doing this deed for the Elderly Lady because they want to, but because they have to. This provides further consideration into how our Elderly Lady feels, that she does not need help based on her sustained feeling of independence, nor does she want it because the scouts are doing so in vain anyways.
Next, we’ll skip ahead and look at Line 14;
/ u | / u | / / | u / | u /
Never widow, wife, mother, or a bride,
This is the most metrically outlandish line in the entire poem, and for good reason. Following a strong end stop in line 13, Prunty, with subtle intensity, redirects the tone of the poem with an initial trochaic substitution. According to Fussel, this has the following effect, “Like a sudden drumbeat after silence, the trochaic syllable, when it occurs initially, has the power almost to stun” (p.50). Immediately, our attention is Line 14’s.
We then see a trochaic medial substitution in the second position. According to Adams, “Trochaic substitution occurs infrequently in the second position of the pentameter line, but when it does it seems to have the greatest disruptive power” (p.17). Prunty is still abolishing all base metrical form with two consecutive trochees, as if to hint to the reader to pay attention to this specific line.
Following the two trochaic substitutions, we see a spondaic medial in the third position. According to Adams, the spondaic substitution creates, “... a heightening of emphasis, a feeling of urgency and condensation” (p.8). The spondee falls on wife, and on the first syllable of mother, as if to emphasize the importance that our Elderly Lady was never a wife or a mother.
The reason Line 14 strays away from the base meter of iambic pentameter and is heavy in trochaic meter is stated best by Fussel, “... in English, accent, like passion and murder, will out, and it will out the moment the poet, arrived at a climax, seizes all the techniques of prosodic reinforcement offered him by the conventions of the English language.” (p.8). The reason Prunty uses this heavily accentual line, six accented syllables to four unaccented syllables to be exact, is because this is the one line in the poem that Prunty wants us to remember the most. The Elderly Lady is crossing on green for the same reason she was never a widow, wife, mother, or a bride, and that’s because she never had the patience for it. She never had the patience for being helped out of pity, or lights trying to turn red on her, or for marriage, or for the notion that she’s not doing well. In this way, Wyatt Prunty masterfully painted us an entire story and narrative within the confines of iambic pentameter lines, and all he had to do was employ metrical substitution in order for us to embark our conscious into the world deep within his lines and stanzas.
Frame theory can also be employed by readers for further understanding of Wyatt Prunty’s poem. Prunty wrote Elderly Lady Crossing on Green in the base meter of iambic pentameter, but the rhyme scheme follows that of the ballad stanza (xaxa). With this frame, Prunty attempts to juxtapose the historical background and implied credibility of the ballad stanza with a contemporary use of iambic pentameter and metrical substitution in order to perfectly align the content and themes of Elderly Lady Crossing on Green. The historical dimension places the poem in such a way, as Fussel puts it, “... the conventions associated with the ballad or hymnal stanza is an illusion of primitive sincerity and openness.” (p.134). As this is a narrative of the Elderly Lady, Prunty, through historical dimension, reminds us that we are to fully grow acquaintanced with the Elderly Lady. Despite her rudeness of running over someone on the crosswalk, she does so for a reason. This reason, by way of the New Formalist historical dimension implied by Prunty with his youthful intended use of metrical substitution and iambic pentameter lines, is her youth which she still holds on to and lives by into her old age. This brilliance is required by introspection into the content of Prunty’s lines and frame, which effectively leads us to grow close with the Elderly Lady, as is the purpose of a narrative. When writing a narrative of a person, it is difficult for a reader to follow if the character is not enjoyable. Often in narratives, especially in popular culture, masses of people get behind a character who is relatable to their own hardships. Prunty uses this beautiful juxtaposition of old age and youth for the following reason; perhaps we know someone like the Elderly Lady, and are restraining ourselves to get to know them because of their hard-nosed way of life. Prunty offers us another lens to view said person from, for further understanding of their way of life opens up the arms of a relationship noticeably wider than it was before.
Wyatt Prunty in Elderly Lady Crossing on Green uses metrical substitution and frame theory to highlight one main theme; the battle between old age and youth. The Elderly Lady battles with herself and with others that she is doing well and does not require assistance because of her age. At the same time, Prunty is battling the implication that new poetry is found primarily in free verse, and if there is form, it is modernized. For this reason, he frames his poem Elderly Crossing on Green within the classical dimension that is the ballad stanza. While he pokes holes in the frame with metrical substitution and his own form of nonce stanza, it allows room for the youthfulness of ambiguous styles in modern poetic form to enter his poem. Thus, the double nuance of old age and youth between the Elderly Lady and English poetry unarguably cements Wyatt Prunty as a poetic master.