In "Outside My Window" I respond quite strongly to the sense that one can
possess the world in the way of living at its center, even if it cannot
really be a center because the world is indeterminate; "I'm heading for the
otherside of what/ I take to be the sort of game reserve...", and its
persona pointedly contrasts his world, and the anonymity intrinsic to it,
with the growing sense of isolation.
The poem seems grounded (successfully) in a subject-object duality -- which
sustains a relationship between humanity and otherness.
Here the boundaries of either physical or mental space are not grounded and
therefore the duality contained in your poem has dissolved.
Best,
Gerald
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew Francis" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2001 7:33 AM
Subject: Re: syllabics
> Thanks for this, Martin. I don't think I've ever read a Daryush poem, and
> would like to find out something about her work. I'll have another look
for
> it.
>
> One of the books that introduced me to syllabics was W..D. Snodgrass's
> _Heart's Needle_. He also has an essay, which I think is called "Finding a
> Poem", on how one of his syllabic poems was written. (If I remember
rightly
> it's included in the book.) Very much in that American academic /
> confessional tradition. I liked it a lot twenty years ago - don't know
what
> I'd think of it now. It's interesting that Lowell turned to free verse to
> get away from academic formalism while Snodgrass, at practically the same
> time, turned to syllabics.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Matthew
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin J. Walker <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 26 July 2001 08:58
> Subject: Re: syllabics
>
>
> >Elizabeth Daryush, yes: "Note" dated 1934.
> >> syllabic metres (by which I mean metres governed only by the number of
> >syllables to the line, and in which the number and position of the
stresses
> >may be varied at will) and are so printed as a reminder to the reader to
> >follow the natural speech-rhythm...In accentual verse the metre demands
and
> >justifies the use both of optional and incomplete elisions, but these are
> >obviously out of place in a purely syllabic system....reduction of the
> >syllabic units to their limit, so as to prevent uncertainty....I have
long
> >thought that on some such system as this for base, it should be possible
to
> >build up subtler and more freely-followed accentual patterns than can be
> >obtained either by stress-verse proper, or by the traditional so-called
> >syllabic metres. >
> >She doesn't mention the "odd number" principle in this extract (_Selected
> >Poems ~ from Verses I-VI _); I don't have _Verses VII_, which Carcanet
also
> >published.
> >Martin
> >
>
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