David, maybe I've been skirting around this discussion because although
prosodies interest me passionately as a practitioner, I am not sure that
they are of more than a limited use in discussing or categorising poetry,
precisely because the more interesting poetries as you say have always
flung themselves beyond them. There is too much danger of landing thud
in the middle of a dogma. The relationships with earlier prosodies seem
to me to be as important as the non-relationships; if you coin new terms
in the hope of opening new perspectives, you might as easily obscure some
other important views.
And, you know, I quite seriously don't believe in the idea of "progress",
especially in art. Change, yes.
I thought Hill was smashing things in The Triumph of Love, which is
probably the poem which interests me most of his recent work. He
seemed there to be making a serious attempt on his earlier wrought
aesthetics. But maybe the violence was more psychic than prosodic: I
need to have another look.
Best
Alison
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