On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, pain wrote:
> ...So Richard asked
> about the poem below -well the syntax and the diction seems to me to be
> unlyrical --it is not easy to read smoothly, and I would have thought
> fluidity is something one expects in a lyric. Try to sing it...
> >
> >Bathe in scum then, spread
> >feint talcum over
> >the world. Kestrels
> >make good houseguests
> >at every turn, claws
> >are the true symbol
> >of any bilious neo-
> >platonic gambler. Salt
> >is a hurricane, who
> >can you be with now.
This snip of _Fools Gold_ doesn't seem to my ears to defy singing at all:
that it's rhythmically rough doesn't seem to me in any way to preempt
that; quite the reverse. Stephen places an emphasis on smoothness and
fluidity in lyric which I don't think is required, and should not be seen
as prescriptive in any way.
I'm wary of definitions, because they're so obviously going to get
stretched - but in general I think we're on the right track when we link
"the lyric" to some part of the analogy with music. So, we might say a
lyric is generally a short poem (well, fairly short)(ok less-than-epic
length) generally in fairly short lines (though there will be many
examples where this isn't the case) with elements of rhythmic or sound or
syntactic patterning in it. The bit of _Fools Gold_ seems to fit ok to me.
Remembering that Ives put a note with his "114 Songs" declaring that "Some
of these songs ... cannot be sung."
RC
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