Actually I don't even like asterisks in prose - numbers are much more
sensible. And I couldn't use asterisks in a poem because I already use them
to mark the end of an unnumbered section. I suppose Jones's use of numbers
in this parodic way is valid. On the whole, though, I think the challenge of
poetry is to use as little as possible other than words and space. When
Faber were bringing out W.S. Graham's Collected Poems, they were going to
put some decorative scrolls under the titles. Graham refused to tolerate the
'moustaches' as he called them, insisting that the space between title and
poem was sacrosanct. (See Michael and Margaret Snow's recent edition of his
selected letters, The Nightfisherman.) Asterisks jumping out from the text
are similarly distracting.
Best wishes
Matthew Francis
[mailto:[log in to unmask]
01443 482856
-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Davis [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 27 April 2000 13:10
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Notes
At 12:36 27/04/00 +0100, Matthew Francis wrote:
Finally there's the question of
>where the notes go - after the title, at the bottom of the page or at the
>end of the book? I have a creative writing student who puts asterisks in
his
>poems - I'm trying to persuade him not to, as I think it looks terrible.
Davis Jones's _The Anathemata_ deploys footnotes, including footnote
numbers in the main text, to give the impression of an annotated edition
of, say, Malory--so what's wrong with asterisks?
Alex
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