Thankyou everyone for your responses to my question. I will
fess up to being a beginner at this poetry caper who joined
up in the hope of learning something. How can one improve
one's work without a critical base and the technical
expertise to discern what is quality in verse or any other
media? My thoughts are that one cannot. Thus the library
gave up a few 'how to' poetry books wherein many
polysyllabic descriptors were offered but no feedback.
ANother poetry list gave feedback but no theory and the
skill of the critters seemed little better than my own, or
worse. What I was really looking for was a way to improve my
'vogon' poetry and gain a little theoretical knowledge on
the way.
Why? was not a flippant question. I have seen it stated
that free verse is the refuge of the incompetant - the 'gum
tree painting' of poetry. My scrolling finger was getting
tired and I could not see why punctuation and other
established means of indicating pace had been abandoned for
what appeared to be totemic gimmickry. You have given me
food for thought.
josephine
(now I know what Ruark looks like)
|