>Alison Croggon said, regarding why so much investment in distinctions
between genres,
>>How much does it matter?
What matters, I've found, is the limitations of a form/style/approach if we are to
make a practical observation. Going with uncle Olson, form is an extention of
content, so really what we have here is a matter of substance of a writing rather
than its style. While I think hybridity is the name of the game - for me anyways - I
have found that, for example, writing prose (poetic or not) doesn't allow for
projecting heroic, spiritual, sexual or emotionally charged energies. poetry, on the
other hand, can't be as violent, realisitic or abject as prose. I was reading a
thing in the paper about a boy who murdered two Sydney men for no apparent reason. I
felt really sick while reading this thrash. However, it was the cut and dry
sentences of the journalist's prose that did the trick. e.g:
"He knocked at the door. the friendly old man opened the door and smiled. the young
man entered and sat on the couch. the old man went to the kitchen to get a drink for
the stranger. when he came back the boy hit him in the face with a bottle, before
cutting off his head and eating his testicles..."
Now, this ugliness couldn't be conveyed nearly as well in any form of verse, free or
not - (can anyone contract me there? please feel free.) With the same token, the
intensity of an emotional outburst like (Roethke's):
"My secrets cry aloud
I have no need for tongue
My heart keeps open house
My doors are widely swung
An epic of the eyes
My love with no disguise..."
couldn't be done in prose.
Ali Alizadeh
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