Alison,
you make some interesting distinctions here, not the least of which is that prose
& poetry use "different parts of [your] brain." Another way of saying this is
that, as readers--of our own work as we write it or of the work of others--we
parse prose & poetry differently. And while I am skeptical of biological
reductionism in such matters (of which I am not accusing you), there does seem
something fundamental about the difference, just based on actual practice. Now,
can we get from there to the idea that we parse long & short lines differently?
I'm not sure.
jd
Alison wrote:
> I was exaggerating a little, I think. I do actually make a distinction
> between poetry and prose - so the shorter lined lyrics I lump in with the
> longer-lined poems, as distinct from the prose works. And among the
> prose works, there are definite distinctions which are probably much more
> defined - so there is a long and serious work I am slowly working on,
> written in a dense and allusive prose which borrows features not only
> from prosaic disorderliness (say Laurence Sterne and others) but also in
> a micro sense, from the techniques of poetry (alliteration, attention to
> the materiality of the language, sound, rhythm, etc). But still, to my
> mind, most definitely prose, not least because of its imagined length.
> The poetry just seems to be looking for a prosaic amplitude, certainly at
> the moment. And poetic form permits me - to my mind, anyway - a much
> greater arbitrariness, in part because despite its desire for amplitude,
> it is not seeking to be inclusive, but exclusive; whereas the prose work
> seems to want to include everything. Of course, it can't... But I'm
> finding the differences quite intriguing. [ . . . ]
>
> But I do have the feeling that the different activities use different
> parts of my brain, that qualitively somehow their processes diverge.
> That there is another kind of rationality at work.
________________________
Joseph Duemer
School of Liberal Arts-5750
Clarkson University
(On leave 2000 - 2001)
Doan Thi Hanh Guesthouse
172 Pho Ngoc Ha So cu 4
Ba Dinh - Hanoi, Viet Nam
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