Anastasios makes a number of good points. I seem to remember that we have
had one of these long conversations about 'voice' a year or so ago, but the
point is worth repeating, so thanks:
> In his survey of American twentieth century poetry, Rexroth said, “There
>is nothing modern about free verse. It begins with Goethe’s Wanderers
>Sturmlied in 1771, Macpherson’s Ossian, Hölderlin, Blake and Novalis.
>Heine, Matthew Arnold and Nietzsche all wrote free verse before French
>vers libre was invented by Vielé-Griffin. It is unlikely that Whitman
>knew anything about, much less read, most of these poets--although
>Hölderlin’s Odes (assumed to be like those of Pindar whose prosody was not
>understood in those days) and Novalis’s Hymns of Night, which he wrote in
>strophic verse, but had printed as prose poetry, both bear an
>extraordinary resemblance to Whitman’s most profound poems.”
>
> But, what is something that comes up in my world lately is the notion of
>"voice." Michael said, "and that problem can be the universal one of
>finding one's own voice." Is there anything more cliche in poetry? Does
>not one have more than one voice? Is there a "voice" in poetry? How does
>"voice" mix with form? Does form control content or is it vice versa? I
>think these are questions that come with the poet's skill and talent.
>Skill and talent, I think, can be developed through a training in form,
>which is what Allison was saying, I believe.
Yes, yes, yes... (but 'training in form' will include many forms, & that
means studyign the possibilities of open form too).
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
Beauty's whatever
makes the adrenalin run.
John Newlove
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