Doug said,
" (but 'training in form' will include many forms, & that
means studyign the possibilities of open form too)"
Absolutely agree. --Ak
At 10:44 AM 7/12/01, Douglas Barbour wrote:
>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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