It's probably unfair to base a judgement on one poem selected at random, but
... From Dana Gioia's website:
(I don't think I've quoted so much as to violate copyright -- material
quoted in the context of fair comment -- OK, moderators?)
The Next Poem
How much better it seems now
than when it is finally done-
the unforgettable first line,
the cunning way the stanzas run.
The rhymes soft-spoken and suggestive
are barely audible at first,
an appetite not yet acknowledged
like the inkling of a thirst.
abcb has to be a cop-out. This is much the easiest of the quatrain forms.
And that first verse -- the last line finally reaches regular iambic
octameter. Is this deliberate (I think there could be a case made out for
this in the larger context of the poem, but ...) or is it that the rhythms
of lines 1-3 [especially line 2] simply aren't in focus?
And behind the whole poem, the ghost of Auden. In fact, I'm tempted to say
the poem is a bad pastiche of Auden. "No jumble box of imagery" (Gioia) --
"Jumbled in a common box" (Auden). If I want to read Auden, I'll read
Auden, not Auden-and-water.
The music that of common speech
but slanted so that each detail
sounds unexpected as a sharp
inserted in a simple scale.
That "detail" -- the only way to make rhythmic sense (and the context of the
rhyme with "scale" emphasises this) is to twist the normal pronunciation of
DEtail to deTAIL. This after a line mentioning the music of common speech
(sic!). Or is this a complex postmodern example of irony?
OK someone, convince me why I should bother to read another Gioia poem.
Maybe this isn't typical? But ...
Robin
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