That's nice of you to say, Alison, thank you. I am starting to think
this 4-line thing I do is the equivalent of a line, kind of a trademark.
It seems to have become part of my relationship with words-in-composition.
It's sort of frightening. Ie. it's either a medium for my "voice" or
a bad rut to be stuck in, or both I guess. I've tried rhyming it in
different ways - the whole 400-pp of "July" is in (loose) what I call
inside-out rhymes. Maybe there's another name for it. The rhyme pairs
have to turn each other inside-out or backwards, ie. found/deafen or
scarab/barracks. I'm not strict about it, it just adds sound-
consistency which ends up leaching & spreading into groups of words &
whole lines.
regards, Henry
On Sun, 15 Jul 2001 14:22:18 +1000 said:
>>Sometimes this involves repeating oneself until the form becomes 2nd nature.
>>- Henry
>
>Which makes me realise I had better finesse what I meant by "repetition",
>aye a beautiful thing in a poem used well and also the sledgehammer of
>dullards -
>
>reading your usage of the quatrain Henry in _Stubborn Grew_ I have to say
>that your repetitions seem to me to be rather more spirallings in towards
>and out from perhaps the same centre but always towards surprise -
>sometimes Coleridge's perpetual slight surprise, a continuous pleasure,
>sometimes something more like dramatic or symphonic movements - Which
>is hardly the kind of deadly emptying out of which I was thinking (I can
>deliver examples on demand, but would rather not).
>
>Who was it who said that repetition either deadens or richens? Might
>have been Octavio Paz on making love - can't remember - but the two
>qualities bear distinguishing one from the other.
>
>Best
>
>Alison
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