James Laughlin used syllabics that were designed for him by W.C. Williams.
At 02:35 PM 7/25/01, you wrote:
>Thanks Robin,
>
>Knew about Moore and Gunn, but missed Bridges.
>
>G.S.Fraser traces the history in the 20th C. but no reasons are given.
>American speech patterns seem to be the clue to experimentation by Auden,
>Gunn and a few others but the motives are a mystery and are what I am
>looking for.
>
>Roger Collett
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 7:01 PM
>Subject: Re: syllabics
>
>
>Roger:
>
> There's a short article (with bibliography) in the _Princeton Encyclopaedia
>of Poetry and Poetics_. Robert Bridges in the 1920s would seem to be the
>earliest exponent, though the most prominent is Marianne Moore (see, in it's
>three incarnations, "Poetry" -- 'I, too, dislike it ...", originally 1921.
>The version in Moore's _Collected Poems_ is ... hm ... incomplete ...) Thom
>Gunn used it much later (I think).
>
>I'm not sure if it's natural to any language (certainly to none of the major
>European ones). Breaking the tyranny of the iamb is probably Pound, but he
>wasn't referring to syllabics specifically in the context in which that
>remark was made. I've come across the argument that syllabics tend to work
>best when there are an uneven number of syllables per line, which +would+
>see it as specifically a counter-iambic exeperiment.
>
>Robin Hamilton
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