----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew Francis" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2001 7:33 AM
Subject: Re: syllabics
> Thanks for this, Martin. I don't think I've ever read a Daryush poem, and
> would like to find out something about her work. I'll have another look
for
> it.
>
> One of the books that introduced me to syllabics was W..D. Snodgrass's
> _Heart's Needle_. He also has an essay, which I think is called "Finding a
> Poem", on how one of his syllabic poems was written. (If I remember
rightly
> it's included in the book.) Very much in that American academic /
> confessional tradition. I liked it a lot twenty years ago - don't know
what
> I'd think of it now. It's interesting that Lowell turned to free verse to
> get away from academic formalism while Snodgrass, at practically the same
> time, turned to syllabics.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Matthew
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin J. Walker <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 26 July 2001 08:58
> Subject: Re: syllabics
>
>
> >Elizabeth Daryush, yes: "Note" dated 1934.
> >> syllabic metres (by which I mean metres governed only by the number of
> >syllables to the line, and in which the number and position of the
stresses
> >may be varied at will) and are so printed as a reminder to the reader to
> >follow the natural speech-rhythm...In accentual verse the metre demands
and
> >justifies the use both of optional and incomplete elisions, but these are
> >obviously out of place in a purely syllabic system....reduction of the
> >syllabic units to their limit, so as to prevent uncertainty....I have
long
> >thought that on some such system as this for base, it should be possible
to
> >build up subtler and more freely-followed accentual patterns than can be
> >obtained either by stress-verse proper, or by the traditional so-called
> >syllabic metres. >
> >She doesn't mention the "odd number" principle in this extract (_Selected
> >Poems ~ from Verses I-VI _); I don't have _Verses VII_, which Carcanet
also
> >published.
> >Martin
> >
>
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