Nicholas, that is interesting, and trailing lines of thought. I shall ponder
on that 'drop' and what it 'gathers'.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nicholas Sergeant" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 10:27 AM
Subject: Re: Dream Project/Line endings
My first impression of the broken word "gathering" in David's poem is that
it causes readers to engage in _gathering_ the word together from fragments
(well, a word in two pieces anyway); this is quite in keeping with the act
of writing out a dream.
David, it's interesting that you suggested you were aiming at "a 'drop'
effect". Taking you out of context I think now of the way we have to gather
things we've dropped (or spilt). Perhaps a way of writing dreams (etc)
should convey the sense of fragmentation, of losing one's grip, while
getting down a sequence of phrases that otherwise cohere.
Regards
Nicholas
----- Original Message -----
From: david.bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 11:16 AM
Subject: Re: Dream Project/Line endings
> Hi George
>
> what a delightful question, and something that exercised my mind about
the
> piece.
>
> My thought was, in the second wordsplit across the line, to create a kind
of
> 'drop' effect. Hence the different placement of the hyphen. Rather than
the
> 'pull back' of the first example. It must be born in mind that this is of
> course related to the very stress-emphatic, un-RP way in which I speak,
so
> the rhythmic intentions may not convey to all reader's ears, which was
> partly why I had hesitations about the matter. The Hopkins example
Candice
> quoted works similarly, though with more coloratura, but certainly the
> effect was meant to enhance a sense of 'falling'.
>
> Glad you raised this.
>
> Best
>
> Dave
>
>
> David Bircumshaw
>
> Leicester, England
>
> Home Page
>
> A Chide's Alphabet
>
> Painting Without Numbers
>
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "George Simmers" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 12:40 AM
> Subject: Re: Dream Project/Line endings
>
>
> Now that David Bircumshaw's poem has been posted in final form, may I ask
> something that intrigued me when it was first posted, but which I didn't
ask
> then?
>
> In two cases, there are line breaks in the middle of a word. I can see
the
> reason for the first one:
>
> > It was the first time I'd died. In-
> > convenient, to say the least. But
>
> A pause between the prefix and the root word causes a hiatus, teasing the
> reader slightly with potential meanings of "In". Will it continue "In
> heaven" or "In Hell", for example?
>
> The second example, though, beats me:
>
> > as fish. Shifts, scenes, places, gath
> > -erings of where. Me there, here,
>
> Is the reader intended to pause in the middle of "gath/erings"? Why?
>
> I ask this because I've noticed a tendency towards this kind of line
break
> in various poems I've read recently. If I can't see an auditory reason
for a
> line break, I wonder why it's there. TS Eliot said something like "If
verse
> is nothing else, it's a kind of punctuation."
>
> Is the break in the middle of "gath/erings" meant to register a reading
> pause, or is it there for some other reason? I'd really like to know,
> because otherwise I like the poem.
>
> George
>
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________
> George Simmers
> Snakeskin Poetry Webzine is at
> http://www.snakeskin.org.uk
> >
> >
> > Dream Twitch
> >
> >
> > not as fearful as thought, more
> > a faint, with a trickling erotic
> >
> > surge of charge, pulsed on a
> > sigh's expulsion. Yet what came
> >
> > after, ducks, that were other,
> > swimming with dialects alien
> >
> > 'nd not anywhere. Then then found
> > it. The what I cannot say.
> >
> > A spin, a twist, and woke, thought,
> > as if in hospital. On a strange bed
> >
> > where Mickey Hannah said: +you belong
> > to Spot. Go back+.
> > Because I coughed.
> > And I did and
> >
> > snapped upright with a stare
> > glazing my eyes
> > in my own living bed.
> >
> > Reaming with the tales of my head.
> >
> >
> >
> > David Bircumshaw
> >
> > Leicester, England
> >
> > Home Page
> >
> > A Chide's Alphabet
> >
> > Painting Without Numbers
> >
> > http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
>
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