Hi Perpetua,
I’ve been reading yr poem again and again and always seem to get caught out
by the last line! I just find it’s rhythm and sound so difficult to accept!
I think each of the last lines of the previous three quatrains all end with
a heavily stressed syllable (they seem so powerful – they go “thumph!”) but
the last line of the last stanza (ending with the word “psychosis”) has the
stress elsewhere in the word. Rhythm’s not used in the same way (and rhythm
is such a powerful part of the poem!).
I know that part of the skill of poem making is playing with rhythmical
effects but it seems very difficult to use a three syllable word when the
rhythmical build up in rest of the line seems to demand a simpler sound. (It
may be, therefore, that it’s not the word that’s at fault in itself – but
the single syllable words that set up the expectations of rhythm when they
come so steadily before it...)
Bob
>From: Perpetua Pullman <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Eliot hyperpoem - Gary
>Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 09:51:12 +0000
>
>The Place
>
>slack night descends and flings her sequinned shawl
>around the yellow shoulders of the moon
>let us go dancing, raddled as we are,
>lolloping vixens out to make a kill
>
>I'll take the hour, and you may choose The Place
>where yards of leggy girls queue up to spin
>like scanty moths in polyester wings
>flaunting their artless guile in strobic snares
>
>let us devour their adolescent dreams
>to swell a progress start a scene or two
>we'll be unlikely puzzles matched to win
>a south sea bubble, time-share of desire
>
>let us kick off well-heeled conformity
>drink to the love that dare not speak its name
>unhook the satin basque of sanity
>and quench our thirst in duty free psychosis
>
>
>
>Perpetua Pullman
>
>
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