----- Original Message -----
From: Sally James
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2002 1:53 PM
Subject: Re: New sub: England's First Lines
Hi Gerald, Good to see you back again. I like the title of your poem and the
way the lines are arranged in alphabetical order. I think there are some
excellent first lines. But as a poem it doesn't work for me, maybe if the
lines could have been arranged so that they related to each other in some
way it may have worked better. Some seemed to flow naturally together and
others didn't. Maybe it was just too long to do this successfully. I like
the idea behind this very much and thought a few shorter poems may have
worked better. Bw Sally
--
Thanks to all those who responded to this.
Whilst some people don't see the point in this kind of writing
it aroused a lot of different responses.
Sally Evans will realise of course that is was partly inspired
by similar works that have appeared in Poetry Scotland.
It isn't, as some thought, an index at all.
It is already very much a selection from around a possible 1000 lines
The alphabetical arrangement is deliberate
and the length is about right for my intentions.
A much shorter poem would make for a different kind of poem, I think.
That it doesn't flow but shifts a bit is also deliberate
in a similar way to which a renga shifts rather than flows
The suggestion to write something that goes through the alphabet
and back again is an interesting idea
and one I might try at some stage
using an entirely different set of lines.
For those who are interested in novel ways
of constucting poems there is a very good article
by Steve Sneyd -- Writing poetry the OULIPO way
at http://www.nhi.clara.net/z29.htm
yours
Gerald
|