Hi Dave
Interesting points:
>
>sorry for the delay in response, apart from anything else I'm finding it
>difficult to keep up with everything on lists, but this point of Bunting's
>about the four beat line is interesting. Very broadly, I agree with him,
>although I'd qualify that by saying that the five beater in English +tends+
>to consist of four primary stresses plus maybe a subsidiary beat, however,
>there are many exceptions to that statement. BB's notion of the 'base line'
>is very pertinent. But I do find elements of Bunting's own practice too
>'congested' rhythmically, I'm sure many would disagree with that, the lines
>in the much-admired 'Briggflats' for instance often seem too 'bunched' to
>me. By contrast, much writing in the 'avant-garde' field seems to lack
>rhythmic focus, I won't name names but I've been looking at work mentioned
>here in recent days and my prevailing sense has been one of disappointment.
>Which word I guess means a condition of 'not-meeting'.
Naturally, I disagree, finding Briggflats to be one of the most stunning
achievements of English poetry in the 20th century (note: English, not
North American, or, say NZ or Australian; the point being english has taken
such different ways in these other places [sometimes anyway]). But it's an
intriguing way you hear his lines.
>
>On a broad historical scale, one of the difficulties about discussing verse
>in English has been the evolution of the language: it went from being a
>markedly inflected and grammatically 'synthetic' tongue with a predominantly
>falling rhythm to be being a grammatically pared-down 'analytic' language
>with a mainly rising, iambic-anapaestic drift, with of course an orthography
>apparently designed by a madman. Which plays the bugger with interpreting
>intentions of pronunciation.
As someone who has always just intuited rhythm, what I kinda like about
Bunting's approach is that he is doing an end run around all those terms
for meters etc, which I can never keep straight anyway. On the other hand,
I tend to agree that while there is much of interest in a lot of
contemporary writing (that which is called or calls itself 'avant garde,'
'experimental,' 'innovative,' whatever), I also find that much of it does
not interest me at the level of rhythm, which remains terribly important to
me. So the theory might excite but the actual writing doesn't, sometimes...
Which is why I was so excited by the wonderful, if way too late for her,
publication of The Collected Works of Lorine Niedecker last year (just as
an example). And will be interested in the forthcoming Collected Tom
Raworth, as his rushed line really does get a powerful rhythm going.
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
I do not limit myself: I imitate
many fancy things such as the dull red
cloth of literature, its mumbled griefs
Lisa Robertson
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