Hi Christina,
Brackets (H'mmmm)... I guess all the little marks that we use to slow down
our reading (puncutaion, which - as we know - includes: brackets,
semi-colons, colons, and lots of other things including a few dots...) are
indicators, road signs, for the readers to help in navigating the poem. And,
as a reader, I'm suprised to come across brackets in contemporary poems. I
rarely see semi-colons; infrequently, colons; and very rarely brackets...
Since I was told they were rare, I've looked for them too!
I guess it's like a lot of the (ahem) "rules" of poem writing - you have to
know you're breaking the rule...
Sad to say I've more than once sat in a room littered with wine bottles
where very famous poets have leaned heavily on one of their bretheren
saying, "go on, it's OK, you can put a semi-colon in - but just the once,
mind, just the once!"
Bob
>From: Christina Fletcher <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: New sub: Manners (Bob)
>Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 02:55:59 EST
>
>Bob, thanks very much for this. I was thinking about brackets last night -
>how they often seem important to me for the meaning. Then I was nosing
>through a lovely book of sonnets I was given for Christmas and came across
>John Donne's
> "Moist with one drop of thy blood, my dry soul
> Shall (though she now be in extreme degree
> Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly,) be..."
>Whaddaya reckon? I'm inclined to use them if I think they do the trick but
>I'm not sure. Why would anyone object to brackets? I remember seeing a
>comment by someone about semi-colons too and thinking there were times when
>a
>semi-colon seems just right. Hmmm...
>bw
>c
>
>
> > As an utterly minor comment I was once told not to include brackets in
>my
> > poems (so I did in my next one as well, just the show how unmannered I
>could
> > be!!!) but, when I'd quietened down, I don't think I've done it since
>(and
> > I've looked at a fair few recently written and published poems to see if
>the
> > comment was true!). I guess, here - if you want to acceed to similar
>advice
> > - you could replace them with dashes...
>
>
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