>I don't really know what you're saying here, David. Most novelists can't
>write either, if you go by what is actually published and then consider the
>probable enormous number of the unpublished, just as with poetry. You don't
>really have to work so hard to write very bad prose. Whether one has to
>know what an anacrusis is to write good poetry, considering that as a term
>it applies to quantitative verse, not really to the stressed verse of
>Germanic languages, is a moot point. If "banality posing as poetry" killed
>the art, the art would have died a long time ago. Consider the huge amounts
>of dull sententious plodfests written in the 18th & 19th century in England
>alone. One might even be grateful for the relative taciturnity of more
>recent poetasters. Catalexis doesn't really Make much diff'rence, does it,
>Dave? But the real question is why you spend time listening to people, who
>rather like M.Jourdain (it was prose in his case), don't realize they're
>producing boring old iambic pentameters a lot of the time anyway.
> Cheers
> Martin
But iambic pentameters don't *have to be boring, surely?
best joanna
> David Bircumshaw wrote:
>
>>I've become interested lately, as apart from being excruciatingly aware,
>>of
>>the laziness of poetry. Poetry, as an art, along with elements of visual
>>arts, has become a last refuge of the bone-idle, at least, if you write a
>>novel, or a play, you have to put your back into it, it takes work,
>>poetry,
>>although, because of its extremely primitive basics, can be like a
>>five-minute-fix. This is not to say the withering and murderous demands
>>that
>>poetry as an art does exact, but there's kind of fuzzy notion arounmd that
>>anyone can write poetry. No they can't, and what's more most poets most
>>can't write it either (to order), or to acceptance. It comes when the gods
>>say, and with an awful lot in the background support. This may sound
>>rather
>>elitist, it is, it also is very democratic: anyone can do, but most can't.
>>
>>The worst thing of all is the proliferation of banality posing as poetry,
>>it
>>killls the art.
>>
>>i get so tired of hearing people who are totally ignorant of the least bit
>>of metrics (you have to know the rules in order to break them - that's
>>what
>>I do) or the provenance of words droning on in my ear. a friend of mine
>>who
>>is keen amateur singer, this just as a chorister in a provincial city's
>>classical choir, has to do one full and one semi-rhearsal twice a week,
>>plus
>>other bits of practice, twice a week plus, just to be in the background
>>in
>>a performance. Most people I know who think they're poets look at you as
>>if
>>the boat's gone out if you say 'catalexis' or 'caesura' or even
>>'enjambement' to them. Not to mention 'tonic' and sub-tonic' stress or ,
>>God
>>help us, 'anacrusis'.
>>
>>One guy I know, who thinks he's a poet, told me recently he went on a
>>course
>>where he learnt about technique - it was called 'iambic pentameter'.
>>
>>Lord have mercy.
>>
>>Best
>>
>>Dave
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