David,
What it boils down to for me is this: knowledge of catalexis, caesura,
anacrusis, etc., etc., will not make a bad poet good.
It can, of course, make a good poet even better, and should be applied
to this end.
There could be a critique in here of the education of poets, but having
never been near a creative writing program I wouldn't know how much of
this stuff they generally learn.
--Knut
On Nov 12, 2005, at 01:57, 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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